Annamalai Guest House Kitchen

One of the many wonderful things about traveling with Crissan is her amazing ability to persuade our hosts to show her "behind the scenes" places, places that show what life might be like for ordinary people in whatever community we are visiting. The hosts have a hard time believing such things could possibly be of interest to their esteemed guests, but somehow, Crissan is able to turn the path toward what she really wants us to see. Thus, we had a brief tour the the kitchen at Annamalai University, where the Ag Department had invited Bob to come and give a talk. A large dinner was planned for the evening after the talk, and preparations were already underway early that day.

Note the large green jar on the left - a water urn. On the table, toward the rear, the main chef's spice box, with divided compartments containing all the essentials for southern Indian cooking, which does indeed rely on very strong spices. Another tool, the dark wooded object with two handles and a brass plate on its side, is a rice noodle extruder. The brass piece is perforated with tiny round holes, and a paste made of rice flour and water is pressed through the cylinder. Rice is eaten in some form at every single meal in southern India.

Crissan, curious about the spices.

One of many cooks, chopping onions. Note the narrow wood plank used as a "cutting board," another one is visible closer up on the empty tray. The chopped pieces just fall away onto the tray. Simple but efficient!

 

This is a grater, next to the shoes on the floor, used by kneeling to put lots of muscle into it.

And this fine piece of machinery is in use to make a rice dish called "itli," made by mixing a fermented rice batter until very well aerated in these mixers, then somehow steamed into small bread-like cakes of pure white, with a spongy texture and very mild flavor, eaten after dipping into very hot spicy chutneys of coconut, red pepper and other things. Most often eaten for breakfast.

You may notice how loud the background noise is in the video - lots of people talking all at once - the normal state of things!