A Coastal Cookie Tradition Unlike Any Other
Text by Sudha G Tilak
Dum adai, a cookie made of a batter of semolina, coconut milk, rose essence, ghee and nuts, among other things, is one of the definitive sweet treats of Kayalpatnam. Photo by Aashik Jaffer Ali
In the quiet of the afternoons, the empty asphalt lanes of Kayalpatnam blister under the scorching south Indian sun. Here, you can witness the sea breeze flirt with the beach sand and whip it into moody, dervish-like swirls. The houses on either side of the road are painted in lurid purple, blue, magenta, orange and green, with trellises and shades painted in cream, resembling frosting on slabs of giant, tiered cakes. Like fly-whisks in a pir’s hands, the coconut palms sway, chasing the clouds above the shore-lined sky, as the azaan’s call for prayer fills the air in this coastal town in Tamil Nadu.
It’s the hours after evening prayer when the veiled women of Kayalpatnam get busy in their kitchens, baking cakes and an array of local treats. If you look closely, you could spot hijab-clad women walking down the mudukku or the very narrow spaces between houses. An architectural feature of Kayalpatnam and Kilakkarai, a neighbouring town, these are marked safe pathways meant only for women to enter each other’s homes in the neighbourhood through separate doorways. You could then drop into a home where a mother and daughter will lay out the evening tea for the women who gather in each other’s homes.
Typical Kayal fare at tea would include homemade nankhatais — Persian for bread and biscuits — or shortbread cookies made of flour, ghee, sugar and cardamom, and a variety of cookies such as coconut and butter cookies, badam (or almond) biscuits and butter oat cookies. Savouries typically include manja vaada and sothu vaada, disc-shaped, deep fried snacks made of rice flour with a filling of prawns, coconut and ‘maasi’ or Maldive fish (dried bonito flakes). Manja or yellow vaada is named after the turmeric that gives it its characteristic colour, while the sothu or rice vaada is crisp, with cooked rice used in the crust. The ubiquitous, store-bought Tamil mixture, a mix of crunchy bits made of fried chickpea flour, peanuts and lentils tossed with chilli powder and salt, is also served.
The spread is served with theyilai or Tamil for tea leaves. Despite local lore that coffee first came to south India, thanks to a pilgrim from Mecca who brought back coffee beans to grow, the preferred beverage for most Tamil Muslims is tea. It’s tea boiled in milk with spices, which makes for a strong beverage, pulled and offered in generous pours and passed around in ceramic cups. Moomas or grandmothers often fondly reminisce that in their time, they served tea in sundu koppai, or ceramic tea cups. Emblazoned with ‘Made in England’ or ‘Made in Japan’ stamps, their seafaring husbands brought these tea sets back home, which they say their modern granddaughters have swapped for contemporary brands of coffee mugs and tea cups.
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Kayalpatnam is the home of festive treats made for Peru Naal or ‘big day’, as Ramzan and Eid are called in Tamil. The women also make a variety of sweets that its predominantly Tamil Muslim residents relish and take pride in on festive and family occasions. Global TV shows such as Masterchef have added an element of glamour to their custom of baking and confectionery. But for community occasions, traditional menus still rule in Kayalpatnam.
In this town that has a healthy sex ratio that is above the national average and has high levels of female literacy among its Sunni Muslim population, baking is more than a gendered activity.“Many women of Kayalpatnam see baking and cooking as a way of contributing to the community and keeping their traditions alive in one of the most unique towns in Tamil Nadu,” says Sumaiya Mustafa, a Kayalpatnam resident with a postgraduate degree in science, who is involved in recording its culinary heritage and history. Kayal cuisine is dynamic, evolving with its history of trading and travel while still maintaining a deep connection to its roots. The young women of Kayal are enterprising and have sharp business sense, and home baking has given them a “sense of enterprise and entrepreneurship,” Mustafa adds.
Afeera Abati, one of the many home bakers from Kayal, considers her OTG as her best wedding gift. Photo by Riyaz Basha
Software engineer-turned-baker Afeera Abati recalls that her childhood food memories are linked to the aromas at home when her aunt would bake cakes. Today, she is one of the many home bakers of Kayal. She makes traditional cookies and also fondant cakes and themed party cakes.
“My best wedding gift was an OTG (Oven, Toaster and Grill),” says Abati with a laugh. She adds that most home chefs in Kayal start with basic baking equipment, and are inventive in the absence of fancy kits and modern KitchenAids. Male family members visiting from overseas also support the women by bringing back imported equipment such as ovens and stand mixers, which has helped these entrepreneurs increase their production from their home kitchens. Today, Abati is the proud owner of a stand mixer to help in her baking business.
Abati is not alone. Many other young women have also started home baking enterprises in Kayalpatnam. Social media has helped them reach out to potential customers. These young bakers have ventured beyond the traditional treats of their mothers and grandmothers and now sell cakes and confectionaries as well. (You can follow some of these bakers on Instagram).
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A study of Kayal’s culinary heritage is proof of the multicultural influences on this ancient port. “Arabic, Ethiopian, Sri Lankan, Yemeni and south east Asian influences are seen in our cuisine as trade relations were brisk between Kayal and these nations,” says Mariyam Jamaliya, an entrepreneur who hails from Kayalpatnam.
In the 13th century, a restless Venetian traveller wandering around the shores of the Bay of Bengal in south India, made notes in his diary about Kayal. Historians debate if Marco Polo indeed mentioned Kayal — meaning ‘the lagoon by the sea’ in old Tamil — in his diary. But it is part of local legend that has gained currency with repetition. The first settlers from across the seas were documented to have arrived in 633 A D, from Mecca and Medina. “Historical records show that the Kadarkarai Palli or Seashore Mosque was the first to be built here around 630 AD,” said Mohammad Yusuf, secretary of the Chennai Jumma Masjid.
Unlike north India, where Muslim cuisine is mainly identified with Central Asian emperors and the Mughlai tradition is seen as one that was relished by royals and aristocrats, the coastal cuisine of south Indian Muslims is one born of mercantile and trading interactions, and assimilation with local populations. Before the advent of Muslim missionaries, Kayal port did brisk business with Greece, Arabia, Egypt, Yemen and Southeast Asia. “The identity, history, heritage and cuisine of Tamil Muslims is distinct as it has included these influences,” said S Anwar, whose documentary film, Yathum, traces the history of Tamil Muslims in the state.
The Kayal vatalappam is a flan made of coconut milk, eggs, condensed milk and sugar, which bears similarities to the watalappam made by Sri Lankan Moors. Photo by Aashik Jaffer Ali
Modern-day Kayal cuisine bears several influences of its maritime mercantile past. Take the koliappam, for instance. “It is similar to the injera flatbread of Ethiopia,” says Abati. To me, the koliappam looks like the sweet love child of the European crepe and a Sri Lankan or south Indian hopper / appam, with the fermented flavour and texture of an injera. The aroma of tropical coconut milk brings to mind the fermented tang of the injera. Koliappam is traditionally paired with a fiery chicken curry on festive occasions in Kayalpatnam.
Then there is the vatalappam, which is a nod to the watallappam made by Sri Lankan Moors. While the Sri Lankan recipe uses kithul jaggery (or palm sugar derived from the fishtail palm) as a sweetener, here it is substituted with white sugar. Vatalappam is a flan made of coconut milk, sugar, eggs, condensed milk, cardamom, ghee and nuts like cashews and almonds. It is popular in Kayalpatnam and also elsewhere among Tamil Muslims in the state.
Pandan leaves are also a popular import that find multiple uses in Kayal kitchens. Used to flavour cakes as well as savoury dishes in Indonesian, Malayan, Maldivian and Sri Lankan cuisines, pandan leaves are a stand-in for curry leaves in Kayal dishes, used in tempering and also to add aroma to dishes. “Pandan leaves could have been brought to Kayalpatnam by those who travelled to work in those countries,” says Mustafa, who adds that her mother is a big fan of using pandan leaves in her cooking.
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With a population of over 40,000, and a greater percentage of women than men, Kayalpatnam has historically been only a pit stop for its menfolk. The mercantile and trading habits continue even today and most Kayal menfolk travel on work to Sri Lanka, the Middle East, Southeast Asia or inland in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere in India. They are often involved in the scrap metal business in south India.
“For over two generations in most families, the men worked outside of Kayalpatnam while the married women stayed back with their mothers,” explained Mustafa. “Today, we do see men take their wives and children along to live with them, but the practice of women staying back while the men go out on work still persists here.”
Mustafa explains that this is the reason why Kayal remains a matrilocal society. Most women move into their mothers’ home after marriage. “It has helped many women pursue enterprises like baking or education, with their mothers running the homes and offering a safe space after marriage,” said Mustafa.
This also explains why baking takes on the additional dimension of not just being a hobby but also a pursuit of enterprise and economic independence for the young women. Even though Kayalites date their new age home baking enterprises to only the early 1990s, it has clearly become a lucrative and fruitful occupation in its own right. “I had begun my home baking venture before marriage and it continued after I wed”, says Abati.
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Two years ago, after having lived away from my south Indian roots for over two decades, I began to seek out recipes from Tirunelveli, the town I was born in. Along this journey, I was struck by the coastal history of communities in the deep south of Tamil Nadu, along the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean. Reading and talking to Tamil Muslim friends and trawling videos and pages online threw open a fantastic traditions of sweets in coastal Tamil Nadu, especially Kayalpatnam. This was the hook I needed to start experimenting with them in my own kitchen.
As cookbook author Hazeena Sayed told me, “Kayalpatinam is unique because much of its treats are made and can be tasted at homes in Kayal and not duplicated in restaurants, but have been passed on from one generation of women to the next. That alone makes it worthy of celebration”.
An important ingredient in most Kayal sweetmeats is coconut milk, given its abundant availability along the coast. When a Kayal woman says she needs ‘paal’ for her sweets, she is usually not referring to milk in Tamil but instead to coconut milk. “We are children of the coconut palm”, says Mustafa.
Dum ka roat (also called dumroot cake) is one of the specialities made during Eid in Kayal. Photo by Sudha G Tilak
One of the important sweet dishes served is paachoru or ‘milk rice’ in Tamil. It is a pudding made of cooked rice, sugar, rose water and nuts. Paachoru is cooked to mark the occasion when a boy or girl has completed their first reading of the Quran, usually between the ages of five to ten. It is cooked in large quantities to be distributed among family and friends.
The other definitive sweet treat of Kayalpatnam is the dum adai. It is a cookie made of a batter of ravai or semolina, coconut milk, rose essence, ghee, powdered sugar, cardamom and nuts like almonds and cashews, baked in cookie moulds. Kayal bakers inform me that the dum adai was once baked by turning pressure cookers into crude ovens with sand. After the male members of the community returned from overseas bearing ovens, the dum adai was adapted to the OTG.
“The dum adai is the baked wonder of Kayalpatnam. Today, it is made only in the homes of a few women and sold throughout the town,” says cookbook author Hazeena Sayed. Sayed is the author of Ravuthar Recipes – With a Pinch of Love, a collection of over 300 recipes of the Ravuthar Tamil Muslims, who trace their ancestry to cavalrymen from Turkey and Rajasthan. Sayed is documenting the regional Muslim cuisines of Tamil Nadu. Traditionally, the dum adai was part of sweetmeats offered from the bride’s side to the groom’s at weddings. Nowadays, it is made in bulk and served during tea time. Many of Kayalpatnam’s denizens, who live abroad, buy them in bulk to take along a taste of home.
I tried baking the dum adai in my kitchen, and it was one of those experiments that left me with a huge smile on my face. The cookies came out looking pretty and caused a busy dance of taste and flavour in the mouth. The crisp golden crust and nuts, a brownie-like texture at the centre and the grainy aftertaste of semolina tangoed perfectly with the coconut milk and sugar.
The provenance of the dum ka roat (coloquially called the dumroot cake), also popular during Eid in Kayal can be traced back to Mannady, a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood in Chennai, the state capital. “It is usually made when the women of the house have finished reciting the holy Quran during the Ramzan month,” says Ravuthar. The sweet is made of a mixture of semolina, coconut milk, eggs, cardamon, sugar and ghee, which is poured over a hot griddle and cooked over low heat. “These days it is also made throughout the year,” says Ravuthar.
Popular across Tamil Nadu for Ramzan, kadapaasi is a pudding made of China grass and milk with tri-coloured jellies that is popular in Kayalpatnam as well. The chilled pudding is a hit with children and a cooling dessert for those fasting during the month of Ramzan. Kaava is another milk-based drink served warm in local mosques. It is made of a powdered mix of sarsaparilla root, cardamom, peppercorns, dried ginger, long pepper and sugar stirred into milk.
Kayal wedding sweets are a genre unto themselves. Take the ponavam, which, according to Ravuthar, looks like a “puffy puri with a crumbly texture”. “Only two or three families in Kayalpatnam make this speciality,” she says. Local lore has it that families don’t allow others to watch them make the ponavam topped with swirls of palm jaggery for “fear of the evil eye”.
Akrapulipu is a piquant sweet dish with a congee-like consistency that is also part of a wedding menu. It is made of cooked rice flour, grated coconut, coconut milk, sugar and lime juice and decorated with nuts. Other wedding treats include the seepaniyam, which is a cylindrical-shaped, deep-fried snack. It is made of rice flour, coconut milk, eggs and ghee. Vengaya paniyaram is an onion-shaped, sweet dough ball made of rice flour, eggs and coconut milk and deep fried in oil until it turns golden. It is dunked in a vat of sugar syrup and served. The vellariyaram is a deep-fried disc of rice flour and karupatti or palm candy. These would be stacked in buckets and sent as part of the ‘edible gifts’ from the bride’s side to the groom’s side.
Kayal’s residents have a deep fondness for sweetmeats such as fig halwa, which is popularly served at weddings. Photo by Aashik Jaffer Ali.
Kayalpatnam’s residents also have a weakness for sweets like sultania mava or fig halwa, firni, fruit paavu or fudge and dodol halwa, which is popular across Tamil Muslims in the state and also in Sri Lanka.
Even as they dabble proficiently in brownies and cakes, the Kayal women I spoke to are deeply proud of their local culinary heritage. As Mustafa pointed out: “Kayal’s baking traditions are extraordinary as they remain far away from commercial sweetmeats in neighbouring districts. It is a home baking tradition, which is now egging on young women to turn to it as an enterprise from just a hobby.” This baking culture — steeped in tradition while keeping pace with the times — is what makes Kayalpatnam a singular town in Tamil Nadu that is worthy of study.
