Tasting as Knowing: Novelty in Ubiquity

When you think of Coconut and rice, the permutations are endless. You could have string hoppers or idiyappams or perhaps pancakes or aapam, there is also the puttu — a steamed cylinder of rice flour layered with shredded coconut. Or you could keep it simple and conjure the quintessential duo of idli and chutney.

As a staple and as a dish, the idli is well revered as being nutritious and versatile. And of course, completing the idli is typically the coconut paste or chutney — just as healthy and rich in healthy fats.

Where the idli fairs in carbohydrates and protein (as its much more than rice), chutney complements in fibre and fat.

However, I am adequately confident that most of us would struggle to identify the idli in the attached picture.

This avatar of the quintessential idli seldom seems to feature in the popular outlets selling idli fare such as Murugan Idli (establ. 1991) or Saravana Bhavan (establ. 1981) or A2B (establ. 2000) or your preferred South Indian joint and friendly local push-kart.

As today’s parlance goes, I was ‘today year’s old’ when I both tasted and discovered (for myself) the Sodhi idli. Interestingly, I first saw it on Vasantha Bhavan’s (establ. 1960) swiggy menu when I was ordering ‘sodhi idli’ for my mother. She too was unaware of this Sodhi relative of idli.

Earlier today, when I hit the Tambaram market (in the Chengelpattu district — outside Chennai), my sister and I found ourselves at a table indulging in Sodhi idli, which was followed by another plate as well.

Its interesting how the qualifier and prefix of vasantha bhavan, ‘namma veedu’ or our home (can be read as homely, domestic, hearth and so on), creates a relationship between the idea of the home, its kitchen, culinary memory, and a commercial establishment of the restaurant.

And yet, despite the idli’s popularity, I was pleasantly shocked to learn that the coconut stew or Sodhi has ties with the Southern district of Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, but also suggests origins in Sri Lanka, almost 600 kms away. Even further, is that Tirunelveli shares its name with a town in Jaffna as well.

Tempered with cinnamon and fennel seeds and subtly yellowed in turmeric, the sodhi is at once savoury, but bears a sweet note, with the vegetables balancing the light stew with mouthfulness.

And as I soaked my idli in its sodhi, I found that sodhi could also take the form of a fish, chicken or egg stew — all the while retaining its sodhiness.

While I am unaware of the etymology of sodhi or how it came to be in Tirunelvi, a food blog suggests that marital, in addition to maritime, relations could be the cause.

During these times of gustatory discovery, I recognise how little we know about the world and how fascinating the human condition is. In one mouth, both taste and wonder is invoked, and from taste comes knowledge and probing of memory.? There is no ontological or pre-disposed connection between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, nor the idli and the sodhi, but undercutting the vapid politics between the two and entangling a divided people—Tamilans, Sinhala and others—and odd geographies is the sodhi.

Sometimes, you are what you eat. And if that does not make us more or less everything and nothing, the grandness of the human spirit cannot be realised.