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Ramassery idlis: A rare Kerala variant - Economic Times

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You are here: Home > Collections > Kerala

Ramassery idlis: A rare Kerala variant

Indulekha Aravind, ET Bureau Oct 14, 2010, 05.21am IST

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Take a left off the Pollachi highway around 10 km from Palakkad town in north Kerala and you'll find yourself in quaint little Ramassery, a welcome anachronism in our tiresome Tweeting times. This sleepy village, where you'd be hard-put to find any of the trappings of our mall-infested world, is the cradle of the eponymous Ramassery idli, familiar mostly to locals and some diehard enthusiasts of Kerala cuisine.

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I had been introduced to the Ramassery idli over 10 years ago by my father, an out-and-out foodie, and was keen to see for myself the birthplace of this version of a food that has come to be a veritable symbol of South India. The idlis are the specialty of a oncenumerous Mudhaliar family who had come to the village decades ago from Shinganalloor in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. Now there are just four houses in Ramassery which prepare them, says C Vijayakumar, one of the idlimakers.

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"According to my grandmother, we have been making them for over 300 years now," he tells me with a gentle smile as I hungrily eye the fluffy rice pancakes. The saucer-shaped , soft, Ramassery idli is bigger than its more common bretheren, and in size resembles a compromise between an uthappam and an idli. By itself, the taste is very similar to the idlis we are familiar with, but it takes on a unique flavour when combined with the special chutney powder (or 'gunpowder' ) that comes with it. The idlis were also known to have a long shelf-life , without the aid of refrigeration , but 'progress' has taken its toll on this. "Earlier, you could even have them after a week, but now, thanks to the inorganic fertilisers used in rice cultivation , you can only keep them for three days," says Vijayakumar. Five generations ago, the family started making these idlis as a way to earn their living in a village where resources and employment were scarce, and the appreciation it received ensured they continued to make them. Vijayakumar's wife, Vasantha, gets up at 2:30 in the morning to make the idlis from the batter that has been readied the previous evening. The urad dal is soaked with its skin for three hours and the ponni rice, commonly used Kerala, for an hour. The two are ground separately, after which they are combined and left to ferment for four hours. A dash of asafoetida is added to the dal while it is being ground. The idlis, which take only a few minutes to cook, are not made in a pressure cooker, but in a special pot over a wood fire. And that means only three can be made at a time. To speed up things, Vijayakumar has added another wood-fired stove taking production to six at a time! It is a still obviously a laborious process, but he terms it a labour of love. "Yes, it is a lot of trouble, but it makes us happy to continue the tradition of our forefathers," says Vijayakumar, who also works as a bus conductor.

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10/28/13

Ramassery idlis: A rare Kerala variant - Economic Times

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His family can make a maximum of 2,000 idlis a dayif they stay up the whole night. They are sold the next morning at just Rs 2.50 apiece, mostly to hotels and canteens which would have placed advance orders. Vijayakumar's house is sandwiched between Saraswathy Tea Stall and Sankar Vilas Tea Stall, both owned by relatives, and the only other shops that sell these prized idlis. While waiting in Saraswathy Tea Stall for my own packets of idlis, I watched customers troop in one by one to place their orders for the next day.

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