Curd Rice Is A Salve For Summer And So Much More
By Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
When guests come visiting, simple curd rice may get a facelift with a tempering of mustard seeds, urad dal and asafoetida. Often, it may be served with fried curd chillies. Photo by Johncie Correia
Growing up in South India, the benefits of curd rice — a simple, home-style dish made of unsweetened curd, mixed with cooked rice, sometimes with a tempering of mustard seeds, curry leaves, and dried red chilies — were not lost on me. If the topic came up, grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins (even distant ones) would all wax eloquent on its virtues. It was hailed as the solution for most ills. The heat getting you down? Suffering a stomach bug? Menstrual cramps? Simply need a snack? Curd rice was the answer to everything. A widely held South Indian maxim is that no meal should end without a small helping of this cooling dish.
It was only when I left home for higher studies that I realised how important the dish was to many South Indians. The looks of horror when curd was not available at the dining hall baffled me. Several friends insisted on finding a place that would serve the dish after an evening of burgers and beer, and couldn’t understand how I could go to bed without ‘at least one mouthful’.
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Curd rice goes by different names in the five South Indian states. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, it is called perugu annam; in Tamil Nadu, it is thayir sadam or daddojanam; in Karnataka, it is mosaruanna or bagalabath, and in Kerala (where it is not eaten widely), it goes by thairu sadam/thairu choru. In its simplest form, this ritual involves serving yourself a helping of rice, mashing it by hand until it is soft enough to gulp down, mixing in a few spoonfuls of curd and a pinch of salt. This is a quick-fix solution.
But curd rice can also be turned into an elaborate dish when guests come visiting. In these instances, cooked rice is brought to room temperature, mashed by hand, and mixed with curd. Some milk may also be added to balance the acidity of the curd. A tempering of mustard seeds, curry leaves, dried red chillies, urad dal (split black gram), finely chopped ginger, green chillies, and a touch of asafoetida, all bloomed in ghee, is added and gently mixed in. In this form, curd rice is usually served with mango pickle on the side. At larger celebrations such as weddings, the dish may be embellished with garnishes like pomegranate seeds or sliced green and purple grapes, to create a melange of colours, textures and flavours.
Chennai-based food historian and consultant chef Shri Bala says that ancient literary works speak of how farmers across South India would cook a bit of extra rice for their evening meals. To this, they added some water and diluted curd (or buttermilk), along with shallots, green chillies and a touch of castor oil, known for its cooling properties. This mix was allowed to ferment overnight. Called pazhayadu [or old], it would become the first meal of the next day. “The dish helped cool the body before a long day of work in the sun. It is a meal that is eaten to this day, although it has evolved to include richer side dishes,” Bala explained.
Pazhankanji, served with an array of accompaniments, is a gut-friendly iteration of curd rice that is beloved in Kerala. Photo credit: Kappa Chakka Kandhari
Pazhyadu is called pazhankanji in Kerala. This is the only rice-based dish to which curd is added in Kerala’s regional cuisines , explained Chef Regi Mathew, co-owner and culinary director of Kappa Chakka Kandhari, a Kerala specialty restaurant with outposts in Bengaluru and Chennai. “Thairu choru has become a part of Kerala cuisine only around the districts that border Tamil Nadu, and does not enjoy a revered status,” said Mathew. “Dairy is not a part of Kerala’s cuisine and is consumed largely as buttermilk or in curries like the pulissery, made of fruits or vegetables, cooked with a ground paste of coconut, green chillies and whipped curd.”
The neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka all have their own versions of curd rice and its fermented iteration. The cooling, gut-friendly properties of the latter have also been codified in other regional cuisines. In Odisha, the lightly fermented combination of rice and thinned curd is called pakhala bhat, and in West Bengal, the same dish is called panta bhat. Versions are also eaten in Assam in the northeast, Chhatisgarh in central India, and even in Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar.
Chef Naren Thimmaiah, who helms the award-winning South Indian restaurant Karavalli in Bengaluru, says that he has increasingly found several commonalities between the cuisines of the northeast and hilly regions like Coorg in the South. “Dairy was an intrinsic part of the agricultural landscape of these regions, as were extreme temperatures,” he said. “The benefits of curd rice, fermented or otherwise, was common knowledge and perhaps that’s the reason why these regions have the dish in common.”
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In ancient times, curd rice was even served when someone was suffering from a cold — by switching cold curd for warmed up, runny buttermilk. Shri Bala shared a recipe for this dish, considered an age-old remedy, in which diluted curd was heated in a pan along with ajwain (or carom) seeds, and allowed to split. Ancient Ayurveda also recommends warm buttermilk with ajwain to deal with phlegm, a practice that is still followed with some variations across the country. In its fermented form or otherwise, curd rice is revered for its several health benefits. Good digestion is key among these, and that is why it is usually had at the end of a meal.
The flavour of curd rice varies from one home to another. You can attribute this to the skill of the cook. Another reason is that curd is usually freshly set in every home. A spoonful of the day’s curd is used as a starter and added to a batch of boiled and cooled milk. This is left to set overnight. Come morning, the curd is set and refrigerated. This is a ritual that is passed down from generation to generation; some homes even have starters that are decades old. It is not surprising for families living overseas to take a bit of curd from their homes to kickstart this daily routine.
The widespread availability of commercial brands of curd has added an element of convenience to the ritual of making curd rice. But for many families, there is no substitute for thick, freshly set curd. In many homes across the region, homemade curd with a thick layer of cream on top, remains an irreplaceable ingredient. It is not unusual to have designated utensils for boiling milk and setting curd.
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Dairy has been an integral part of the Indian diet from Vedic times (1500-800 BCE). The Rig Veda (10-179-3) has a verse which says:
Shratam manya oodh nishrat magnow sushraatam manye tadyate naviyah.
Madhyen dinasaya sevanasya dadhana pivender vajrinpuru krijjushanah.
It refers to the goodness of curd that is made from cow’s milk, deeming it to be equally acceptable for the Gods and humans.
Sangam Literature, written between the first and fourth centuries CE, documents the social and religious life in Tamilakam, a region that once spanned the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and the southern parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. There are several references to curd rice in Sangam-era texts. Food historian and television host Rakesh Raghunathan recalls one reference of a minstrel visiting a Brahmin settlement and being served curd rice and vadumanga (or unripe baby mango pickle). The celebrated third century poet Avvaiyar also mentioned eating steamed rice and mashed, smoked aubergine mixed with tangy buttermilk, in one of her poems.
With South India being a predominantly rice-eating region, curd rice may have been the result of a natural evolution in dietary habits. However, the dish gradually came to be synonymous with the Brahmin community, particularly in Tamil Nadu. This was thought to be because dairy products such as ghee and curd were a source of protein for the predominantly vegetarian community.
Besides, it was only the upper castes that could afford to buy dairy from lower caste communities like the Konars and Yadavas (in Tamil Nadu). “The tribals of the Nilgiris — the Todas, Irulas, Kurumbas and Badagas — had a barter system in place,” explained Raghunathan. “The Todas were a pastoral community and bartered all their dairy for millets and produce grown by other communities.” In a profound irony that has resonance even to this day, even though lower castes (like the pastoral tribes) supplied dairy produce, they could not afford to keep any for themselves.
In the 3000-page book, Caste and Tribes of Southern India, authors Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, describe the dairy temples (spaces where buffaloes were tended to and dairy products were produced and stored) maintained by the Todas. The same book makes a reference to the Madras Census Report of 1871, which stated that the Tamil Indaiyan caste, a pastoral tribe by profession, also held a special position in society. “Even Brahmans do not disdain to drink milk or curds from their hands…,” the report says. This higher social position was purportedly attributed to the belief that Lord Krishna, the Hindu deity who is considered the eighth avatar of Vishnu, was brought up by members of the Indaiyan caste. Therefore, these purveyors of milk and ghee became indispensable to the Brahmin community. In the Census Report of 1871, the superintendent noted that “all Brahmans, except the most orthodox, will accordingly eat butter-milk and butter brought by them”.
Given this divine association, curd rice also features predominantly in temple cuisine in South India. It is offered to the deities as an offering and later distributed to devotees as well. Raghunathan believes that when it came to temple cuisine, the dish served the need for easy one-pot dishes to feed large masses.
Even though not everyone shares an effusive love for the dish, curd rice continues to be beloved in many parts of South India. The celebrated author R. K Narayan loved the dish and described ”the sound of curds falling on a heap of rice [as] the loveliest sound in the world”. Whether you choose to have just one mouthful or make a meal of it with some mango pickle, the fact is that the soothing pleasure of this dish is better experienced than described.
