A Lesson in Belonging from a Kerala Kitchen in Abu Dhabi
Jethu Abraham’s mother held on tightly to her Keralite identity through her food, with her kitchen serving as a delicious lesson and introduction to their ancestry. Friday mornings in our apartment in Abu Dhabi always began with the slow, deliberate hiss of the pressure cooker. This was almost always accompanied by the swift crackle of the mustard seeds as my mother finished the last of her breakfast cooking, by pouring the tadka on the coconut chutney. The aroma lingered long enough for me to quickly finish dressing and rush to the dining table for breakfast. Weekdays were rushed, as if to an invisible gravitational pull that began long before dawn — everybody hurried to get to school or work, with nobody really caring about having a bite that early. But weekends were different, and slow. Breakfast was distinctly Keralite almost as if by rule — hot, spicy kadala curry (black chickpea curry) poured over steaming cylindrical blocks of puttu (rice cakes) or appams (rice pancakes) with generous heaps of chicken stew. On the days that …
