It was during his childhood that young writer P V Shajikumar was in love with tastes and flavours. He attributes his intense yearning for tastes to the days of poverty when he scarcely had anything to eat. Maybe because he didn't have the chance to taste all those delicacies in his childhood that he is now hardly tantalised by any delicious food that usually floor people.
"It is said that those who enjoy food, love life. Maybe because my life has become used to indifference, that my palette no longer yearns for myriad flavours. However, I still remember the dishes and curries that captured my heart as a kid," says Shajikumar. Curries made with leaves, spinach pulissery, pachakoratta (a vegetarian 'chicken' curry made with sprout cashew nuts), curries made with mushroom that grow during the monsoon, jack fruit payasam (dessert), thuvara payasam, thuvara curry (it is a kind of lentil or toor dal that is commonly available in the Kannur-Kasargode areas), roasted dried fish, cucumber pachadi, guava pachadi, poora rice, and cheranga curry (a special dish prepared at the homes in north Malabar during temple festivals) are some of the delicious dishes that Shajikumar recall from his childhood. He vows that he could finish plates full of rice accompanied with some toor dal curry and roasted dried fish.
However, it is the memory of the 'enar urukkiyathu' prepared lovingly by his grandmother's younger sister Ramaniyamma that stands out in Shajikumar's mind. The head and the 'enar' (liver and roe) of sardines are cleaned and then boiled in salted water. Raw rice is cooked with some freshly ground turmeric and the boiled sardines heads, liver and roe are added into that flavoursome yellow rice. The dish is finished off by pouring some mustard tempering over it. This delicious dish called 'enar urukkiyathu' prepared by Ramaniyamma has always been the writer's favorite dish.
"Ramaniyamma is no more, so is 'enar urukkiyathu.' The only time my mouth fills with water is when I recall the sweet memories of enjoying the taste of 'enar urukkiyathu' while staring at the rains," concludes Shajikumar.
