The food in Kerala around the Holy week, that culminates in Easter, is distinctive, and rooted in local, community and western traditions, rituals and the fasting rigours of the over 45-day Lent period.




A week of symbolic food from kozhakatta to lamb stew

It starts with the central Kerala tradition of ‘kozhakatta Saturday’, which falls a day before Palm Sunday. “It is basically a coconut ada in a round shape. It is, in fact, a festival food across India, where it is called modak. The Christians who converted during colonial times, under the Portuguese, make hot cross buns, in place of kozhakattas, in keeping with European traditions. In the history of our bakery, I’ve heard that these buns used to go to the British bungalows in Fort Kochi,” says Tsarina Abrao Vacha, who runs a fifth-generation bakery, started in 1852, in Fort Kochi.






Kozhakatta symbolised stones hurled at Christ

The kozhakatta is rich with symbolism, much like most of the food of this period, and is believed to represent the stones thrown at Jesus, while he was taken to be judged. “And the buns also symbolise the bread that was broken with his disciples at the Last Supper. It is used in some communities, instead of the indri appam, which is a staple on Maundy Thursday in central Kerala. Also, the buns are more popular with kids,” says the baker, who is a keen preserver of the age-old baking legacy of her great-grandfather.



Hot-cross buns are vegetarian, in keeping with Lenten fasting

“For example, in keeping with tradition, we use black raisins for the hot cross buns, unlike the golden raisins. I’m not sure if this is to symbolise the dark times or death,” says Tsarina. She points out that unlike the regular buns, hot-cross buns are vegetarian, perhaps because people abstain from eggs and meat, as part of Lenten fasting. “And I’ve stuck to the traditional, original recipe, where the cross on top of the bun is rolled out from strips of dough, rather than being piped on, as some bakeries have started doing,” she says.







Food was almost like a sacred ritual

Food entrepreneur Jeemol Koruth points out that during the Holy Week in her childhood, there was one ingredient that was important in the preparations, and that was devotion. “By Maundy Thursday, households would maintain an almost monastic silence as a kind of mental and emotional preparation to commemorate the crucifixion of Christ,” she remenisces of her childhood in Kottayam.



The preparation for Thursday’s food of indriappam or inriappam and kalathappam starts on Tuesday. A piece of the palm from Palm Sunday would be washed and dried to create a small cross to place on the indriappam. “The whole family would gather for prayers before the cooking started. The appams, which would never be tasted for flavours while cooking to keep its purity intact, would be made in the morning and eaten after church in the evening,” recounts Jeemol.






While most households made only indriappam, which is an unleavened bread, some also made the kalathappam, which had jaggery, spices, coconut chips and a layer of caramalised onions on the base. “The head of the family would break the indriappam into 13 pieces - in memory of Jesus at the Last Supper - dip it into a sweetened coconut, jaggery milk combo, and distribute to all the family members. The indriappam is made every year on a new utensil. This was not cooking; it was almost like a sacred ritual. Remembering and following these practices today brings back happy memories and keeps my ties to my culture strong, even when the pace of life has changed,” she says.



Maundy Thursday leads to the austerities of Good Friday, which is a day of fasting for most Christians, with just one meal of rice gruel. “Uluva (fenugreek) kanji is a very basic meal, with a hint of bitter fenugreek and the thinnest coconut milk, to provide nourishment on this day of fasting,” says Tsarina.



No cakes for Easter!

Easter day is “lamb this, lamb that”, says Tsarina, laughing. “Of course, the lamb is a prominent symbol with Jesus, and throughout the scriptures, we have stories of sacrifice of lamb, transcending to glory. In the Middle East, in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, lamb was a feature of celebration. So, probably our tradition is derived from this,” she says.



Interestingly, Tsarina says that, in their 174 years of baking history there were no cakes made for Easter. “The British make a simnel cake, which is a fruitcake with yellow marzipan, the Eastern Europeans make a cake called the paska, while the Russians, Ukrainians and Polish have a cake called the Kulich, but these were all heralding Spring,” she explains.



She, however, remembers painting the bakery’s supplies of Easter eggs. “Unlike the chocolate eggs of today, they used to be made of plaster of paris in my youth. We used to go shopping in Broadway to find little toys, like cars and whistles, to fit perfectly into the eggs. And then, I would paint coconut trees, landscapes and ships onto the shells,” she says.




Did you know?

That indriappam or inriappam comes from the INRI, which stands for Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum, which was nailed to Jesus's cross