From grandmother's kitchen to next generation

The aroma of freshly fried murukku, the sweetness of homemade ladoos and the anticipation of festive preparations are memories that many associate with Deepavali. For generations, these preparations have been as much a part of the celebrations as the festival itself, with recipes passed down from grandmothers to mothers and eventually to younger members of the family. However, as lifestyles change and convenience takes priority, some of these elaborate homemade preparations are gradually losing their place in household kitchens.

For chef Goku, one such festive favourite is Munthiri Kothu, a traditional sweet from the Kanniyakumari and Nanjil Nadu regions. Interestingly, it is not a recipe he claims as a family heirloom. His maternal grandmother and father travelled extensively across Tamil Nadu for work, and during these travels, his grandmother picked up the recipe. She would make it during Deepavali, and the tradition has since continued through his mother, who prepares it today. The sweet remains one of his personal favourites.

Made with roasted whole green gram, grated coconut, jaggery and sesame seeds, Munthiri Kothu has a distinctive preparation. The ingredients are combined to make a sweet filling, shaped into small balls, dipped in a thick rice batter and deep-fried until crisp and golden. The result is a traditional festive sweet that carries with it a story of how culinary practices travel across regions and find a place in family kitchens.

For Goku, the gradual disappearance of such preparations reflects a larger change in our relationship with food. Earlier, food was closely connected to seasons, agriculture, communities and family traditions, with recipes passed down orally from one generation to another. Today, smaller families, busy schedules and the convenience of commercially available sweets and savouries have changed the way people prepare for festivals.

"Many recipes were never documented. They existed in the hands and memories of home cooks. When that generation stops cooking, we risk losing not just the recipe but also the techniques, proportions and stories behind it," he says.

He also points out how regional variations are gradually being replaced by a smaller selection of popular festive foods. Traditional rice varieties, millets, indigenous pulses, native oils and regional sweeteners, which once formed an integral part of local cooking, are also becoming less accessible in everyday kitchens.

For him, preserving these preparations requires more than simply writing down the ingredients. It involves travelling to villages, spending time with older home cooks and documenting recipes in their original context. The techniques behind fermentation, roasting, grinding, cooking temperatures, seasonal variations and traditional equipment are equally important. A preparation from Nanjil Nadu, for instance, could be considerably different from its counterpart in Chettinad or Kongu Nadu, and these distinctions deserve recognition.

He believes chefs, researchers and food storytellers have a responsibility to bring these preparations back into conversations, restaurants and contemporary kitchens through pop-ups, tasting menus, food festivals and workshops. More importantly, preserving a recipe also means preserving the farmers, ingredients and ecosystems that make it possible. Younger generations, he feels, should see traditional food as something exciting rather than something they are expected to eat simply because it is part of their heritage. The objective should be to keep these recipes alive in people's kitchens rather than preserve them only in books.

Another traditional savoury preparation he shares is Nada Murukku, made using equal quantities of rice flour and besan, seasoned with fennel seeds and salt. Hot oil is incorporated into the flour mixture before water is added to make a soft, pliable dough. The dough is passed through a murukku press fitted with a ribbon-style disc and deep-fried until crisp and golden.

Meanwhile, Indra Narayan, popularly known as the Millet Queen, approaches festive food traditions from a different perspective. For her, the connection with traditional festive food is rooted in family memories. Rava ladoo and murukku were regular Deepavali preparations in her household, made first by her grandmother and later by her mother. She recalls celebrating the festival with her siblings, memories that remain special to her even today.

Her relationship with millets began in 2012, when she switched to them for health reasons. What started as a personal dietary change gradually developed into an interest in exploring their taste and texture.

"I used to make it with rice first. Now, I have started trying this immediately. The current generation does not make it at all," she says, referring to traditional festive preparations. She feels that people are increasingly buying ready-made murukku instead of making it at home. While she believes there is room to enjoy sweets occasionally, she encourages people to prepare them at home and explore alternative ingredients.

One of her festive creations is a little millet rava ladoo, which gives the familiar sweet a millet-based twist. The preparation involves soaking little millet for five hours, drying and roasting it before grinding it into a powder. Roasted peanut powder, jaggery and cardamom are added, followed by chopped roasted cashews. Warm ghee is gradually incorporated before the mixture is shaped into ladoos. She also suggests that the preparation can be attempted with other millet varieties.

Her other offering is little millet poha murukku. Millet poha is powdered and sieved before being combined with besan, little millet flour, cumin seeds, carom seeds, chilli powder and salt. Hot oil and water are added to make a soft dough, which is shaped using a murukku press and deep-fried until crisp. Both preparations are simple enough for home cooks, including beginners, to attempt.

For Indra, the idea is to make traditional recipes relevant to the current generation without completely moving away from familiar festive flavours.

On the question of making traditional festive food healthier, Goku believes that flavour should remain central. Tamil cuisine has always made use of seasonal ingredients, native grains, pulses, coconut, sesame, palm jaggery and locally available produce. These ingredients offer opportunities to revisit traditional preparations, but he cautions against replacing every ingredient with millets simply because they are considered healthier. Understanding the character of each ingredient and using it where it makes culinary sense, he says, is more important than making substitutions for the sake of it.