I was fortunate to be the recipient, today, of a new cookbook from Kerala.
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Cover of late Mrs. K. M. Mathew’s “Finest Recipes” |
The late Mrs. K. M Mathew’s eldest daughter-in-law, Prema, has curated a book of the finest recipes produced by my aunt in her lifetime.
I have been fortunate in my life to have tasted many of them produced by Mrs. Mathew and then, by what I think is the the only cook in India that I know, her protege Vasu, who received an EU 9000 certificate for his cooking skills!
In a recent blog entry about a Gujarthi evening I had enumerated the publications of late Mrs. K. M Mathew.
I have been brought up on enjoying the variety of good food from all over the world.
I love most types of food, various Indian cusines, Chinese, Thai, Fusion, Continental, cordon blue, and "even British” as Roast Beef with Yorkshire pudding and Welsh rarebit.
I am, however, not a fan of fastfoods as the Macburger!
I was introduced to Finnish cuisine by Annikki starting with meatballs and meat loaf and many other exotic dishes, especially various preparations of fish.
But Annikki became a master cook with her own versions of Indian cooking as Massla Dosai made in a Finnish style with Finnish ingredients.
Annikki ran the first cooking class of Indian recipes in Ylivieska polytechnic, and introduced the first Chinese cooking class in Oulu when she was the Chairperson of the English Club of Oulu!
I was introduced to cooking by Mrs. K. M. Mathew when I left India to study in London when she scribbled some great recipes for me and taught me the basics of cooking.
However, when Annikki married me in 1967, she quickly threw me out of the kitchen, despite my very good skills as producing Roast Lamb, as she found I was not to good at keeping the kitchen clean.
I have been through the new book and I give here the detailed Contents and the items contained in each of the Sub-Sections.
All the best recipes from my experience of Kerala cooking are in the book, especially my very favourite, Karimeen, the masala fried White Fish!
One anecdote tells the story of the hospitality of Mrs. K. M. Mathew.
We were on a trip through Kerala and Mrs. Mathew asked us to stopover at her home in Kottayam. When we arrived she had been called out for some work but she had organised lunch for us with her husband as our host.
The tablespread was fantastic as anything one could hope for was on the table.
Our eldest son was having a problem and called one of the staff and whispered something in his ear.
This caused a great concern as the staff member went to speak with our host.
My uncle appeared greatly disturbed as he apologised to Jaakko that they had prepared chicken, beef, lamb, and an array of vegetarian dishes but was sorry that he had not included "pork".
We all split our sides laughing as, we as a family do not eat pork as it is forbidden by Annikki's religious belief.
So we asked Jaakko what he meant to which he replied that all he wanted was a "FORK"!
We used to tease Mrs. Mathew's husband that the enormous circulation of the Malayala Manorama newspaper was because every Keralite housewife bought the newspaper so as to produce the food which her husband would appreciate!
A Keralite woman (and Annikki) knows that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach !
I am yet to meet a lady from Kerala who does not know the contribution of Mrs. Mathew to her day to day life, not only with the daily recipes she produced for the newspaper but also for the best selling ladies magazine in India, VANITHA, which is now also published in Hindi.
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| Annikki and Thangam (Cochin 2014) |
Here is a picture of my dear cousin, Thangam, at her boutique “The Weavers” in Cochin and Annikki when we visited her in 2014, our very last visit to India.
The front cover of the new book describes Mrs. K. M. Mathew's standing in the eyes of the New York Times.
The back cover has a short note expressed from the very heart by the daughter of Mrs. K. M. Mathew, Thangam.
Thank you Prema and Thangam for sending us
this wonderful gift.
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