Sadhya

Sadya means big feast in Malayalam.

A sadya is a big feast associated with an occasion like marriage, birthday, childbirth or even a function associated with death. A sadya is traditionally a vegetarian meal served on a plantain leaf, with people eating it sitting cross legged on the floor.

The dishes are mainly cooked rice, many curries, papad, curd or butter milk, banana and two or more sweet dishes. The curries are made of different vegetables and are of different tastes. For example they are made of curd (yogurt), bitter gourd, pine apple, mango, jaggery etc. The idea of making many dishes in the sadya is that there will be at least two or three dishes liked by everybody. The usual items in a sadya are as follows:

Sambar : A thick gravy made of lentil, tamarind, coconut and vegetables Rasam : A watery dish made of tamarind, tomatoes and spices like pepper Avial : Thick mixture of all vegetables, curd and coconut Kalan : Made of curd and coconut, but more sour than avial Olan : Made of pumpkin, coconut milk and ginger Kootukari : One or two vegetables and coconut with a hot and sweet taste Kichadi : Made of curd and cucumber in raw or cooked form Inji puli : curry made of ginger, chillies and jaggery Thoran : A dry dish of vegetables like pea, carrot or cabbage with grated coconut Pickles made of mango, lemon etc.

The sweet dish is called pradhaman. It is in the form of a thick liquid. It is made with white sugar or jaggery to which milk or cocunut milk (juice) is added. Palada pradhaman is made of flakes of cooked rice, milk and sugar. Pazha pradhaman is made of cooked 'nendra' plantain in jaggery and coconut milk. Pradhaman is also made of broken wheat (gothambu pradhaman), green gram (parippu pradhaman), jack fruit (chakka pradhaman) etc.

Coconut, being abundant in Kerala, is used in almost all the dishes. The milk of coconut also finds various uses in cooking. Coconut oil is used for frying.

There is a specific place for each item on the plantain leaf. For example, the pickles are served on the top left corner and banana on the bottom left corner. Thus, the waiters can easily identify the requirement of the diner by just looking at his leaf.

The meal is always followed by 'vettila murukkan' i.e., chewing of betel leaf with lime and arecanut. This adds to the digestion of the heavy meal and also gives a pleasant taste to the mouth.