my affair with mallu food

Almost all the ingredients in my kitchen are imported (OK not trying to sound snobbish and its not imported from some fancy country).Since childhood its been a done thing to get all our spices from Kerala.School holidays were spent in remote places on Keralas backwaters and with the sun beating down on us we would collect fresh ripe peppers straight from the plant,help spread them out on mats to dry in the sun and watch them turn to good black peppers in a few days.The aroma of peppers always brings back childhood memories.The thinks we dried were cocoa pods,coffee beans besides peppers.Then we pealed the bark of the cinnamon tree and plucked cloves from the tress,crawled on all fours in mud to pluck fresh cardamom.This was the spice of life.
We also learnt to make fresh butter.I was always up early to catch my aunts churn the milk and skim the fresh butter with jack fruit leaves turned to spoons.Everything was magically fresh.That done the pots were hung up from the roof.Cows had to be milked,brown eggs had to be fetched.I learnt to wait at the chicken coup for the swak of the hen and knew the right moment to get at the eggs.
My uncle now 90 and doing well for himself,figured that I was ever ready to learn.He took me fishing to the river.No fancy fishing tackle.He made me dig up earthworms,string
them on to some wire (nylon I think) and fasten all this to some thin sticks I could find.(plenty by the river side).He would insist that I keep very still and not talk,fish he said will be disturbed.I did manage to haul in a few but had to throw them right back.Small fish would deplete the stock so we were not allowed to take them home.
When we were done with fishing it would get cooked in a nice earthen pot over a freshly made fire and while the pot with its fish simmered and boiled,we threw cashew nuts into the fire,pulled them out with our bare hands and cracked them up to get at the nuts.We turned black with the effort but nothing that some good coconut oil couldn't cure.
The lessons learnt in childhood were so impressive that to this day I import all my spices from Kerala preferably garden fresh.Not for me the spices from the supermarket.My earthen pots come from Kerala too and if it breaks we don't get fish curry, but nothing will make me use a metal vessel for fish.Kokum is still couriered from Kerala.Its funny that not living in that state,hasnt dimed the allure of mallu food. My malayalam is far from great,I hardly ever go back but for me the trill of shopping in a Kerala village is the highlight of my short trips that happen once in a whilel Coconut oil,coconuts,peppers,spices,these are my favourite things,this is what my kitchen is full of this is what is cooking for me.The aroma wafting from a cooking pot brings back a thousand memories.No words can explain my love affair with food.