In the 2011 Malayalam romantic comedy movie Salt N Pepper , the main lead – the food-loving, 40-something, archaeologist Kalidas — finally decides to find a bride. At the ‘bride-seeing’ ceremony, he is impressed with the food served at the bride’s home, barges into the kitchen and elopes with the (male) cook.
The film, whose tagline was ‘a story born out of a dosa,’ set a culinary trend and seduced new-generation men into the kitchen to try out new dishes. Suddenly, food is in the air: old dishes are reinvented, new ones are experimented, and Kerala’s culinary tradition is being revived. In a State where men once considered talk about food infra dig, young men proudly discuss their recent culinary experiments. Food is on the air too: almost all Malayalam TV channels host prime-time cookery shows that have a huge fan following. At schools, it’s not uncommon to hear this line: “I want to be a chef when I grow up.”
“We have changed rapidly to rise to the tastes and expectations of the new generation,” says PM Shankaran, President of Bake. In Kerala, ‘bakeries’ dispense not just bread, but also a variety of sweetmeats, snacks, cakes and pastry — and fruit juices, cool drinks and coffee too.
Over the past few years, encouraged by Bake, bakeries have gone in for an image makeover — from staid, damp places to chic, spacious settings with jazzy interiors where young people can eat a piece of cake or a snack.
“The range of sweetmeats and cakes and pastry has expanded to meet the demands of the new customers,” Shankaran said.
Beyond the wider range, there have also been improvements in the quality of products. Bake has enforced a ban on use of artificial colours and taste enhancers and harmful preservatives.
A campaign currently on at the bakeries accredited to Bake has this slogan: “Our products have short shelf lives so that our consumers have long shelf lives!” One of the offshoots of the culinary revolution has been a shift to organic food. “Customers now want to eat tasty but healthy food.”
Bake in Kerala Bake has now launched a major initiative called ‘Bake in Kerala’ to promote foods that are fully made in Kerala and are Kerala’s own. An important part of the drive is to promote home-made sweets, snacks and other short eats that have been part of the culinary traditions of different regions in the State. This would mean outsourcing from small home-based women’s units rather than bakeries themselves making them.
The focus of the ‘Bake in Kerala’ drive is on cakes. Plum cakes were first made in India in the 19{+t}{+h} century at Thalassery in northern Kerala, which is currently known for its Maappila (or Malabar Muslim) cuisine. It was one of the seats of power during the British Raj and was famous for cakes and cricket.
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