Tellicherry Pepper

It was time in Ayisha Manzil to watch the sun go down into the great sea leaving behind a sky painted in strands of gold and rose 8212; par...

It was time in Ayisha Manzil to watch the sun go down into the great sea leaving behind a sky painted in strands of gold and rose 8212; part of the lure that this heritage house advertises. It was the holy hour for the Mappila Muslims who bow to the 8216;8216;baang8217;8217;, as they call the azaan. For the American guests it was the time to drink and relax.

8220;I am selling a concept 8212; of living with a family, sharing their home and their culture,8221; said Moosa whose grandfather, a spice trader, bought it from Murdock Brown of the East India Company in l900. Grandson Moosa converted the family apartments into six bedrooms, furnishing each with a four-posted wooden bed, an ornate cupboard, a writing desk, antique pieces of porcelain. I was honoured with one such room. Awed, I spent a sleepless night, enclosed by a past that did not speak to me. After long hours in the dark I was stirred by the sound of a bird. It was dawn, time to draw the curtains. Filling my window stood a palm tree and beyond stretched the sea brooding under a thin mist.

Comforted, I climbed back into bed and went to sleep. Breakfast on the verandah renewed the sense of comfort, particularly the tall glass of freshly squeezed pineapple juice spiked with crushed cardamom. We wandered through the house trying to probe the Mappila heritage. Three photographs hung high near the ceiling gave the first sense of it. They were pictures of a grandmother after whom Moosa had named the old house; his father and grandfather, venerable looking men with gentle faces, the kind who do their work and accept life in a spirit of surrender. The grandson lacked the look the sepia photographs still retained despite the salt of the sea air. His wife, a plain-looking reticent woman, did a better job cooking in the kitchen acquainting her guests with spices her family had used for generations.

8216;8216;She puts a little of this and a little of that,8217;8217; said one American lady, baffled by the strength of spices. 8216;8216;She is not precise or knowledgeable about what a certain spice can do for a certain kind of food.8217;8217; After three hours in the kitchen she burst out sweating, unable to distinguish the flavours between a shrimp and a beef curry. Moosa arrived to enlighten us. In the manner more of a steward than a master, he introduced each dish, advising his guests on how to savour it. His wife stood by and let herself be photographed. That8217;s the closest the Americans could get to the culture of a Mappila family.

Despite his eloquence, Moosa had failed to recognise that one needed to display more than a kitchen to evoke a heritage. He was unfamiliar with the nuances that hold together a culture of food which not only means knowing its nature but also the generosity that must go with eating and sharing. I could not imagine his grandmother serving a tiny piece of grilled fish with a blob of tapioca as a light lunch. The last thing she would have done was to write down her recipes. Cooking in her time was an oral tradition passed on from mother to daughter, not packed in a recipe book titled Tellicherry Pepper. There was a gentle irony in watching Moosa present the book to his guests, adding with a flourish: 8216;8216;We use no pepper in our food8217;8217;.