Kuzhimanthi: Kerala roasts those who came up with idea of changing name of this hugely popular dish

“Don’t say, don’t listen, don’t see kuzhimanthi,” said Sreeraman in his Facebook post.

Kerala’s love for kuzhimanthi

The post didn’t go down well with Malayalis, who love everything about their kuzhimanthi — its flavour, its aroma, its name — and are not particularly parochial or jingoistic about its Arab roots.

“We feel no uneasiness ordering or eating kuzhimanthi,” Jithesh KT, a social media activist, told South First, echoing the sentiments of dozens of others upset by a criticism of their beloved dish.

“There is no other dish that conquered the taste of Keralites so quickly,” wrote author and disaster management expert with the UN Muralee Thummarukudy in a Facebook post.

“The number of kuzhimanthi restaurants in Kerala is many times higher than those in Yemen,” he wrote, in a reference to the origin of the dish.

Chicken is cooked to a point where its skin is neither too crusty nor too hard. The process, which takes up to two hours, involves no use of oil — making kuzhimanthi a “healthy dish”, explains V Muhammed Koya, a restaurant owner in Nilambur in the Malappuram district.

Backlash over name change proposal

So when Sreeraman’s Facebook post became public knowledge, the blowback was instantaneous and universal — cutting across political, religious or ideological divides — with defenders of the dish flooding the social media with one common argument: The word “kuzhimanthi” does not insult the Malayalam language.

While author Thummarukudy said in his Facebook post that no change in the name of kuzhimanthi could be permitted, activist Jithesh found it “absurd” that there was a demand to rename the dish to “retain the purity” of Malayalam.

“There are many other popular dishes with similar crazy names in Kerala. Why are these intellectuals singling kuzhumanthi out?” Jithesh asked.

Critics have even gone to the extent of accusing Sreeraman of having an inherent Hindutva worldview because the dish originated in the Middle East and was brought to Kerala by a Muslim some 15 years ago.

Left intellectual Sunil P Elayidom and literary critic S Saradakutty also have had to bear the brunt of their ire for supporting Sreeraman’s views.

Jithesh was particularly critical of the latter. “Saradakutty’s claim that the term kuzhimanthi conjures up the image of peruchazhi (bandicoot) is absurd,” he said.

Backtracking follows backlash

Faced with widespread criticisms, Sreeraman clarified in another post soon after that he was not against the dish but only against the name kuzhimanthi.

Later, when contacted by South First, he described Kuzhimanthi as “indeed a tasty dish” that he loved. “I humbly demanded a different name for it that lovers of the Malayalam language can appreciate.”

Elayidom and Saradakutty similarly have chosen to backtrack from their stance.

“It’s a tasty food variety. Such food items deserve slightly better names,” Elayidom told South First when contacted.

“I do not share the view that the word is polluting the Malayalam language and that the word should be banned. No democratic society can accept such demands,” he added.

How kuzhimanthi came to Kerala

Kuzhimanthi is a portmanteau of two words from two separate languages: “Kuzhi”, meaning pit in Malayalam, and “manthi”, the Yemeni word for the dish that originated in this Middle Eastern country.

It is prepared in a charcoal-fuelled and cylindrical underground pit that doubles up as a “pressure cooker”.

Malappuram resident Pulliserry Muhammadali, who is credited with introducing kuzhimanthi to Kerala 15 years ago at Delicia Restaurant in his home town, says he picked up the technique of preparing kuzhimanthi when working as a cook at a military camp in Saudi Arabia, where the chief cook was a Yemeni.

“Kuzhimanthi is a dish that has to be prepared carefully. The pit in which the dish is cooked is built using a special technique,” Muhammadali, popularly known as “Manthi Kakka”, told South First.

While it is usually cooked with chicken and is mostly ordered from restaurants that have the manthi pits, there are home-made variations as well, including using mutton.

Maintaining that so far he has helped 180 establishments with the arrangements for preparing the dish, Muhammadali says it was called by its original name “manthi” in the early days.

“When it became popular, restaurants and hotels started selling it as kuzhimanthi. That name stuck,” he says.

Kuzhimanthi and Bharat Jodo Yatra

When the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi passed through eight of the 14 districts of Kerala, there were attempts by social media handles of the state’s ruling CPI(M) to belittle it as a “taste journey” searching for unique dishes and unexplored food joints.

They sought to link Rahul Gandhi’s preference for rural eateries to his inherent inability to engage directly with the challenges posed by Hindutva fascism.

The trolls turned even more nasty as the yatra began to evoke a positive response. Left social media handles widely circulated a photo of Rahul Gandhi with a plate comprising several traditional Kerala snacks.

The trollers punned merrily that it was time for the Congress leader to focus on other things on his plate.

When the yatra reached Pudukad in Thrissur district, the social media propaganda had incarnated as a roadside flex carrying a single sentence in Malayalam: “Porattamanu Badal, Porottayalla.” The message can be roughly translated as: “Struggle is the alternative, not the parotta.”

Parotta is the Kerala version of layered flat bread paratha of North India.

With food becoming the theme of criticism, it was inevitable that kuzhimanthi would enter the picture.

When the yatra reached Elamkulam in Malappuram district, another flex board received Rahul Gandhi, and it advised him to prefer kuzhimanthi over parotta, at least in the neighbouring town of Perinthalmanna.

The flex in Malayalam read: “Porottayalla, Perinthalmannayil Kuzhimanthiyanu best (Forget the parotta, the Perinthalmanna Kuzhimanthi is the best).”