
Thank you to Tamil Culture for publishing this little piece about My Tamil Kitchen. A big thank you also to our dear Nesa aunty and for allowing me to weave ‘Recipes of the Jaffna Tamils‘ all through this project. Three years … Continue reading
The kelor or drumstick tree is a popular garden tree in both India as well as Sri Lanka and the Tamil areas. Known as Moringa oleifara, it is becoming increasingly popular for it’s medicinal value. The leaves of the Moringa … Continue reading
In 2010, on the back of the 2009 genocide in our homeland, a few of us Tamil kids thought we should start a cooking show which celebrated our Tamil identity and the broader refugee community in Australia. We didn’t make it … Continue reading
உப்புமா is a breakfast dish. It should be served hot and can be eaten with banana or a curry like பருப்பு (parrupu). Actually I am not too sure how it should be eaten. So I am going to publish this … Continue reading
Note: I started this post a few months ago, when we had just arrived in Quito with a commitment to post one new recipe a week. As you can tell, this hasn’t happened and I head back to Australia tomorrow. … Continue reading
Thank you to Tamil Culture for publishing this little piece about My Tamil Kitchen. A big thank you also to our dear Nesa aunty and for allowing me to weave ‘Recipes of the Jaffna Tamils‘ all through this project. Three years … Continue reading
“The train sped on, taking me from the ones I loved to an unknown world of the city. I could hear, with every roll of the steel wheels against the hard unforgiving iron rails, the sounds of home getting farther. … Continue reading
After 3 years of My Tamil Kitchen – I have come to realise there are a few basic tips to preparing Tamil food. SALT: Everyone has a different relationship to salt and culture seems to play a leading role. Salt … Continue reading
“You couldn’t buy thayir (yoghurt) back then. So we would ask neighbours who made thayir if we could have some culture and mummy would make thayir for us. We would do this on special occasions, like when we were breaking fast during … Continue reading
As the rains began to beat their tempo upon our roof, we gathered in appa’s rest room – always smelling of warm cheroot and coffee. Appa would like on his easy-chair reading his Ananda Vikadan, while my brother Rajadurai, would … Continue reading
In mid-2015 a diaspora Tamil thambi (younger brother) connected with me on facebook saying he had read a piece I had written a few years earlier about the war in Sri Lanka. After chatting for a bit on facebook, I … Continue reading
I love going to my family home and finding a pile of garden vegetables on the kitchen bench. Lately it’s been the inspiration for what I make for My Tamil Kitchen. I had been watching the பாவக்காய் (bitter gourd) grow … Continue reading
Kadalai [kah-da-lai] or கடலை – served as offering to Hindu gods, and then eaten by humans or simply eaten by humans for breakfast with a nice hot tea to accompany. INGREDIENTS 1 cup of dry chickpeas – soaked overnight 1/2 tbls … Continue reading
#handfed I am pretty chuffed that my friend, artist and provocatuer Jiva Parthipan has launched Handfed – a project to mainstream the way my (and his) peeps eat our food. In Jiva’s words: A whole website dedicated to the joys, perils and politic of eating … Continue reading
This is the basic recipe for making a பால் (paal) or milk curry. In the homeland we would use freshly squeezed coconut milk. Because that is not accessible in a country like Australia – we us tinned coconut milk. I … Continue reading