FOOD -- 8::

BADAGA HOME-STYLE FOOD IS A HIT

BY P S SUNDAR

The concept of home-style cooking introduced in Taj group’s Gateway Hotel Coonoor and Savoy Hotel Ooty some four years ago has become popular with both domestic and foreign tourists.

“Visitors not only enjoy seeing me cook on stove live in the restaurant, they take photos and collect from me recipes”, R Jayalakshmi, familiar face at Taj Savoy preparing Badaga community food items, told me.

A housewife living in Bickole, a small hamlet 20 kilometres away from Ooty, Jayalakshmi travels by two buses daily to reach the hotel.

“I cook different items daily like kara paniyaram, thithippu paniyaram, Ubbittu, Dhotti, thuppathittu, aappam, rava laddu, Kothumai dosai and thithippu puff.   I cook in the same way it is done in our Badaga community homes”, she said.

“Our Avara Othukka and Badaga Thali cooked homes-style are a favourite even with foreigners and we are working on adding more healthy components”, Executive Chef Nisi Kant Panigrahi disclosed.

“Badaga is the predominant community of Nilgiris and we are committed, as part of our corporate social reasonability, to support Badaga women with opportunity to popularise their traditional cuisine”, Taj Savoy General Manager P Vibhakar added.

(response can also be sent to :: pssundar.coonoor@gmail.com)