Kerala Food

The Malayalis are by habit a people of high standards in personal hygiene. A typical Malayali gets up early in the morning. After attending to the morning ablutions, the tongue and teeth are cleaned. Tongue cleaner, tooth paste and brush are personal toilet articles of both the rich and the poor. An oil bath early in the morning is considered a necessity. Soaps are used for washing off oil and filth on the body. In the matter of showing all communities share a common tradition. Growing beard is not very common among Muslims. Keralites have different fashions of hair style too. Foot wear though not popular in earlier times, is widely used by all communities now.

Kerala women consider long flowing hair as a sign of beauty. So meticulous care is taken for growing long hair. For this purpose they use plenty of oil. Oil keeps the hair smooth and shining. With the growing impact of the means of public media, a craze for fashions is noticed in women at present. Thus fashionable forms of hair dressing have come into vogue in Kerala. Blackening of the eye brows is very common with women of all communities. The younger ones invariably use cutex, face powder, and lipstick. Kerala women use plenty of fragrant flowers. Perfumes of different kinds have come into regular use. The use of pottu is very common with Kerala women.

Diet
The people of Kerala usually have three meals and an evening tiffin. Rice is the staple food of all people. The dietary of an ordinary family starts with bed tea or coffee and then a breakfast. At noon is the lunch. Evening tea is usually clubbed with light eatables. At night is the supper.
The popular items of break fast are idli, dosa, appam, idiappam, vella appam and puttu. Wheat preparations for breakfast are also popular and common. They constitute barotta, chappa-thi and puri served along with potato masala. Rice preparations are served along with chutney, sambar and mu-lakupodi. There are people who use bread, butter and jam.
Lunch consists Of boiled rice, special dishes of meat fish and vegetables, pappadam, pickles, chips, sambar, butter-milk and rasam. On special occasions there will be multiple dishes of several varieties and sweet desserts of pradhaman (payasam). For marriage parties, three or four types of pradhaman are served along with some sweets like boli. Evening tea is invariably taken along with vada, biscuits, plantains etc. Supper is hardly heavy. It is but a second course of lunch taken lightly.
Slavish dependence on rice has in recent years given place to a combi nation of rice and wheat. Thus wheat has come to stay in Kerala. Over and above rice and wheat, tapioca has come to be a staple food in Kerala.
Another special feature of Kerala diet also deserves mention. Certain item of food are associated with certain communities. The Tamil Brahmins are known for sambar, the Nam-boothiris for kalan, the Nayars for aviyal and the Muslims for biriyani, neychoru and pattiri. The famous Christian sweets are avalose, neyyappam, achappam, churuttu, Kuzhalappam, mavu unda and cheepappam. In Kerala milk is consumed only by the rich. Kerala is also famous for its rich variety of pickles such as those of mango, lime, nellikka, garlic, and fish. The daily used condiments in Kerala are chilli, salt, turmeric, pepper, ginger, onion, garlic, as a fortida, cardamom, cloves, spices etc. The popular oil used in culinary preparations is coconut oil, supplemented by other vegetable oils.
Lastly betel chewing is a habit with large number of people in Kerala. Smoking and the use of snuff are also widely prevalent.

Drinking
At present the whole state is wet. The drinking habit is pretty widespread in Kerala. Unless some moral restraint is imposed, Kerala is bound to sink deeply into the habit, which is not only injurious to general health but will in the long run wreck the economic stability of the people.