Onam, a harvest festival

Onam, a harvest festival

Today is the 28th of August 2004. It is Onam, the malayalee's harvest festival. On Onam, malayalee's celebrate the freshly collected harvest by having a banana leaf meal with a large amount of differently cooked vegetables on it. The meal is a vegetarian meal. The amount of dishes on the banana leaf varies on the individual hosting the house for the meal. There can be either 9,11, 15, 17 or 19 different types of dishes. Last night i attended an onam family dinner at my grandaunts place who was the host this year. We had 17 different dishes on the leaf!

The typical onam menu:
Aviyal (mixture of vegetable dish)
Thoran (any vegetable with grated coconut)
Elessery (pumpkin with red beans)
Olen (Ashgod- White pumpkin with long beans cooked in coconut milk)
Kalin (Banana in yoghurt and coconut milk)
Pachedi (mango with ripe banana blended)
Inchi Puli (ginger with tamarin)
Luichia (some kinda red berry with yoghurt)
Kondatam (green chili dried in yoghurt)
Pavaka (fried bittergod)
Green Peas Dahl with gee
Sambar
Papadam
Lime Pickle
Moru (Yoghurt with water, ginger and curry leaves)- not usually put in
White Paiyasam (made with milk)
Brown Paiyasam (made with coconut milk)
Banana

Tradition goes, that the the youth will serve the elders first. I learnt alot about indian culture last night while serving these dishes because the elders will sit and tell the tale of what vegetable it is, how it is best made. Only after the elders are done, the youth get to eat.



This is a picture of me after finishing the complete meal. Oh mann, its so filling, I can hardly walk!

To all my fellow bloggers,
Happy Onam!