Karimeen in Kerala Cuisine

Pearl Spot or Karimeen

You won’t expect fish to be staple diet in a state like Rajasthan just as you don’t find millets in Kerala’s regular cuisine. Food is deeply intertwined with local cultures; it reflects history, geography, climate, religious beliefs, social structures, and economic conditions. Fish has been a regular presence on the Malayali dining table for centuries thanks to the state’s 600 km of coastline and 44 major rivers, not to mention countless rivulets and streams.

My childhood reeked of sardines and mackerels, the most abundant fishes in our region. Fishmongers came on bicycles selling these two varieties usually, probably because they were the cheapest. These two varieties are becoming extinct now, I’m afraid; they are not seen much in the markets. My cats do miss them occasionally.

The queen of the Malayali dinner menu is undoubtedly the pearl spot, known as karimeen in Malayalam. This fish can appear in infinite varieties on the dining table, karimeen pollichathu being an icon. It is supposed to be the tastiest fish and was declared the State Fish of Kerala in 2010. Serving karimeen is a sign of affluence today and it smacks of elitism too.

Maggie and I had a pleasant surprise last Sunday when her brother, who lives in the coastal city of Kochi, visited us with a generous haul of karimeen bought directly from the fishermen. Untouched by preservative chemicals. Karimeen is indeed delicious but it is riddled with bones. Eating it requires such skill that few dare to serve it to children. I become a child while negotiating karimeen on my dinner plate.

When you visit Kerala, especially the backwater regions of Alappuzha, Kuttanad, Kumarakom, and Kochi, get a taste of karimeen pollichathu. Karimeen’s habitat is the brackish waters of these places. If you are a vegetarian, hard luck. Oherwise, savour the taste of red chili and pepper with a squeeze of lemon juice, the major ingredients of the marination process, apart from salt and turmeric. The marinated karimeen is then fried lightly in coconut oil. [Coconut is an integral part of Kerala cuisine.] In the same oil, chopped shallots are sautéed with spices and condiments like ginger, garlic, garam masala, and curry leaves. The karimeen is then wrapped in this spicy mix and placed on a banana leaf which has been lightly wilted over a flame. This leaf-packet is then placed on a hot pan for 10-15 minutes so that the karimeen inside will absorb all the spicy, aromatic flavours.

As I said in the beginning of this post, the food of any place is intertwined with many other things. Someone sitting in Delhi and deciding what someone in Thiruvananthapuram should eat is the climax of nationalism’s narcissism.  Fish has as much reason to be a staple in Kerala’s diet as millets have in Rajasthan’s diet.

The cooking of fish in general isn’t all that complicated as in the case of karimmen pollichathu. But you will discover a special ingredient in most other fish curries: dried brindle berry, known as kudampuli in Malayalam. These add a delectable sourness to fish curry and make it typically Malayali.

One conspicuous fact is the glaring difference between Kerala’s style of cooking and North India’s. You get an entirely different flavour in Kerala. My personal preference is North Indian food whenever possible, veg or nonveg. All the North-Indian chauvinism that the present political dispensation imposes on the South hasn’t taken away that one taste of mine. 

Brindle berry

PS. This post is part of #BlogchatterFoodFest, a 5-part series.

Previous posts in the series:

1.     Sethi da Dhaba

2.     Dine in Eden