If there is one thing you learn quickly while eating your way through Kerala, it is that the food changes as quickly as the landscape. Travel north and Malabar brings its layered pathiris, seafood, biriyanis and snacks. Move towards central Kerala and the food becomes a meeting point of Syrian Christian, backwater and Travancore traditions. Head south and there are still more combinations of seafood, meat, rice and coconut to work your way through.
Start in Kasaragod and work your way down through the Malabar coast, where the snack counter deserves as much attention as the main meal. Unnakkaya, a sweet filling of coconut, sugar and nuts wrapped in mashed ripe banana and fried, is one to look for. So are kallummakkaya nirachath, stuffed mussels, kinnathappam, fish or prawn ada and irachipathal. Kozhikode and Kannur are particularly good territory for these Malabar favourites. The region is also known for its biriyani, pathiri, ghee rice and meat-heavy cooking, shaped by centuries of Arab, Zamorin and other cultural influences.
Kozhikode is where you should make room for two things that require absolutely no persuasion: biriyani and halwa. The city's halwa comes in its familiar glossy, dense form, while seafood is everywhere. Kallummakkaya ularthiyath, a spicy stir-fry of mussels, is another local favourite. In Kannur and Thalassery, look for Thalassery biriyani, with its distinctive short-grained rice, alongside snacks such as unnakkaya and pathiri.
Then there are the things you can eat almost anywhere in Kerala but should really try here: pazham pori, unniyappam, neyyappam, vattayappam, achappam, Kerala banana chips and sharkara varatti. If you see black halwa, buy some. Better still, make time for an evening tea and a plate of snacks. Kerala's tea-and-snack culture is a meal in itself.
As you move into central Kerala, the food gets wonderfully comforting. Kottayam is a good place to seek out the deep red, spicy Kottayam-style fish curry, usually cooked with kudampuli, alongside beef fry. In Ernakulam and Angamaly, look for pork cooked with koorka or other starchy vegetables. This is particularly associated with Christian home cooking, where pork or beef is paired with breadfruit, Chinese potato or raw banana so the vegetable absorbs all those meaty, spiced juices. It is the sort of food that rarely needs an elaborate introduction.
Alappuzha brings the backwaters to the plate. Duck curry, seafood and Kuttanadan preparations are worth seeking out, particularly if you find yourself at a local toddy shop. Kerala's toddy-shop food deserves its own detour: think fish, meat, tapioca and deeply flavoured curries designed to be eaten with your hands.
For breakfast, do not leave without trying puttu and kadala curry. Better yet, treat puttu as a blank canvas. It works with cherupayar curry, egg roast, papad and banana, and it can happily accommodate a non-vegetarian curry too. Idiyappam is another essential, particularly with egg curry or a coconut-milk-rich stew. Appam with vegetable or chicken stew is another combination worth lingering over. Coconut is central to much of this cooking, appearing in everything from creamy stews to roasted coconut masalas and fish curries.
In Pathanamthitta, plan around an Aranmula Vallasadya if your trip coincides with it. Held at the Sree Parthasarathy Temple, the ritual feast is famous for its extraordinary spread of traditional vegetarian dishes and its connection with the snake-boat crews. More than 60 dishes can make their way onto the banana leaf, with the oarsmen traditionally requesting dishes through Vanchipattu.
And then, finally, Thiruvananthapuram. Eat the sadya. Eat it properly, on a banana leaf, and do not rush. There will be rice, parippu, sambar, avial, thoran, olan, pickles, chips, pappadam and, if you are lucky, several payasams. Palada, pal payasam and parippu payasam are all worth trying, as is the combination of boli with payasam. Sadya is traditionally a vegetarian feast served as a sequence of dishes, with payasam among its most anticipated endings.
But save one more meal for the south. Try Vizhinjam chicken fry with porotta, mutton perattu or nadan chicken perattu. If you find a good karimeen pollichath, order it. And if a roadside stall offers kappa biriyani, go for it. Kerala's cuisine is not one neat regional story. It is a long, delicious road trip, and the best way to understand it is to keep eating.
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