In Mamalassery, a quaint southern village in Kerala, a home on the banks of the Muvattupuzha river, capped by red tiles with walls painted in white and tangerine, has for nearly a century preserved an adukkala, a kitchen, where food is not just cooked, it is nurtured. “Within this home, the first matriarch presided over her family of ten... her helpers, all women, made halwa, dried mango thera and chakka kumbilappam wrapped in the leaf of a jackfruit tree, from scratch, endeavours that would take hours...” writes chef Tia Anasuya, in her just-released book, Adukkala: A Family Odyssey (R2,300), which draws upon memories and recipes from the kitchens of a generation of women who trace their roots to this house. 

Anasuya’s curiosity to stitch their stories together stemmed from a personal space—the Kerala home was a gift of her maternal lineage. Her grandmother, Ammu George, grew up in Mamalassery, where on the riverbank, they grew vegetables, like brinjal, chillies, long beans, pumpkins, okra, harvested coffee, and farmed their own fish in kolams (ponds). As a child, Bengaluru-based Anasuya remembers spending many summers in the ancestral home, but her connection with the adukkala would only grow on her during the pandemic. Having honed her culinary practice at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where she trained in traditional French cuisine, before stints at the famed Gaggan in Thailand, and other restaurant ventures in Dubai and Bengaluru, Anasuya found herself with her grandparents, early into COVID-19.