Traditional recipes

A tangy fish curry of tamarind, shallots and roasted spices, cooked in clay pots in Puducherry's fishing villages.

A mild Creole curry of meat, chicken or fish in coconut milk with turmeric, ginger and green chilli, from Puducherry's Franco-Tamil families.

Sun-dried balls of shallots, garlic, mustard and curry leaves that flavour curries and tempering in Tamil and Puducherry kitchens.

Prawns cooked down in a thick, spicy masala of shallots, tomato and pepper until the gravy clings to them.

Mud crabs cooked in a peppery masala of roasted coconut, shallots and spices.

Small anchovies coated in chilli and rice flour and fried crisp, eaten with rice and rasam.

Thick slices of seer or pomfret marinated in a red masala and pan-fried, a staple of the Karaikal coast.

Ripe plantain mashed and stuffed with sweetened egg or coconut, shaped like a pod and fried, a snack of Mahe and Malabar.

Green mussels from the Malabar coast tossed in a dry masala of chilli, pepper, shallots and coconut oil.

A tamarind-based curry of pulasa (hilsa) fish from the Godavari, cooked slowly in a clay pot in Yanam and nearby towns.

A cooling, lightly fermented porridge of finger millet and broken rice, served with buttermilk, shallots and green chillies.

Boiled chickpeas tempered with mustard, curry leaves and grated coconut, sold in paper cones on Puducherry's beach and made for Navaratri.

Steamed nests of fine rice-flour noodles, eaten for breakfast with sweetened coconut milk or a curry.

Steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with coconut and jaggery, offered to Lord Vinayagar (Ganesha) on Vinayaka Chathurthi.

A sweet, sour, bitter and hot relish of raw mango, jaggery and neem flowers, made for the Tamil New Year.

A cooling drink of jaggery water with dry ginger, cardamom and lemon, offered on Rama Navami.

Lemon pieces pickled with chilli, fenugreek and gingelly oil, a standard partner for curd rice.