Foodie Bourdain gets taste of Kerala cuisine

Anthony Bourdain, the award-winning US author, chef and host of the culinary and cultural adventure programme, was in the state recently checking out the state’s unique cuisine and taste buds.

Bourdain visits overseas countries and cities worldwide, where hosts treat him to local culture and cuisine. Superstar Mammootty was his celebrity host in Kerala, where he was served the spicy Kuttanadan fish curry and puttu or steam cakes.

Food outlets
Known for consuming exotic and daring ethnic dishes, Bourdain is famous for eating ant eggs in Mexico, sheep testicles in Morocco and a whole cobra in Vietnam. According to Bourdain, the most disgusting thing he has ever eaten is a Chicken McNugget and was pleased to note that there were no western fast food outlets in Kerala.
Kerala Tourism officials who accompanied him said the intrepid food explorer who has visited nearly 90 countries has come to love the rich culture, history and cuisine of India.
For the Kerala episode, he travelled to Alappuzha and Kuttanad sampling the backwaters cuisine. He experienced the hospitality of a local boatman and his family where he tried mussels and “kappa,” a Kerala “sadya” at another family home and spicy “karimeen” and prawns at a toddy shop.

Home-cooked
Bourdain also visited Mammootty on the sets of his film Pokkiri Raja where he enjoyed home-cooked puttu and fish curry with the superstar.
“By showcasing authentic Kerala food in the homes of ordinary people, Bourdain is also reaffirming that delicious food and hospitality is not just special to upscale restaurants and hotels, but is something that is customary throughout Kerala,” said Tourism Secretary V Venu.

The special episode in Beirut where Bourdain and his crew were trapped for a week due to the Lebanon war was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Programming in 2007 and in 2009, the series won the Emmy for “Outstanding Cinematography For Non-fiction Programming.”
DH News Service