THE GREAT MADURAI FOOD TRAIL

Samar Halarnkar digs into the culinary delights of an ancient town

It is 9am on a balmy Sunday morning, and the worn, marble counter-tops of two gloomy dining rooms in Amsavalli Bhavan are beginning to fill up again. The 7am sitting for breakfast is over, and the cooks are preparing for the second. John Brito, a mathematics teacher, waits patiently – as he does every Sunday – for uthappam and aatu (goat) kidney curry.

“It’s very medicinal, very good for health,” says Brito, a genial man in a plain bush shirt and neat moustache. “And it’s very tasty.” In time, as the kidney and uthappam start to make their appearance, the restaurant starts to fill with women in silk sarees and men in lungis, their foreheads adorned with tripundra, three lines of holy ash. There is little conversation, as the faithful tear off large chunks of uthappam and soak it in a dark, thick curry made from coriander, cumin and hand-ground masalas.

Outside, on the dusty streets of Madurai – made dustier by chaotic excavation work for “smart city” projects – people wait in queues at the doors of what appear like ration shops for subsidised grain. I soon realise these are mutton shops, where every part of the goat is on sale, including the kidneys, liver, blood, spleen, brain, small intestines, testicles and penis.

These traditions are not unfamiliar to me, brought up as I was in a family that is willing to eat any of god’s creatures. Trotter soup, leftover keema, fish or mutton curry with dosa or bread were staple breakfasts for years. But I could not recall kidney curry for breakfast, brain and meat balls for lunch and intestine for dinner, which is what I had on just my first day in Madurai, not forgetting the side dishes of mutton biryani, quail and some chicken.