South Indian Tamil Brahmin Cooking

South Indian tamil Brahmin cooking is purely vegetarian. A typical meal consists of more than a couple of vegetables and various Indian spices. Spices play an important role in the cooking -- and it has been like this for many hundreds of years. Recent scientific studies have revealed the important role these spices play in maintaining good health example Fenugreek as digestive aid, turmeric for its healing properties etc.

A typical Brahmin cooking will not include any onions and minimum or no garlic. In recent years though these two are being used for most of the brahmin recipes. There is a huge range of recipes -- brahmins have mastered the art of vegetarian cooking.

Brahmin Sambar
Plantain podimas
Beans Paruppu Uslil
Vathakulambu
Upma Kozhakatta
Puli Ponga
Aviyal
Kootu Varities
Brahmin rasam
Poriyal varities

Some of the popular tamil brahmin sweets are:

Sundal
Puttu
Kolakattai
Payasams

One quick note -- these dishes are not exclusively for brahmins alone but are mentioned in here because they are cooked quite often by brahmins.

For breakfast, some of the popular dishes are idli, dosa, adai and upma. Lunch and dinner is usually eaten with appalam. The meal is ended with curd rice (thair sadam). This cools the body and is good for digestion as well.

Some of the popular snacks are bonda, seedai, bhaji, sevu, murukku and pakarora. Tamil Brahmin Cooking is simple, yet delicious.

The offerings made to Gods and Goddesses are referred by Brahmins as Bakshanams. Here are some of the popular offerings:

Kolkatta
Muruku
Kesari
Pongal (sweet and not sweet version).