Mararikulam, Malabar Coast

 

Nestling amongst the palm trees, the fishing village of Mararikulam overlooks the white sands of the Malabar Coast; somewhere in the distance, the Indian Ocean becomes the Arabian Sea.

For millennia, merchants and invaders traversed these waters in search of riches. Harnessing the monsoon winds, the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama sailed the Sao’ Gabriel to the Malabar Coast at the end of the XV century, re-discovering the sea route that the Phoenicians, the Egyptians and the Romans had used before him to reach what the Arabs called the Pepper Coast.

In antiquity, spices played a key role in medicine, perfumery, as well as religious ritual. A favourite ingredient of the most refined Roman cookery, where it was used to flavour food and wine, pepper was an expensive commodity. In his Historia Naturalis, Pliny the Elder complained that: "there is no year in which India does not drain the Roman Empire of fifty million sesterces."

Over the centuries, along with the explorers came people of different creeds, amongst them Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Today, Keralan cuisine reflects this influx of traditions; unusually for India, beef is widely eaten, whilst a wide variety of seafood is cooked in fragrant, mouth-watering combinations of spices, and coconut milk.

With 36,000 square kilometres of marine water and 3600 square kilometres of inland water bodies - including 44 rivers, lakes, estuaries, Backwaters, canals and fish farms, Kerala is the largest fish landing state in India.