In the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, Christmas celebration is incomplete without mundhiri kothu and vivikkam – two traditional sweets with names that may sound strange to others.
The aroma of jaggery syrup and roasted gram being ground with cardamom heighten the Christmas excitement for many in southern Tamil Nadu.
For it surely means that people are preparing mundhiri kothu – a standard Christmas goody for families in the southern districts of Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari. The very name sounds strange to most people in the rest of the state.
“Mundhiri kothu? I know mundhiri means cashew. Is it a bunch of cashew fruits?” asked Kevin Samuel, a college student, when he heard the name for the first time.
Though such is the reaction of many, for those in the southern districts, Christmas is incomplete without this sweet.
People in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu appear to celebrate Christmas with more enthusiasm, as the region had many Christian missionaries during the British rule. But the celebrations are rooted in tradition, especially when it comes to food which is specific to the region.
G Benitha, who works in a college, recalled the rhythmic crunching sound of roasted green gram being ground manually in a mortar and pestle when she was a school kid.
“We kids were banished from the kitchen to avoid any mishaps since the powdered green gram was rolled into balls by pouring hot jaggery syrup,” said Benitha.
Traditionally three balls are dunked together in a thin batter and fried in oil. But single-ball mundhiri kothu is also common nowadays.
Frederick Devadoss, a retired teacher in his 80s, too recalled his childhood days when his mother ground gram manually. Though it is no longer done manually, the mildly sweet snack is a must for almost everyone during Christmas.
Known by many names – achu murukku, achappam, rose cookies, kokees, kokkus and kokkusam – this crispy snack is a regular during Christmas in Sheela Varghese’s family.
It may be available in other parts of Tamil Nadu now, but is more popular in the southern districts and especially made during Christmas.
This snack is made by dipping a rosette mould in a thin batter of egg, coconut milk, powdered sugar and rice flour and then dipping it in hot oil for a few minutes.
Benitha recalled having an achu murukku eating race with her cousins.
“We’d break the ‘petals’ of the achu murukku, place one in each of our fingers and see who’d finish eating first,” she told Village Square.
Having learnt of it, the next generation like Esther Cheryl Juliana, a college student, likes to carry on the fun.
For the children, Christmas snacks also means fun in lending a hand in the preparation.
Devadoss recollected his brother delightfully helping their mother work the mortar and pestle to grind the mundhiri kothu maavu.
Invariably, everyone eats the balls before they are coated and fried.
The same holds true for kala kala. A simple snack made with wheat flour and sugar – with or without eggs – kala kala, also known as diamond cuts if rhombus shaped, continues to be a Christmas favourite for C Peppity right from her childhood days. She makes them now for her children.
“My sisters and I would sit around my mother and in the pretext of helping her we’d eat at least a quarter of the dough,” she said.
The women admitted sheepishly that even today when they make kala kala for their children they eat the sweet raw dough.
Here again, young or old, people have the tendency to pop the raw kala kala into their mouth while making the snack.
“That’s because the dough in itself is tasty and it’s fun,” said Samuel, who ‘helps’ in the preparation.
For Rajiv Henry, retired from a religious institution, childhood Christmas meant susiyam for breakfast.
A bit like mundhiri kothu, but made with Bengal gram dhal, susiyam can be had as breakfast as well as a snack.
A similar two-in-one treat is the vivikkam. It is steamed in an idli mould, but with a slightly different batter made from raw rice, sugar, cashews and raisins. But people from the region will take offence, if at all one refers to it as sweet idli.
“It’s different. You’ll know when you taste it,” they say.
The dough is left overnight for fermenting and doesn’t need other preparation or chutney to go with it. Following the traditional method, some people still add toddy to aid in the fermentation.
For Samuel, vivikkam is a Christmas favourite. For those who return from the early morning Christmas service at church, this is an easy-to-make breakfast.
“You can just take a soft and fluffy vivikkam and bite into it. It’s an anytime, any-place Christmas treat,” said Samuel.
For Rajiv Henry, mundhiri kothu and kala kala are childhood memories of Christmas.
Those who have moved to the cities find it difficult to make some of these traditional treats at home for want of time. Yet Christmas feels incomplete without these sweets.
To cater to the longings of such people who have migrated, a couple of shops take online orders and ship the Christmas goodies.
J Franklin of Colachel in Kanniyakumari district runs the Kanniyakumari Kadai and sends traditional sweets across Tamil Nadu and a few other cities like Bengaluru.
“During Christmas mundhiri kothu, achu murukku and kai murukku are the most in demand,” said Franklin.
Subbulakshmi Chidambaram of Mittai Kadai echoes him.
“People from the southern districts settled in other places buy from us,” she said. “Recently we shipped traditional Christmas sweets to Assam and even to Ladakh.”
Given such popularity, mundhiri kothu, vivikkam and the like, will no longer be strange names to people not only in the rest of Tamil Nadu but in the rest of India as well.
The lead image shows a plate of vivikkam, a Christmas goody that can be had as breakfast or as a snack (Photo by Kevin Samuel)
Jency Samuel is a journalist and civil engineer based in Chennai.
