Badaga fish fry: An unforgettable taste of the Nilgiri Hills

The moment I entered the restaurant, the smell of food and positive energy radiated all around. Glancing behind, I noticed Sudeep, the young and handsome general manager for the first time. From the Badaga community in the Nilgiris, he was not only a great cook like his wife, but researched a lot on heritage food. He showed me pictures of paintings by his eight-year-old son, by which I was very impressed. Any creative art is a rare gift, and the artists I was meeting were not only very talented, but also loved good, creative food. I decided to order a Badaga community’s dish. Many lost dishes are being revived by heritage food enthusiasts like Sudeep and I. Chef Subash was quick to understand what exactly I wanted and decided to cook it.

The blue mountains have been home to a vast cross culture of people, different communities like the Todas and Badagas. Until the tea plantations were started and the British made the region into one of the summer resort capitals and a home for military officers’ training, it remained a peaceful land with untouched forests, lush and rich with locals growing millets, vegetables, fruits and spices like cardamom and pepper. Samai ragi, barley, wheat and vatham were also grown before the British came in, and English vegetables like carrots, beans, beets, etc., started being cultivated. And, before the British-owned tea and coffee plantations were developed, the dominant landholders were said to have been the Badagas, who are supposed to have lived in the Nilgiris since thousands of years ago. Though their language spoken, also called Badaga, is very close to Kannada, it is a mixture of almost all Dravidian languages and yet unique. Badagas are said to be land owners in almost all taluks of the district, making land a major resource among the members of the community. All this and more was what I had learnt from Sudeep, besides the community’s famous dishes and eating habits.

He explained that millets were very popular and the community cooked it traditionally in a mud pot known as madake over a fireplace. Some of the special dishes include thuppadittu and ottu kudi curry, avaray with gaasu udhakka (beans with potato curry), Badagaru koi udaka (Badaga chicken curry), Kodaga udaka maasu hudi (fish fry) and thuppadhittu (enne hittu), a sweet dish.

My friends were looking forward to the fish curry and the fried fish, and seeing them devour it was proof enough of its taste. The dish must be tried by all fish lovers.