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| Marina Balakrishnan’s sadya meal |
Marina Balakrishnan went to NYC at the age of 50, at her daughter’s goading, to learn to be a chef. The love for food in her was instilled much earlier though. In her grandmom’s kitchen in Thallasery in Kerala, to be precise.
‘Remember that the food you cook will nourish someone,’ were the words from her grandmother that got engraved in little Marina’s heart back then and has guided her since.
‘Remember that the food you cook will nourish someone,’ were the words from her grandmother that got engraved in little Marina’s heart back then and has guided her since.
Marina returned to India after completing her course in NYC and then, once again spurred by her daughter, went to work in chef Garima Arora’s restaurant, Gaa, in Bangkok to gain experience. Seeing Marina’s passion for Keralite food and excellence in cooking it, chef Garima suggested that this is what Marina should focus on. That this is what she was meant to do. What the world was waiting for.
Marina came back to Mumbai with plans of opening a small restaurant, when the Covid pandemic struck. Marina was a woman on a mission and was not to be deterred. She launched Oottupura, which means food served in temples. Her home chef enterprise, where she cooks Malayali vegetarian food, based on memories of her childhood and buttressed by her training as a chef, and offers limited number of these meals by pre-order every Sunday. She announces these meals on her Instagram site @thatthalasserygirl and the menu is sold out within seconds. No surprises there, given the excellent quality of her food. Her offer is novel too.
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| Packaging shows the day |
She does everything herself to create a bubble of safety around her food. Conceptualising the menu, sourcing ingredients (many of which come from Kerala), cleaning, chopping, cooking, packing, writing notes to explain the food and then sending it across.
While Mumbai does have a few popular Keralite restaurants which were set up in the years following India’s independence, those were meant to feed the city’s working bees and the food there is spicy, hearty and non-vegetarian dominated.
The tone and tenor of Marina’s food, which is pure vegetarian, is more intimate, warm and pure in contrast, for that is what home chefs bring to the table.
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| What a lovely meal |
I had the good fortune of sampling one of her early meals and was won over by the serenity of the food. This video is from when I got to sample her sadya (festive meal) recently. While meant for a festive occasion, it was not over the top at all unlike what one associates with festivities. Demure, divine and delicate is how I would sum it up.
The way Marina’s grandmom would have wanted it to be.
The way Marina’s grandmom would have wanted it to be.
Do watch the video where I speak about the meal and please subscribe to the channel:
I had interviewed Marina for #foodocracyforher and you can watch her tell her story over here.
This is Marina’s Instagram handle for orders.
