3 Postpartum Delicacies from Kerala

Sneha Shekhar shares recipes and ingredients that traditional culinary culture recommends for the health, wellbeing and recovery of a new mother and baby, in the first 40 days postpartum.

A note to the uninitiated: In the first 40-90 days after the birth, it is recommended. that the new mother take time to to heal, rest and rejuvenate after the gargantuan physical cost of labour, and to fortify her body in preparation for the physical demands of the months to come.

In many ways, this is a concept only in theory, given how often the baby (and mother herself!) must be fed. Add that to the massages and other rituals on the New-Mother-Must-Do list, and 2 to 3 hours of undisturbed sleep is a dream. What saved me was finding new meaning in the phrase “When you become a mother, you have to eat for two people.” Statistically, this does not make sense, since a baby on average weighs less than 10% of the mother. I now know they weren’t talking about quantity; it was always quality that mattered.

Months before the baby arrived, my 80-year old grandmother put herself in charge of my post-delivery food routine. My mother did not have enough experience, she announced, having had only one child. Grandmothers are resilient like that — capable of summoning strength and stamina at will, from that inexhaustible treasure trove of love and that lives within them. She would churn out dish after dish of varying taste and texture through all hours of the day. I was intrigued, first with the extent of preparation, and then with the plethora of ingredients that went into each dish.

Mornings started small — and by small, I mean with a small peg of brandy. I know, I was shocked too! But apparently, 30 ml of brandy on an empty stomach helps the stomach regain its shape. Then, it was a plate of steaming hot rice, heavily flavoured with crushed garlic and a handful of drumstick or moringa leaves. Garlic is great for the immune system, and moringa leaves are a powerhouse of vitamins and minerals that help prevent infection, and supply the body with plenty of antioxidants.

Recipe: Muringa ila choru (Rice with Moringa leaves)

Ingredients
1 handful of drumstick leaves
½ cup boiled rice (preferably the Matta variety)
10 cloves garlic
10 shallots
¼ tsp turmeric
¾ tsp pepper
¼ tsp cumin powder
1 tbsp ghee
1 tbsp gingelly oil
Salt, to taste

Method
Coarsely crush the garlic and small onions. Wash the leaves thoroughly, and pat dry.
Heat oil in an iron pan/kadhai. Once hot, add the crushed garlic and small onions and sauté until brown.
Add turmeric, pepper and cumin, fry until it smells done.
Add the cooked rice and ghee, and mix well
Once done, add the moringa leaves, give a quick stir. Turn off the stove and cover the pot with a lid.
The leaves will cook in the heat of the rice, and become soft. Do not let the leaves become crisp, only soft, to maximise on nutritional value.

Pro tip: Ensure equal quantities of ghee and gingelly oil. Gingelly oil is highly recommended for most post-delivery dishes thanks to powerful anti-oxidant properties.

Lunch is usually a low-carb-high-protein affair. The jeeraka kozhi varattiyadhu is another signature dish in Kerala, during the post-partum period. This wildly aromatic dish has come to represent the homes of new mothers (milk and baby products notwithstanding) and is made every three or four days during the first 28 days. I have vivid memories of visiting aunts and cousins in Kerala to see their newborn babies, and being completely enchanted by this smell. To make this dish, the chicken has to be no more than 6 weeks old, and preferably of the indigenous (and most nutritious) black-hen variety. Most sellers in Kerala instantly recognise the variety as jeerakakozhi. You will find that flesh is scarce and it mostly consists of bone, but fret not — the flavour of well-roasted spices makes up for all the time spent chewing.   

Recipe: Jeeraka kozhi varattiyadhu (Medicinal chicken roast)

Ingredients
1 young chicken, 40-45 days old
2 tsp pepper
½ tsp cumin powder
¼ tsp turmeric
100 g ginger
100g garlic
6 shallots
3 tbsp ghee
3 tbsp gingelly oil
Salt, to taste

Method
Coarsely crush the ginger and garlic to make a paste.
Clean the chicken pieces well. Toss with turmeric and poach the chicken in a little water. Set aside.
Heat oil in a kadhai. Add the shallots and saute till brown.
Add in the ginger garlic paste and salt. Fry for 3-4 minutes.
Add in the cooked chicken with broth. Stir well with ghee, until crisp.

This method is a more modern version. In older times, the dish was prepared by grinding the raw chicken (bones and all) with turmeric, in a mortar. Once ground to a fine paste, it is added to the sautéed onions along with crushed ginger and garlic, and slow cooked in the kadhai itself. This ensures that all the goodness of the dish finds its way into the mother’s body. Crude perhaps, but effective!

Additionally, it is recommended that a new mother consume a full lamb within the first 56 days post-partum, as each part of the lamb nourishes the corresponding part of a mother’s body. The brain, liver, intestine, legs and spine are the big stars.

The legs and spine (or backbone) are usually cooked in soup. The meat is thoroughly cleaned and washed, then cooked in a pressure cooker with turmeric, pepper, cumin, ginger, garlic, small onions and salt. Since the pieces consist primarily of bone, it is cooked for about 12 to 15 whistles to ensure that the flavour and benefits of bone marrow combine fully with the other ingredients. Once done, it is garnished with fried shallots (optional, but heavenly), fresh curry leaves and coriander leaves, served hot. Some prefer to have only the clear soup, but my grandmother recommends biting through the bone as well. Yes, it requires skill and patience, but so does parenting.

The brain, liver and intestine — each with distinct flavour and texture, are cooked individually, and not together — as dry-roasts, in a fashion similar to jeeraka kozhi.

A third dish exclusively made during the post-delivery phase is the Ulli Lehyam. Lehyam in Ayurvedic terms, means jam. And this unassuming dish is the matriarch of all post-delivery foods, for the production of breast-milk. At the heart of most post-delivery care foods is the ulli lehyam — shallots (ulli) and garlic are cooked down slowly, until a thick, concentrated jam-like consistency is formed. This is a time-consuming dish with lots of stirring involved. Luckily for us, it can be refrigerated and stored for a couple days. It is recommended to consume 1 tablespoon of lehyam twice a day – in the morning and evening. 

Recipe: Ulli lehyam (Onion Lehyam)

Ingredients
100 g shallots
100g garlic
100g palm jaggery
¾ cup thick coconut milk
½ cup water
½ tsp pepper
¼ tsp cumin powder
1 tbsp ajwain powder
150-200 g ghee

Method
Coarsely crush the garlic and small onions. Cook in coconut milk until soft and thick.
Once cooked, allow to cool, then grind it to a fine paste. Set aside.
Make a syrup by boiling the jaggery in half a cup of water.
Once the jaggery has dissolved completely in the water, add the onion-garlic paste to the syrup.
Add pepper, cumin and ajwain, and mix well.
Add ghee and stir continuously, until the mixture develops a halwa-like consistency. Now, allow to cool. The lehyam can be stored in the refrigerator for a maximum of two weeks.

Those early weeks are crucial, and food plays a special role. Each ingredient is chosen for its benefits to the body, and then cooked in a way that maximizes its potential. Therefore, some dishes are best prepared as soups, while others are dry roasted. Fresh meat is used for some, while dried meat is used in others. My favorite example of dried meat is paal sraavu fish – a kind of shark.  The dried (karuvadu) shark is cooked either as a pickle, fried with small onions, or in a mildly tangy gravy. It is eaten to promote the secretion of breast milk, and is highly recommended especially during the initial weeks after delivery.

A perfect balance of these ingredients and dishes not only marries nutrition and flavour, but also goes a long way in fortifying the body for the long term. For the baby, those early months are not very different from life within the womb; the mother remains the primary (and often, exclusive) source of food and nutrition. So great care is taken to ensure a constant and nutrient-rich supply of milk.

I will agree that this can all be very overwhelming; some dishes and flavours do take some getting used to. As for the advantages, they aren’t visible overnight. But a few weeks and several tantrums later, you will notice subtle changes. You are able to sit straight for longer periods; the stairs don’t take your breath away like they used to; and the person in the mirror begins to look like you again. You may not pay attention to it at first, but when you do, acknowledge the magic that food has worked silently in the background as you healed and became a mother.

Banner image credit: Great Secret of Life 

Sneha Gunashekharan is a writer from Kerala, now based out of Bangalore. Good books and great food make her happiest, but a recent contender has been added to her list of favorites: her son, Rudra who is now 1.5 years old.

ALSO ON THE GOYA JOURNAL