My mother is from a small place in Southern Tamil Nadu called Virudhunagar. While there are a lot of things to write about this small and sweet place which we used to visit almost every summer, this post is dedicated to the food habits and food names given there.
1. I am sure you have heard about the dish “idiyappam”. Idiyappam is a string hopper dish that is made from rice flour and water. While the procedure to make it is the same in Virudhunagar as in other places, it is known by a different name here.
Many find it funny that it is actually known by this name here. But the reality is idiyappam is known as “poochi” here. ‘Poochi’ in Tamil means insect and that is exactly what “idiyappam” is called here(ha, ha….I don’t why though…)When we were young and even after we turned older, my mother would always refer to it as ‘Poochi, sappudureeya?’ 😉 (“Do you want to eat “poochi”?)
Now, isn’t that cute? 😉
2. You will notice another innocent dinner if you are Virudhunagar vegetarian family of those days. This dinner is nothing extravagant, but white rice, milk and if it is mango season, there will be mango on the side. This is known as “paal sadam and mambazham”. I remember my maternal grandfather having this every night. This was the nothing fancy but a simple meal at 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. every night. Wasn’t this cute too? 😉
3. This third type of food variation might be known to many…but did you know people from Virudhunagar have poori in a particular way? They take poori, pour milk on it and add some sugar to it and have it that way. This is known as ‘paal puri’. This is normally had after regular puri with yummy potato curry. It is like a dessert after having a proper poori dish. Have you heard of this way of having poori? My mother always had this and I always liked it even though none of us picked up that habit.
These are some sweet habits that my parents and grand parents adopted in their food habits…have you heard of any of these before? What do you think?
This post is for BlogchatterA2Z 2025!
Poochi? That’s interesting! In Malaysia and Singapore, they call this dish putu-mayam.
Rice with milk + mango? That’s new to me. At home, we usually have curd+rice+mango together. After all, mango goes well with almost anything! If you ever visit Thailand, try their mango sticky rice-it’s quite similar to our version. Btw, mention about the names of mango varieties available in Virudhunagar.
Pal poori? I haven’t heard of that before. But I do remember tasting something called ‘pal bun’ back in my school days. It was a sugar-coated puri, and I loved it!
getting to know new things and stories about food from various places is always heartwarming. i am from Madhya Pradesh, and though it is very different, the 3rd one sounds so similar to having poori with kheer during navratri bhoj, completely different textures and style, but similarity in flavors for sure i feel.
Wow… that sounds like a fun food too! 😃