I come from a tiny beach town in Kerala, India, where I woke up to the sounds of church bells tolling and fishermen chanting folk songs as they pulled in the haul from fishing all night. Christianity has deeper roots in this part of South India than almost anywhere else in the world — the story goes that the apostle Thomas landed in Kerala in A.D. 52. My family pulled out all the stops at Christmas.
The festivities started weeks ahead of time. My amma and her kitchen crew (yup, Mom had a little crew) would spend weeks making sweet treats that would be given out as gifts to all our family and friends. For the month before Christmas, our home smelled like a bakery.
All through that week, my amma’s kitchen sent out a steady stream of our favorite foods — fried chicken, biriyani, and decadent desserts. Those meals are the best food memories of my life; no Michelin-star experience has ever compared to them.
The week of Christmas, my three brothers all had their birthdays, so it was an extra-special time in our home. It was feast for all the senses, with our Christmas tree decked out with ornaments and the sounds of Jim Reeves and Elvis Christmas records playing in the background. All through that week, my amma’s kitchen sent out a steady stream of our favorite foods — fried chicken, biryani, and decadent desserts. Those meals are the best food memories of my life; no Michelin-star experience has ever compared to them.
But the most special of all the meals took place after midnight mass, in the very early hours of Christmas morning, when we’d gather with my aunts, uncles, and cousins in my ammachi’s home, where my grandma had set a warming beef curry to braise before church. It was the family’s ancestral home, where my amma and my aunts and uncle grew up. Unlike our newer house with its modern kitchen, ammachi lived under a Spanish tile roof and cooked over firewood in seasoned clay pots.
I loved being in that kitchen more than any other, especially on those Christmas mornings, when the beef curry would come to the table. We’d sop up all of that piping-hot goodness with fresh appams while the grown-ups sipped homemade wine. The night would end with rum cake and trifle pudding.
Now, living in America, that place and time from my childhood is forever etched in my memories. I still make that beef curry for Christmas to this day — just ask my son, and he’ll tell you, “It’s not Christmas without Kerala beef curry and my ammachi’s appams.” It’s a tradition that will live on for generations.
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