Hygiene a must in food industry

Hygiene a must in food industry

Last week my friend Dhanam came to visit me. She wanted to visit couple of temples in a village in her home town Paalakkad. We decided to make a day trip, as it is only about two hours drive from where I live.

One of the residents in the Home told me about a special idly that is available in a village called Ramasseri near Paalakkad. And also said so much is written about it in the internet. I googled and was impressed by the write up by Food writer, Author Ammini Ramachandran in her award winning website ‘peppertrail’. I made up my mind to test it out as it is only 8 kms from Paalakkad. I didn’t know on which side.

After visiting the temples, we asked the people there about this village famous for it’s idly. I was happy to know it was on our way back to Coimbatore. Though we had to ask for directions a number of times, I was surprised that everybody knew the place.

At last we came to the turn off from the main road to Ramasseri. The first person whom we asked said the place is about 2 km away. Yet we asked few more times and didn’t come across the place. There was no sign to say where we are headed. Then we came across a small tea shop. The driver got down and asked and was told this is ‘it’.

I was not impressed by the place. With what I have read in the website and my vivid imagination I had a different picture altogether.

The shop was non-descriptive and unclean. An untidy old man was sitting by the side of the door in the ‘cash counter’ with a big bowl of pakodas in front. I asked him again to make sure that this is ‘the’ Ramasseri idly place.

Unimpressed though I was I couldn’t resist going through it all the way. We were shown a table, a worn out wooden structure with benches on either side. I was happy we were given a fairly clean banana leaf. The waiter who took the order was very untidy. We asked for a set of two idlies each.

The idli was round and flat; it was fresh and hot; it was feather light; it was a delight to eat it. It was served with chatni and sambar and a chatni podi with coconut oil to mix. None of it had any special character.

We asked for the recipe and how it is made and we were told. I didn’t ask to go in and look at their actual kitchen to see the way it is made. I had thought of buying a whole lot of this unique idly to take it back to the Home to share with the rest of the residents there. But I changed my mind.

Having been associated with ‘Family business’ and ‘studied’ various success models I was disappointed with this (supposed to be a) 100-year-old business of a Mudaliar family.

We were told that the people from neighbouring towns arrive in this village very early in the morning to collect idlis to sell at their establishments, because they couldn’t master the technique of preparing this dish.

This family has been following the recipe handed down to them over generations. They are smart enough to follow the standard procedure without changing anything in all these years – using a special rice, maintaining the proportion of rice to black gram, the mud pot and the bamboo mould for steaming the idlies, the number of layers of idlies to be steamed at a time and even using the tamarind tree wood for heating to get the needed heat for the best result. The total process turns out perfect idlies. I was impressed.

But I was disappointed that in all these years, over the generations, they didn’t have somebody in the family who thought of ‘quality’ in other areas to make this business into a successful venture. And also an award winning best website on Indian cuisine didn’t think it is necessary to mention this aspect about the unit.

I was happy to read that the restaurant at Vivanta by Taj-Surya, at Coimbatore serves the Ramasseri Idli. I read that Ms. Selvarani, manning the counter, learnt the art of making these idlis from Ramasseri itself. Now, I feel, the idli has an ideal set up to take off on its own merit.