CONTINUED FROM The taste of home
Bio Basics
Agleaming steel dabba along with a plantain leaf pothi and the promise of a hearty Kerala lunch awaits. As I unbox, familiar aromas of Kerala matta (red rice) and pumpkin erissery fill my senses. What follows is a hearty lunch of red rice with mixed vegetables sambar, flavourful potato masala curry garnished with handpound garam masala, and a satisfying coconut
chammandi just like what is made back home. Dessert is the buttery pudding,
Kerala katti payasam made with Uma red rice, jaggery and organic ghee that comes ensconced in the plantain leaf.
The Kerala lunch, homedelivered on weekends by Bio Basics, an organic online retail store passionate about bringing diverse grains to families, is a peek into understanding a sustainable way of life that starts with eating organic meals. Says Sreedevi Lakshmi Kutty, cofounder, “We are curating 60 different traditional varieties of rice and 10 kinds of wheat. Kerala rice alone, we have seven different kinds like
thondi, kuruva sourced from Wayanad, Palakkad, and Kozhikode. We also have aromatic kandagasaalai, mullan kaima and
jeerakasala rices from Wayanad. We started sample lunches to friends and customers with Kerala dishes I am familiar with.”
For the Kerala experience, she combines sambar and avial or adds an olan, erissery or
kichicdi. “All the ingredients are available to order on Bio Basics. We also want to showcase that Kerala meals can be wholesome and tasty. We source handpounded garam masala in small batches, may be three to four kilos at a time from Gujarat that goes well with kootukari we have with the sadya,” explains Devi. When the raw mangoes arrive in summer, she uses pacha (raw)manga in avial and
chammandi while the ripe ones go into mango pachadi for every weekend meal.“It’s an effort to help people value quality ingredients. We have introduced features like rice selector on our website to help people choose. We pack the food in sustainable dabbas and take the effort of collecting it back by our inhouse delivery team.”
Looking back at her eightyearold journey, she recounts, people are aware, but often there is a kind of lapsing and it takes some time to get the momentum back. “We have to also encourage farmers and not keep jumping from one fad to another leaving them in dismay. Our parents and grandparents eat seasonal, local food. Why can’t we do the same?”
They need a minimum of five meals per order. The lunch is priced at ₹350 plus GST. Available only for Bio Basics customers in the city. Call or WhatsApp 9790516500 for details. Prebooking closes on Thursday.
K Jeshi