Chef Goku On The Lesser-Known Stories Of Tamil Nadu’s Food Traditions

Among the many buzzwords in India’s food space, one that has stayed far longer than any other is “regional cuisine.” Across the country, especially in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, it is served everywhere, from small, hole-in-the-wall eateries to fine-dining restaurants. It is a great start, but we must realise that we are only scratching the surface.

When we categorise a “South-Indian” eatery as one that promotes regional cuisine, we must realise that while it brings the food of another region to your plate, it strips away much of the nuance and diversity that truly define the cuisine of Southern India. Each state has great internal diversity in its regional culinary offerings. One such state that deserves closer attention is Tamil Nadu. Bringing the state’s regional dishes, ingredients, and stories to the fore is Chef Gokul Kumar Mohit (popularly named Chef Goku). Through Tamil Quarter, a Tamil food revival project and dining experience based in Chennai, Chef Kumar takes you on a journey through the layered tales, customs, and practices that define how Tamil Nadu eats.

Gearing up for a two-day pop-up at The Table in Mumbai, where Chef Kumar brings the cuisine of The Gulf of Mannar to Mumbai‘s tables on September 18 and 19, he spoke to us about his journey, his love for the cuisine, and the state he calls home. The pop-up is part of the second and unique edition of MSK’s culinary IP, Uncharted India, which explores India’s regional, hyper-local, and lesser-seen food traditions beyond the familiar.

When I asked Chef Kumar about the early years of his journey as a chef, he said, “My journey goes long back. It started when I was in school and only six years old. My parents were both working professionals, and when I returned from school, I rarely found food prepared. That’s when I started entering the kitchen and preparing my own lunch,” he said.

He finished his schooling in Chennai, then moved to the United States to earn a degree from the Culinary Institute of America in New York. After graduating, he worked in Michelin-starred restaurants in NYC, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Aureole, The Clocktower, Rezdora, Blackbird, and Junoon were some of the restaurants he worked at. “For most of my life, I was working in the States, but in 2019, I moved to India with a job offer from Copenhagen. But Covid hit, and I stayed here,” he added.

His stay here led him to believe that there was much more to learn about India’s food than by chasing a foreign cuisine. “I realised that I wouldn’t be able to excel in a cuisine I don’t belong to. That realisation became the force behind Tamil Quarter,” he added. Tamil Quarter is Kumar’s passion project in collaboration with Nirupama Reddy, aimed at preserving traditional recipes from Tamil and Tamil diaspora kitchens. “I could never make sense of India’s obsession with non-Indian ingredients. When I started research, I discovered the diversity and richness of our produce, and even when I was preparing Japanese or Korean food during our pop-ups, I ensured that I was using our own ingredients,” said Kumar.

When I asked him about his interest in Tamil diasporic cuisine, he mentioned how his maternal grandmother lived in Singapore, which influenced the food she prepared. “My mom’s cuisine was naturally influenced by her mother, and that led to having a tough time in school explaining why a certain dish and ingredient made its way to my tiffin box,” Kumar laughed. He also mentioned how it is difficult to understand Tamil food only in Tamil Nadu. “A look at the Tamil diaspora in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, Mauritius and even Pakistan gives you an understanding of how each community has carried recipes and traditions with it, and adapted them to local ingredients,” he added.

With Tamil Quarter, Chef Kumar also aims to bring the lesser-known recipes to people’s tables and awareness. “Among the masses, the knowledge of Tamil cuisine is often limited to idli, dosa, and appam, but there are recipes that have been passed down across generations, and my goal is for people to understand the diversity and depth of the cuisine,” he concluded.

Chef Kumar discussed the Gulf of Mannar, a highly biodiverse coastal region between India and Sri Lanka, and how it has become a hub for the extensive exchange of people, ingredients, and food traditions. “The interaction and exchange have existed since the Cholas but have intensified in recent years,” said Kumar.

One of the dishes he mentioned was the keerai masiyal (Tamil words for mashed spinach). “I picked it up from a lady who moved to the Mannar region after the Sri Lankan Civil War and had been living in the region for over 70 years,” said Kumar. The dish is traditionally an earthy side dish made by cooking spinach and dal. “In addition to those ingredients, the lady also added seaweed, which was available in abundance, and that for me was a sign of her ability to adapt and create with whatever was available to her,” he added. Seaweed cultivation has traditionally been limited to women, but most of the domestic harvest goes into the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, with only a small portion entering the food chain. However, local communities have their own ways of using it, including preparations like seaweed podi.

Talking more about ingredients, Chef Kumar spoke about how he was fascinated that something like sea urchins, which is considered a luxury in the rest of the world, was an everyday ingredient in India. “In all of Europe and the United States, the ingredient is placed alongside truffle and caviar in value. In India, we prepare it into a chutney called Sea Urchin Roe Thuvayal.”

Another ingredient deeply embedded in Tamil Culture is the pulp of the palmyra fruit. The tree grows in drier regions and is used almost entirely, from its roots and fruit to its leaves. The pulp of the overripe fruit, with its distinctive orange colour, is used in both sweet and savoury preparations, including in panangkali (a sweet pudding) and panipanattu (dried fruit leather), as well as various savoury cakes and fritters. There is also sumatikai, a small fruit from the Ramanathapuram region that resembles a tiny watermelon. It is a bitter fruit that grows in arid and dry coastal areas and is commonly pickled.

Talking about regions in Tamil Nadu rich in culinary traditions, Kumar, aside from the Gulf of Mannar, spoke about Kongunadu, which covers areas like Coimbatore and Salem and extends to the Kerala border. The food in the region is best known for its use of chillies and bold flavours.  One dish that particularly interested him is Kochai, which is prepared with fighting roosters that lose a fight. Cockfighting was traditionally practised in parts of the region, and when a fighting rooster could no longer fight—or had lost a fight—it would be cooked. Because these were older birds, the meat requires longer cooking, but it has an extraordinary depth of flavour and umami.

Another region he speaks about is Madurai. The ingredients and dishes he wishes to highlight are ayirameen, a tiny river fish, and a tamarind-based curry. The live fish are put into buttermilk and salt, and naturally allowed to die. They are then washed thoroughly before being cooked.

Madurai also has a tradition of cooking meats such as pigeon, rabbit, partridge, turkey and quail. One particularly important cultural meal is Kari Virundu, also known as Keda Virundu. Kari simply means meat—it is the word from which the British eventually derived the term “curry”—while keda refers to goat.

The meal is traditionally associated with occasions such as a groom’s first visit to the bride’s family. The idea is to use the entire goat, from the head and brain to the legs and blood, rather than waste any part of the animal.

According to Chef Goku, while the conversation around South Indian food is finally beginning to move beyond the familiar vocabulary of idli, dosa and banana-leaf meals, we are still only scratching the surface. “Social media and a growing interest in regional cuisines are helping these stories travel, but much remains undocumented, particularly beyond South India,” he concluded.