The fire in a Chettiar kitchen, it is said, never dies. Long after the last meal of the day, embers smoulder quietly, waiting to be stoked again at dawn. That small flame tells you everything about what food means to the Chettiars—a community whose cuisine is at once rooted in tradition and enriched by the world.
I was reminded of this when I found myself in Karaikudi, on the final day of Suvai, a three-day Chettinad food trail hosted by The Lotus Palace. The highlight was a conversation between culinary custodian Meenakshi Meyyammai and historian V. Sriram, which held the audience spellbound for over an hour.
“Chettiars are a unique community. They have been able to strike the right balance of being cosmopolitan and conservative,” Meyyammai remarked. Co-author of The Chettinad Cookbook with her sister, Vishalakshi Ramaswamy, she is among the few who preserve Chettinad cuisine in its most authentic form.
Sriram traced the arc of their history. The Chettiars were once wealthy traders who sailed across South and South-East Asia, doing business in Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, and beyond. They brought back not just fortune but also ideas, practices, and ingredients that seeped into their homes and kitchens. “Their culture was never harmed, compromised, or degraded in that process,” Meyyammai added with quiet pride.
That duality (open to the world, yet deeply protective of tradition) is best seen on the Chettiar table. The cosmopolitan nature of their cuisine is reflected not only in its ingredients and dishes but also in the way food is stored, preserved, and served. From sun-dried meat carried on long voyages to Rangoon puttu named after Yangon, Chettinad cuisine is a living archive of migration and memory.
As I journeyed through Karaikudi, I set out to explore how this cuisine became a rare cultural phenomenon.
Who Are The Chettiars?
The story of the Nagarathars, also known as the Nattukottai Chettiars, begins on the eastern coast of India in Kaveri Poompattinam, the bustling port city of the Chola kingdom. “It was for a mysterious reason in the 5th century that they abandoned the land, possibly in the face of a tsunami, and moved inwards,” explained historian V. Sriram. Haunted by that collective memory of water’s rage, the community chose to settle in an arid, infertile region—a decision that shaped their future. Like the Marwadis of Rajasthan, another community born of dry land, the Chettiars turned outward, venturing across seas in search of fortune, only to return and invest in their homeland.
Over the centuries, their voyages took them to Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, Vietnam, and even parts of Europe, often alongside the Cholas and later under the British. They became trusted financiers and intermediaries for empires, building wealth and influence through networks that spanned continents. But the Second World War disrupted those global connections, forcing many to return home.
Today, the Chettiars are spread across 90 villages, numbering over a lakh people. While outsiders often associate them with the grandeur of their mansions and the fiery flavours of Chettinad cuisine, their legacy goes much further. They were patrons of music and dance, nurtured Tamil literature, invested in education, and even helped shape the early Tamil film industry. Theirs is a community whose influence reached far beyond the dining table, leaving behind a cultural imprint as rich as their cuisine.
What Does Food Mean To The Chettiars?
Among the Chettiars, hospitality is a way of life. No one who arrives at their doorstep ever leaves hungry. “The first people we serve are the drivers who bring our guests home,” said Meyyammai with a smile. “That spirit of generosity is intrinsic to our culture,” added historian V. Sriram.
In their daily lives, the Chettiars are known for their simplicity and thrift. But during weddings and festivals, restraint gives way to splendour. “Weddings mean everything to the Chettiars,” Sriram explained. “They are occasions to put forth the very best, for they carry immense social significance.” Some wedding feasts feature as many as 21 dishes. Yet, a few staples are non-negotiable: idlis, vadas, paniyarams, vegetable samosas, and kalkandu vadai—a sweet, jewel-like fritter that no Chettiar celebration is complete without.
Although often perceived as a largely non-vegetarian community, the Chettiars observe a weekly vegetarian day; a practice linked to their deep religious affiliations. Divided into nine clans, each aligned with a particular temple, the community designates its vegetarian day based on those loyalties, creating a rhythm where ritual shapes the table.
Practicality also defines their kitchens. In an era when weekly markets (or shanties) were the only source of fresh produce, households had to make ingredients last. “We could only use fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat for the first half of the week,” recalled Meyyammai. “By the end, we relied on dried meat and dried, salted jackfruit and mango fritters called vatta.”
This tradition of drying, salting, and preserving became a hallmark of Chettinad cooking. Among the most distinctive examples is uppukandam—sun-dried, salted meat so tough it can last for months. Chettiar men carried it on their trading voyages, rehydrating the meat to prepare meals far from home. In every bite of such preserved fare lies a story of survival, thrift, and the ingenious ways the community adapted to both scarcity and travel.
The Chettinad Cuisine: A Hotpot Of Various Cultures
The Chettiars were consummate travellers and traders, their networks stretching across India and far beyond. From each journey, they returned not just with wealth but with ideas, objects, and flavours that enriched life back home. Over time, their cuisine became a reflection of this cosmopolitan spirit, shaped most strongly by travels through Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
One such legacy is kavuni arisi, or black rice, carried back from South-East Asia. In Chettinad kitchens, it found new expressions—transformed into a gooey halwa served at breakfast or into a creamy payasam for dinner. Another favourite, Rangoon puttu—made with semolina, coconut, and jaggery—owes both its name and inspiration to Rangoon (now Yangon).
The borrowing was not limited to ingredients. The Chettiars also adopted storage traditions from abroad: lacquerware from Burma, enamelware from Singapore and China, even containers known as peepas—derived from the Portuguese peeps, once used to store liquor. These held tamarind, red chillies, and salt, staples of the Chettinad pantry.
Yet, for all their openness, the Chettiars were careful never to lose themselves in the process. “We opened ourselves to the best of every country and culture,” Meyyammai reflected, “but it was never at the cost of our own beautiful traditions.”
