When you step into a toddy shop (or kallu shaap as they are locally known) in Kerala or Tamil Nadu, these small establishments, with a handful of tables and chairs in dimly lit premises seem unassuming and almost shady, at first. Predominantly frequented by men through the day for a drink of fizzy, sweet palm toddy and small plates of food, these shops cast a lens on one of the most important culinary traditions associated with drinking, around the world – bar nibbles. Touchings, the term used to describe small plates of food in these southern states, are essentially snacks or mini meals that are robustly spicy and intensely flavoured. It derives its name from the action where dabbing a finger into a bowl of lime pickle and smearing it on the tongue was referred to as touching something. Typically consisting of deep-fried food or heavily spiced peanuts, pulses, vegetables, meat, eggs or fish, touchings are made fresh every single day in limited quantities and with produce that is locally available.
“The very word ‘touchings’ is not a local idea, so to speak,” says J. Devika, a professor and culture historian from the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram. She elaborates that, during the early days, toddy would be drunk in non-Brahminical homes every afternoon by the poor during lunch. “Touchings came about more recently with distilled arak. Arak is strong and you need to have something along with it to balance pungent flavours. When you could visit places that served country arak in Kerala before it was banned, it was always accompanied by fried, spicy meat-based dishes. Because arak also has the tendency to numb your tastebuds, you also need to rouse them a little bit. There was a time when factory workers would pay regular visits to toddy shops after work hours, where they could both eat and drink. It was usually good to have a full stomach while drinking and that percolated in some silent way to emerge as touchings.”
Image Credits: Migrationology. In Pic: Meat Fry
During the course of research, we came across chef Kavan Kuttappa’s touchings menu at the now defunct The Permit Room in Bangalore. On quizzing the Naru Noodle Bar owner about the inspiration behind the menu, he mentions that references were drawn from the menu of a local bar in Trichy and reinterpreted to suit what could work in Bangalore. His early memories of coming across touchings was even before he was of eligible drinking age, when he would visit a local watering hole called Amaravathi Bar and Restaurant in Jayanagar, that served typical Gowda food. “At the time, we would just go there to eat because they served the best food. My typical touchings order at a local bar was a fried snack like pakodi or bhajiya, bar nuts or sprouted beans with tadka called usili, which is a healthier alternative to raja masala (spicy peanut salad) and a small pork side of sorts,” he says.
What’s most fascinating about the food on these touchings menus is how each dish highlights ingredients or produce that’s locally available. While Kavan reasons that this was because most people who were regulars at these places, were people who lived close to these shops and did not see an influx of visitors from elsewhere, Devika mentions that traditionally toddy shops existed in the vicinity of paddy fields, from where rice, coconuts, freshwater fish and fowl were sourced. This meant that touchings menus across liquor shops in the south varied from one region to another. What started off in concept with a simple bowl of sour lemon pickle or a condiment made of smashed shallots, tamarind and birds eye chillies dunked in coconut oil, complimented the pungency of fermented liquor, has now evolved to dishes like kakka irachi olath (spicy clams) and kappa-meen curry (boiled tapioca with spicy fish curry) in Kerala to muyal curry (rabbit curry) and chicken 65 in Tamil Nadu, spicy stir-fried squid and anchovies across shacks in Karnataka.
Image Credits: Migrationology. In Pic: Fish Head Curry
Touchings were also an affordable way to snack in-between sips of toddy. Chef Hussain Shahzad, who came up with a limited edition touchings menu for The Bombay Canteen back in 2020, says that small plate concepts across the world were designed to encourage patrons to drink more. In that vein, he says “If you go to a local shop, they look at cost-effective alternatives to offer and hence, off-cuts of meat, dishes make of congealed blood and loaded with pepper are commonly featured.” These small plates are an integral part of India’s drinking culture in the way cheese is paired with wine or tapas is served in Spanish drinking establishments. Hussain also adds that “If you’re drinking somewhere, food becomes intrinsic to a culture because the idea was not just to get high but also having food traditions around this social activity that served as a break between drinking.” Both, Hussain and Kavan point out that it has always been part of India’s culture to have snacks while drinking, even if it was at home. “The primary idea was that when someone visited your home, some kind of snacks were always on offer,” Hussain says.
Image Credits: Archana's Kitchen. In Pic: Peanut Sundal
Touchings food has also stuck to a more home-style concept of cooking, thanks to the women who prepared the food on an everyday basis and adapted it for a bar service set up. At a time when conversations about eating local and seasonal have penetrated urban food cultures in India, touchings have always championed the utility and convenience of celebrating food that tasted a certain way and was made for a specific palette. “It is an interesting experience because you get an intense kind of taste from the liquor and you alternate it with another taste which matches its intensity,” Devika says. Kavan echoes this sentiment when he gets candid about how it was looked down upon to serve local food until 7-8 years ago, when the perspective has shifted considerably. “You see the number of restaurants having Indian food of some kind right now and serving reinterpretations and amalgamations of various food cultures and techniques. It’s influencing the way we eat anywhere we go; and that’s not just in the food, we’re seeing it happen with cocktails too, with the use of local spirits,” he adds.
From chintu plates at The Bombay Canteen to pâté cans and crackers at O Pedro, chef Hussain has worked towards creating his own interpretation of touchings at an approachable level for people who wouldn’t be comfortable visiting a streetside watering hole to get their fix. Although there has been a lack of education because of apprehensions towards venturing out to these places, when people are willing to participate in an environment that they’re comfortable being in, the process of exposing themselves to new ingredients or recipes is much easier. Hussain says that this sense of comfort also stems from the need to offer perspectives on a culture that exists within the country. Touchings are, after all, a reflection of the food diversity that our country is known for. “It’s just a way where people contest with taste but life is not worth living if you do not have some pleasure,” Devika concludes.
Note: To get an experience of touchings, chef Hussain recommends visiting Canara Lunch Home in Fort, Mumbai while chef Kavan swears by the local bar atmosphere at Bob’s Bar in Bangalore.