Idli, Breakfast of Champions

By Dinah Jackson

Expert Author Dinah Jackson

If you know idli, you know how delicious it is. Many people know the puffy nan, some the flatbread, tortilla-like chapatti, but unless you know southern Indian cuisine you probably don't know the soft, delectable delights of idli. Idli, I suppose, is technically a type of bread. It looks like a bun and has the mealy quality of bread, but the taste is altogether different as idli is made from basmati rice flour. So idli is like bread in the same way that cornbread is like bread I guess.

In any case, when idli is eaten properly it serves as a substitute for rice. It is steamed and eaten with any number of curries and chutneys. The grandest way of all to eat idli is to eat it on a houseboat while touring the magical green backwaters of Kerala.

My first experience with idli was none of the romantic image I painted above at all however- it was a terrible shock. My wife and I had been eating at a restaurant near our guesthouse for some days and the food was really great. We were friendly with the staff and one day I even gave them a couple of kilos of guava that I had purchased at the market. In return they whipped us up a most delicious guava lassi.

So before heading to Kovalam, we thought we would have breakfast there before catching the train. The food had been great, right? When I saw the idli I knew what it was and was anxious to try it. I dipped it in the accompanying curry and hungrily put it in my mouth only to discover that it was the hottest curry I had ever encountered in my whole life! Apparently, people in Madras eat extra hot curry in the morning to wake them up! Sometimes cultural differences can be huge.

This article was written by Dinah Jackson who is a nutritionist in Japan. To find the rarest Japanese Pokemon cards, check out the store that has every kind of Japanese Pokemon cards that you can imagine. Also an incredible selection of Japanese Pokemon plush toys, figures, binders, deck boxes, sleeves, and just about anything you can imagine. Delivered right to your front door from Japan.