 "Lunch laid out on a banana leaf at a home in Chennai. Courtesy: Traveling Spoon")
Would you like some lemon with that, asks Shubha Thimmaiah Hemant, as her guests dig into a plate of chilli pork. High on heat fuelled by green chillies, a guest tells Hemant the starter is “lemony enough”. What you taste isn’t lemon, says Hemant, it’s country vinegar. Locally known as kachampuli, it is made by fermenting the tropical Garcinia gummi-gutta fruit. No matter which city she travels to, the banker-turned-fulltime chef hauls along bottles of kachampuli. “It is an absolute must for authentic Coorg cuisine,” she says.
“Authentic” is the buzzword at these gatherings. It has been just about 10-15 minutes
