No, not all Malayalis are parotta-beef fans

Nutritionist expert Dr Sheeja Chandran says this is a crucial point no one is talking about. “When you promote something as part of the state’s culinary culture, it needs to be healthy enough,” says the Ayurveda doctor.

 
“Kerala has always adopted cross-cultural cuisine. Our appam and puttu are gifts from the Portuguese and Dutch presence here. We adopted them as they were healthy. But beef is not, which is a reason why many beef-eaters (who account for 28.2 per cent of meat eaters in Kerala, as per a study) are slowly switching over to leaner versions of meat.”

 
All debates apart, the social observers raise one question in common: if the idea is to counter a divisive film with food, is not organising a festival with just one dish equally divisive?
“Instead, they should have gone for an all-menu festival where everything available in Kerala is offered — beef, chicken, turkey, pork, fish… everything inclusive,” Achuthshankar laughs.

‘Why no pork?’
Hurting the sentiments of one cross-section while protecting the other is not secularism, Bineesh adds.

 
He points to Education Minister V Sivankutty’s Facebook retort to the ‘Kerala Story 2’ teaser. “The minister’s troll post talks of people in Kerala eating chicken, mutton, beef and fish, but he was careful enough to avoid mentioning pork. Why?” he wonders.  

“I am from Angamaly where pork is relished most. But there are places where there is an unofficial ban on the sale of pork. That will be justified as respecting certain religious beliefs. Why not extend that decency to others as well? Just because the non-beef-eating population is not vociferous, one can’t take them for granted.”

Not all Malayalis, Bineesh asserts, are beef fans. “And no, parotta and beef is not the ‘national food of Keralam’.”