Meet the makers of Chennai’s iconic foods

Chennai's iconic foods include Burmese dishes at Vyasarpadi, beach sundal, vada curry, and bajjis from Mylapore

A young lad with a steel container balanced on his shoulder, weaving his way through a crowded Marina beach: this image has long been synonymous with Chennai. Marina is lined with food trucks and stalls selling everything from ‘Chinese’ to spring potato. But years ago, it was beach sundal that people munched on as they sat by the waves with their feet outstretched.

Trudging through the sand on a Friday evening, we meet 34-year-old M Kumar from Paramakudi, who has brought two kilograms of sundal to sell. He bends a knee, placing the steel container on it and packs some ‘thenga, manga, pattani sundal’ in a paper cone. The white peas sundal, cooked to perfection and garnished with scraped coconut and thin slivers of raw mango, tastes just like it did a decade ago.

“The sundal sellers are all from Ramnad district near Madurai,” says M Kumar of JK Sea Shells, a souvenir store that has been around since the 1990s behind the Triumph of Labour statue. “They would arrive here in small teams and stay at Nochi Kuppam for six months a year,” he explains adding that they are small farmers looking to earn a living when rains and other factors such as labour shortage failed them back home.

“They would make the sundal at home and sell it at the beach from 4pm to 8pm,” he adds. “These days though, I see only a handful of them; perhaps people prefer fast food to their sundal.” Kumar remembers how these lads would all walk back home together, exhausted, but happy to have made a little something to be sent back home.

Twenty-five years ago, a V Krishnamoorthy, who had just retired from his job as a cook at the madapalli (temple kitchen) at Kapaleeswarar temple, opened the hall window of his Mylapore home. It overlooked the narrow Ponnambala Vadyar Street, and taking a seat by it, Krishnamoorthy thought of a business idea. The family was in need of financial support, and Krishnamoorthy, being a skilled cook, decided to put to use his expertise. K Sargunanathan, whose sister married Krishnamoorthy’s son, recalls how Krishnamoorthy was known for his delicious tamarind rice, sakkara pongal and sundal.

Today, the shop is open from 7.40am to 10.45am, and sells pongal, poori, idli and vada. In the evenings, from 4.45pm onwards, there is a range of bajjis on offer, including bondas, idli and dosa. “Krishnamoorthy’s son Sivaramakrishnan took over after him and after his death during the pandemic, my brother-in-law V Chandrashekar and his sons run the business,” explains Sargunanathan. Jannal kadai is closed on Sundays, and Sargunanathan says that customers knock on the blue window even on their day off, asking if there are bajjis to eat.

The 2004 tsunami changed the course of lives of the people of Odai Kuppam at Besant Nagar. “Fisherfolk families who lost everything to the disaster, started looking for other means to earn a living,” says A Dinesh Kumar of Pooja Fish Fry, a stall selling fried fish at the beach. “Before the tsunami, there were only a handful of stalls; now there are over 15 of them,” says the 28-year-old, in between handing plastic plates of crisp fried fish with a side of sliced onions to customers.