Thalaivan Virunthu: Chef Damu curates a food festival featuring recipes from rural Tamil Nadu

The debut of Thalaivan Virunthu, a food festival organised by well-known city chef K Damodaran, was marked by the aroma of Tamil cuisine infused with regional spices and the rhythmic sounds of live music. The 15-day festival features a variety of seasonal vegetables and slow-cooked delicacies and focuses on venerable recipes and lost ingredients.

It offers delicacies like varamilagai chicken, which is made by boiling soft chicken pieces in a flavorful curry flavoured with dried red chilies. According to Damu, the multi-course buffet is based on the idea that “food is medicine.” He continues, “These dishes are from Tamil Nadu villages I visited; I have also added my personal touch to each of them.

There are traditional curries such as meen kozhambu, chicken chinthamani, Athangudi kari chops, and maa inji paruppu urundai kozhambu, and vethalai rasam to choose from. For dessert, there is litchi elaneer payasam, kavuni arisi karupatti halwa, ragi simili urundai, among others.

Chef Damu’s cooking is all about going back to one’s roots, and he is all for documenting old recipes that have been in families for generations.