The Southwest monsoon announces itself in Coorg with a spectacular sound and light show. Thunder rolls over the hills, lightning crackles across darkened skies and the land prepares for close to three months of heavy rains.
This is a fierce season, one whose beauty it’s easier to appreciate with the comforts of modern living. I’m not so sure that I’d be as quick to profess my love for the monsoon if I had to live through it with no electricity, damp and mould waiting to strike at every stage and a long period of semi hibernation. Wait, I believe I have done something very much like that!
Still, this is the season that throws up some of the most exciting foods in the Coorg repertoire. Whether from necessity, curiosity or the enforced confinement to home and hearth (or a combination of all three) the monsoon menu is a testament to some very creative culinary ventures.
LOVELY pictures!
Thank you, Kay, and welcome to A Cookery Year in Coorg! 🙂
The pictures are beautiful. Beautiful the way you have described the onset of the rains , really amazing how they prepared for the chill and damp. Storing what vegetables they could, enough firewood to heat water and cook food and even dry clothes my mother in law tells me. She says the carried an extra change of clothes to school and college. Umbrellas were on no use , it had to be a long duckback , There were fires lit in the schools and colleges so one could dry up. You have to be very tough to face a monsoon in the hills. I missed this post and am so glad I found it now .
Glad you found this 🙂
Even with all the conveniences of modern living, this is one tough season to get through.Giving yourself over to smelling like wood smoke and duckback (green? blue? funny fleshy tone?!) makes for fun memories, but I realise just how hard people worked to keep the household functioning during those days!