Tips to Plan a Quintessential Tamil Wedding Feast

When you set foot into a Tamil wedding, it feels nothing short of royalty. Tamil weddings play with bold hues like saffron, red, and gold, and bespoke elements which speak volumes of the rich culture and traditions. It is only when you attend a Tamil wedding when you understand the importance of the most minute details, the significance of the decor, and how they beautifully incorporate modernism into deep-seated rituals.

Apart from all this, another aspect which is striking yet understated is the sumptuous meals that one gets to eat or rather devour at these weddings! Tamil marriages have a standard, typical Vegetarian affair and each meal has its uniqueness in terms of taste. Most of the food revolves around rice and lentils and the spices are particularly emphasised on.

The food is prepared in traditional-style and the recipes aren’t as simple as they seem to be. The attendees or guests are made to sit and then their food is served on a banana leaf, sans any cutlery- one has to use his/her fingers.

Now, planning a Tamil wedding feast is no mean feat! If you are all set to host a Tamil wedding and are wondering what goes into the menu or if you are planning to attend a Tamil marriage and want to know if you will get to binge on, then here is the menu:

Breakfast

Needless to say, the day starts with a cup of piping hot coffee. Next, there is a lavish breakfast which consists of:

-Kesari (a dessert made up of semolina, sugar, ghee, and nuts).

-Pineapple pudding 

-Ven pongal or Khara pongal (a rice and lentil dish)

-Idli (a savoury rice cake made from the batter of fermented lentils and rice.).

-Sambar (a lentil-based vegetable stew cooked with tamarind broth).

– Thengai Thuvayal (a spicy coconut chutney made by blending coconut with roasted lentils and spices). It can be enjoyed with idlis, curd rice, and sambar rice.

Lunch

This course has a huge variety and it is a perfect combination of good quality and good quantity.

The main dishes of the meal include:

-Rice

-Dal

-Sambar

-Ghee

-Biryani

-Vatha Kuzambu (a simple tangy gravy made using small onions, turmeric, tamarind, sambar powder, asafoetida, etc.) It is best if eaten with plain steamed rice or curd rice.

– Vegetable kuruma (a dish made up of a variety of vegetables like beans, carrots, and peas, spices, poppy seeds, coconut, herbs, and cashews. 

-Rasam (a kokum or tamarind juice used as a base, with tomato, chilli peppers, cumin, and other spices.)

The lunch may also include other dishes like:

-Avial (a thick mixture of 13 vegetables made with coconut oil and curry leaves).

-Poriyal (a dish made up of shallow-fried diced or shredded vegetables. The preparation includes fried mustard seeds, urad dal, onions, turmeric, red chilli, coriander, and other spices for seasoning). 

-Usili (A famous Tamil Brahmin dish made using vegetables like plantain flower, cluster beans, french beans, etc.

The meal also contains some sides to enhance the taste of the dishes, like curd, pickle, buttermilk and pakoras (a fried snack).

For dessert, there is usually Jilebi and Payasam. Jilebi is made by frying all-purpose flour in circular shapes, which is later soaked in sugar syrup.

Payasam is a traditional Indian sweet pudding made using milk, grains, lentils, and a sweetener like either jaggery or sugar. The grains used to make this dish commonly include rice, millets, broken wheat and semolina or sooji.

The evening platter

It is a comparatively smaller meal consisting of sweets and hot beverages. Many wedding attendees or guests may or may not consume the evening platter, depending on how much food they have binged on during lunchtime. 

Nevertheless, the meal includes hot South Indian-style coffee, variety of teas, Badusha and Mysore pak. Badusha, which comes from the word ‘Balushahi’, is a sweet made with stiff dough out of all-purpose flour, fried in clarified butter, and dunked in sugar syrup. The texture is flaky on the outside and softer on the inside. 

Mysore pak or Mysuru paaka is a famous sweet, hailing from South India, made in ghee or clarified butter, and generous amounts of gram flour, cardamom, and sugar.

Dinner

On most occasions, people prefer to serve a light dinner, owing to the heavy meals consumed during the day. It includes the following:

-Puri

-Chapati

-Purotta or Paratha

-Vegetable Kuruma or Korma

-Raita 

-Pulav

-Idli

-Coconut chutney

-Sambar

-Masala milk

-Halwa or Kesari

-Assorted ice creams

Some opt for more lavish spreads. They may include more drinks like fruit punch, badam milk, fresh juices and butter milk. They may also have banana chips, aloo chips, rasam, aloo fry, curd rice, mango pickle, Bisi bele bhat (hot lentil rice dish), curd rice, fruits, varieties of dosa, idiyappam (a South Indian rice noodle dish), kara chutney (a spicy tomato chutney), and vadas (a fried snack resembling a doughnut or a fritter).

Phew! That’s about it. I am hungry and I think you must be urging to binge on something delectable too!