VISAKHAPATNAM

Coastal Andhra Food In Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam´s pride and joy, is it´s Dolphin Head, a long and low hill that looks like a gigantic dolphin that has surfaced in the Bay of Bengal to guard the port city and its Eastern Naval Command from outside forces.

This is one of the friendliest cities on the Indian coast. Everybody is welcome here. The people are warm and embracing. They open their hearts, their homes, their kitchens to perfect strangers. And they introduce them to the wonderful world of coastal Andhra food. Local greens from the farms outside Vizag, seafood from the Bay, plump prawns from the Godavari, chicken and mutton cooked with aromatic spices, and flavoured with Guntur chillies and tamarind.

They have the famous tiffin rooms where sumptuous meals come cheap, and where the most popular breakfast item is a dish called MLA Pesarathu because the members of the legislative assembly like it! They also have eateries on the beach, sweetmeat shops, bustling market places for fish and vegetables where farmers are themselves vendors.

The Poorna Market of Vizag City is as steeped in superstition as it is stacked with the region´s unusual vegetables. The gongura leaf, or the ambada, is the leaf of the rozelle. It can be made into a pickle, cooked with meats and dals. An essential ingredient in Andhra cooking is the red chilli. Koraivikaram, the flaming stick, the very hottest red chilli which is grown in Guntur, and is used extensively in Andhra. The cuisine of Guntur is amongst the ´hottest´ in terms of its chilli content. A chutney made from these freshly plucked red chillies, pounded fine and mixed with fresh brown tamarind pulp and salt, is a specialty of the area. This is preserved all year long and is eaten with freshly boiled rice and ghee.

The tamarind leaves and the drumstick leaves, both are said to have great medicinal qualities. While drumstick leaves are used in the preparations of poriyals, dals and dahi kadhis as a flavouring agent, the locals treat it as a medicine for a number of ailments. Tamarind is more specific. It is a souring agent, it goes in dals, mutton dishes and rice, and can be used to cure illness ranging from worms in the intestines to styes in the eye!