I don’t know if the word has an equivalent in English. I don’t even know if it is a proper word in its original, Malayalam. I first heard it used by a young boy, a friend of the First Born, way back in the mid-nineties when they were still in school.

The kind of food that tasted best was the outcome of what his mother called kilikkikuthu, he declared one day. And by that, he clarified, he meant something she decided to make on an impulse, with available ingredients, not following any structured recipe.

Probably the conversation happened because I had prepared and served something that followed that very principle. I did not of course have a name for the process itself till then. Kilikkikuthu. Something you cook by improvising, with available ingredients, not sticking to time-tested rules and/or guidelines, and which still turns out to be yum.

I am sure kilikkikuthu is something all those who cook on a regular basis are familiar with. We go the kilikkikuthu way because we do not have all the necessary ingredients at hand or we are too tired or plain lazy to go the whole way, or at still other times, it can be the need of the hour that necessitates us to come up with something at short notice with no ingredients around.

There can be another reason too. Imagination. ‘What if it is done this way?’ you think to yourself feeling all inspired, a scientist in lab, no less. You haven’t tried cooking the dish that way, but you are sure in your heart that it will turn out well. Besides, it is an easier way, and that, mind you, matters, a lot! So you decide to go for it. And voila! It happens. It turns out exactly the way you imagined it would.

So, yeah. Kilikkikuthu, for the win!

©️ Shail Mohan 2024