Can traditional food become a delicacy among all other Mangalore cuisines?

         Generally, people are very sensitive to food items. Any delicious food can be reduced to poor taste if they are not prepared in the way they are supposed. It can make people passionate because they are connected to places, people and personal likings. What are known as the Mangalore cuisines of today were the simple and traditional food of our ancestors. One of the many dishes is what called ‘Pathrade.’ It is liked most by the people of Coastal Karnataka. The delicious food item can be described as the monsoon special of Tulunadu.

        ‘Can traditional food become a delicacy among all other Mangalore cuisines?’ Can be answered well by carefully understanding how ‘Pathrade’ is prepared.

       The staple food of Tulunadu is rice because they are cultivated easily and abundantly. On the other hand when the rice is made flour and cooked it is always a new dish. Above all the Tuluvas created a special taste or attraction for ‘Pathrade’ by cooking it in a particular way. When there are multiple ways of cooking rice flour the traditional people of Tuludesa discovered a new taste by adding Pathradyache Kolay or Colocasia leaves in the rice flour. Normally, the Colocasia plants or leaves are available only at the time of monsoon. Pathrade becomes a rare delicacy of Mangalore because it is cooked mostly during monsoon. People across the regions at times crave for such preparation of Mangalore because they have cultivated an independent taste for it.

          ‘Pathrade’ is prepared by steaming the rice flour in teak leaves. At times the teak leaves are replaced by different medicinal leaves so that it adds taste as well as medicinal effect to our health.