Spice and Sustainability in Traditional Tribal Style at Spice Village

(To open the embedded Facebook posts fully for the recipes and details, just click on the date/time under the heading Food and Travel Secrets.)

Along our journey we’d heard great things about Spice Village but nothing prepared us to be so wowed by the generosity of Hari, Jerry, Skiria and the team.

Set in the spice growing hill country of Kerala, this long established CGH Earth property is showcasing CGH Earth’s commitment to sustainability. Spice Village combines environmental sensitivity with traveller comforts, offers a unique experience of locally sourced, fresh cuisine and is serious about showing off the surrounding natural beauty, wildlife and vegetation. 

Thekkady (the area) also known as Kumily (the town and Periyar the wildlife reserve) is a fascinating part of Kerala. We have only travelled 4&1/2 hours from Visalam in Tamil Nadu, but the weather, food and culture is totally different at Spice Village. 

We are up in the Western Ghats where the climate is perfect for growing cardamom and pepper. The  52 Spice Village cottages are built in a traditional tribal style using Elephant Grass thatching. Recycled timber is used to furnish the rooms.

Just as dramatic is the change in culture. We are now in the area where Kerala’s Syrian Christians have settled and so churches dot the town of Kumily and we now hear morning church bells instead of calls from the mosque of temple music. 

Syrian Christian cuisine is famous in Kerala for the mollee curry, vegetable stew and appams. Beef, pork and duck are enjoyed here and Kerala is the only Indian state where beef can be sold. 

 

And the Kerala Kathakali, Classical Dance  and Martial Arts culture is also strong here. Kerala classical dancing reminded me of the kathakali with pantomime larger than life expressions and humour.

We’ve come at the rainy time of the year and while that makes it tricky for trekking and doing the many outdoor activities, I’m enjoying sitting on my private balcony watching the rains with a cup of cardamom tea or the in-room ground coffee spiced with cardamom, cumin and fenugreek added. Like our visit to Waynard Wild last year at this time, the rains are magnificent and while you need to wear more clothes, the temperatures are still low 20’s and the large umbrellas provided are all you need to get around.

Spice Village is so well set up .There’s all day happy hour with two for the price of one drinks. The included in-house activities are abundant. There’s a great facility for the daily spice talk and cooking demonstrations, with a reflective mirror and a fabulous emailed cookbook of 30 Kerala recipes.

Chef Rajeev’s Kerala Fish Curry

Chef Anurag’s Syrian Christian Vegetable Stew

Chef Rajeev’s Peppery Chicken

An evening classical dance show and classical music over dinner, a Pepper Vines property tour with a naturalist that takes you around the organic garden that supplies the menu, the paper making plant that produce the lovely recycled paper products, the drinking water bottling plant, bio-gas plant, composting areas, non-chemical pest control strategies, solar panels and the abundant spice and other food plants on the property as well as the opportunity to wear a sari are all included too. There’s also a very interesting evening talk about the fauna, flora and history of the area. In fact it’s hard to fit everything into even a couple of days and also get to the gift shop, the heritage Woodhouse Bar and the town of Kumily just down the road that’s good for browsing spice and craft shops.

Breakfast is impressive offering a buffet fruit juices and fruits, eggs with sides made to order, home baked breads and pastries, a variety of South Indian breakfast specialities, spiced tea and infused honey!! 

And Shyam’s expertise with South Indian filter coffee is impressive! 

Splce Village has a specialty 50 Mile Diet Restaurant where the menu is totally made up of ingredients sourced within a 50 mile radius. This was closed for the low season but we were lucky enough to be treated to some of the dishes like the Green Peppercorn Pork, the Raggi Kinnathappam and the Honey Baked Yogurt with Jackfruit – both magnificent Spice Village creations.

The Tamarind Restaurant Menu offers Kerala, Indian and International dishes. Spices and local Syrian Christian dishes from the area are featured. Everything is beautifully presented and I just loved the light lunch Chicken Kati Roll with an incredible fresh mint chutney, with mint from the organic garden. Sitting on the balcony is a treat! 

All this abundance at Spice Village was more than enough for a few lovely days of spoiling. But little did I know, Hari and Jerry had planned a real treat for me, my very own Jackfruit Day!

My Own Jackfruit Day at Spice Village

Jackfruit season from May to July is an exciting time locally when many seasonal specialty dishes are enjoyed. In fact 4th July is the international day that Spice Village celebrates this versatile and interesting fruit with a feast of jackfruit dishes. 

Spice Village is blessed with many jackfruit trees and at this time of year they are abundant.

As a special treat Jerry and and the culinary team re-created five wonderful jackfruit dishes for our lunch and shared then recipes with me in the kitchen.

To give me the whole special jackfruit experience, Hari, Jerry and Skiria organised an expedition to harvest our two jackfruit for the menu, one raw (or green) for the savoury dishes and one ripe and sweet for the desserts.

The harvesting required some able skills, a ladder and a rope, to pull up the knife and lower the jackfruit safely. Our jackfruit expert looked for those that smelt ready and had started to spit.

Once we had the jackfruit in hand we headed to the kitchen where Spice Village’s awesome team of chefs were all making time to help out with the preparations.

First the raw jackfruit needed to be cut and the sticky sap wiped away. The flesh, seeds and skin were separated. The seeds removed that were removed were kept for other curries and after drying for 3-4 days the skin is grated and the seed is sliced and used.  Jackfruit seed and raw mango curry is a popular dish or and so is jackfruit seed curry with prawns. The jackfruit skin is used for bio-gas, nothing is wasted.

The raw jackfruit flesh was then sliced to help with the cooking process.

We were creating five amazing dishes from the jackfruits, two desserts, a biriyani, a side dish and jackfruit chips. What a feast! And what fun!

Chakka Puzhukkum Meen Vattichathum (Raw Jackfruit with Crushed Coconut and Spicy Fish Curry) accompanied by Jackfruit Fries

Chakkayum Kozhiyum – Jackfruit Chicken Biriyani

Varikka Chakka Pradaman

Honey Baked Yogurt and Jackfruit Varatti

When we were presented with the final dishes at lunch, I was blown away. What great thoughtfulness had gone into this kind gesture to give me such a unique experience from tree to plate of an ingredient that I’d never experienced before used in fascinating new and creative ways. I can’t thank the team enough for their generosity of their time and energy. What great guys and girls!

Day 2 in the Kitchen at Spice Village

When Jerry invited me back into the kitchen to learn more about the Spice Village dishes, there was nothing I would rather do. Again the wonderful team shared with me four wonderful dishes from Spice Village menus that were then served for my lunch. How amazing to receive such generosity.

Spice Village Tamarind Restaurant Chemeen Varaval (Pan Grilled Angle Prawns in Kerala Marsala)

Spice Village Tamarind Restaurant Peppery Koon Vendakka (Lady Fingers (Okra) and Mushrooms highly flavoured with pepper)

Executive Chef Jerry Mathews Braised Pepper Chicken with Rosemary Makhani (Braised chicken in fresh pepper, served with rosemary flavoured Makhani Sauce)

Raggi Kinnathappam (Steamed finger millet cake with coconut Jaggery sauce)

It was very humbling to receive so much gracious hospitality from Hari, Jerry and the whole kitchen team who invited me into their kitchen and Skiria and all the food and beverage team who had such great patience and warmth. My greatest thanks to the whole team at Spice Village! This will always be a very special memory!