I’m in Fort Kochi for four days. I promise myself I won’t turn this into a work trip. I am not going to go looking for stories. Absolutely none.
But the thing with stories is, if they’ve got your name on it, they’ll find you. And that’s how I met Armaan Essa (21). Suddenly, on a swelteringly hot March afternoon, I find myself sitting by the sea (on a table intended for 12 people) eating a pudding that Armaan has made using cacao husk served in a bowl made out of coconut shell.
And as I eat (read: feast), Armaan tells me about the thought that inspired the dessert.
Cacao husk pudding
Coffee and cacao do not begin as commodities, he reasons. “They become valuable through repeated removal of pulp, fat, labour, and time. Long before they reach the table, both pass through systems that prioritise efficiency and yield, often stripping away context and visibility of work.”
By using cacao husk in the dessert, Armaan wants to draw guests’ attention back to the labour that’s gone into the ingredients.
When Armaan finishes his tale, many things strike me at once. One, it’s refreshing to hear someone fresh out of college think with such depth. Two, I have just had the best dessert ever. Three, I know I said I won’t go looking for stories, but this is one I can’t resist. And so, I get my recorder out and ask Armaan to tell me more.
‘Khojj’: Shaped by the tideline of Kochi
One of Armaan’s guests, Johann Binny Kuruvilla, a storyteller and the founder of The Kochi Heritage Project, a cultural initiative dedicated to documenting and celebrating Kochi’s rich history, is all praises for this young chef. He says the beautiful part about Armaan’s food is that the experience transcends gastronomy and integrates storytelling into the food.
Known as ‘Tideline’, the feast that Armaan serves comprises eight dishes.
Armaan Essa curates pop-up dinners as part of his endeavour Khojj in Fort Kochi.
As Armaan explains, “Tideline is about my perspective growing up in Fort Kochi. When the tide flows in, it’s almost like it brings in people, food, and ideas; when it ebbs, there are so many things that it takes away with it, which refers to the people who have left or the traditions that have faded away.”
Through ‘Khojj’, Armaan is keen to take the experience beyond food. “I’m looking at collaborating with artists and building a community that grows with time. We’d love to have visual artists be a part of this, and project map indigenous ingredients found in and around Kochi.”
For instance, one of the courses on the menu is braised beef cheeks, spiced beef jus, and pokkali rice with fried onions and betel leaf oil.
Pokkali rice is a native historic salt-tolerant type of rice with a 120-day growing season.
The poster ingredient here is the pokkali rice, a native historic salt-tolerant type of rice with a 120-day growing season that can withstand flooding by growing up to a height of 1.5 metres. Having been awarded the GI tag in 2008, the rice is still unknown in many circles. “I’ve had around 85 guests for my dinners in the last two months, but only a handful of them knew about this rice variety,” Armaan shares.
A meal shaped by Kochi’s land, water, and memory
By featuring such indigenous ingredients in his dishes, Armaan says he wants to introduce Kochi to the people who live here. “But not in an intimidating way,” he reiterates, adding that his own understanding of the rice variety was shaped through the journey of integrating it into a dish.
“I learnt about how pokkali rice prevents tidal flooding in Kochi; it can absorb water with high salt density. So when the tidal waters come in and fill the paddy fields, the rice continues to survive. Other rice varieties wouldn’t.”
Among the other courses on the menu, there’s fermented rice water with ginger skin and oil made out of lime leaves; puffed rice breads, cultured butter, and smoked salt; aged fish, fish collagen sauce made out of reducing all the parts of the fish that aren’t used, charred cabbage, and banana stem puree.
(L): aged fish, fish collagen sauce made out of reducing all the parts of the fish that aren’t used; (R): cultured butter.
There’s also muthia(made out of rice flour and coconut), coconut milk broth, toasted coconut, Kutchi masala papad (a savoury rice-based crisp that is roasted or fried and then topped with a vibrant, tangy, and crunchy salad), charred carrots; coconut flesh and cured pottavellari(snap melon) and coconut water drink as a palate cleanser; cacao husk pudding, cacao nib tuile (thin, crisp wafer), cascara tea (a herbal tea made from the sun-dried skins and pulp of coffee cherries) and aged blackened bananas with miso made out of jackfruit.
Allowing ingredients to tell their story
Armaan shies away from calling himself a chef. Even though he’s been doing it ever since he was 15. His foray into the kitchen was quite interesting. “In school, my mom would pack my tiffin with appams(fermented rice pancakes popular in South Indian cuisine) and dosas(fermented crepes made from rice batter and lentils). But by the time I would eat them, they would be cold. And I would complain. So, I started packing my tiffin by myself. I would sometimes marinate chicken pieces or make a wrap with a rotiand filling,” Armaan shares.
But even though he had a penchant for cooking, he says the real culinary skills were honed during the COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown. He shares, “I was at my aunt’s place, and every morning I would wake up and chop onions, tomatoes, garlic, coriander, and anything else she needed. It was like a mini internship.”
Then one day, Armaan saw a fine dining pop-up dinner that was being held in Fort Kochi by Guestronomy, a pop-up restaurant. “Chef Jerry Sheeran from Australia was also set to be part of it. When I enquired with the hosts about the price for the dinner, it was around Rs 4,000. I didn’t have the money. But then they asked me if I was keen to work, and I said an immediate yes.”
It all started as a college project
Being a chef was never considered a lucrative job in Armaan’s family. But to him, the long hours, hard work, and toil are worth it. “It was one of the best kitchen experiences I’ve ever had working under Chef Jerry. And that’s the day I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.”
Khojj, he says, is an extension of that dream. “It was my college entrepreneurship project from Class 11,” he laughs. “It was meant to be a restaurant project that was intuitive and search-like. Hence the name — in Hindi, khojtranslates to search.”
Armaan’s dinners follow an eight course meal; each postcard given to the guests carries the story behind the dish.
So, that’s how it started. A teenager in search of the route and opportunities that would help him bring his dream alive. An idea that started in his bedroom — PS: the room still doubles as a storehouse for his ferments — is now treating Fort Kochi (and soon, other cities) to dishes that have a story.
One of the things that Armaan encourages his guests to do at the end of the eight-course meal is to write. He can be heard telling them, “You’ll find paper and a pen at the table. Please use them. Write anything: questions, memories, disagreements, associations, or nothing at all. There is no right way to read this meal. Khojj exists to hold many perspectives, and yours is one of them.”
He says the same to me.
I tell him, I definitely will write. But not on that piece of paper. But instead, on a much larger space. I will write an article.
I had promised myself I wouldn’t look for stories on that trip.
I didn’t.
This one found me.
All pictures courtesy Armaan
