Tradition · fermented rice-and-lentil dishes
Idli and dosa
Also known as Idli, Idly, Iḍḍarikā, Iddalige, Itali, Dosa, Dosai, Dōse, Dōśa, Thosai
Idli and dosa are two forms of one South Indian batter of rice and black gram, fermented overnight, then steamed into cakes or spread thin on a griddle. Their past is unusually well recorded in medieval Kannada and Sanskrit texts, from iddalige in 920 to the Manasollasa of 1130, yet still argued over: Tamil country or Udupi for dosa, and K. T. Achaya's suggestion that steamed idli came from Indonesia. Udupi restaurants took the dosa to Mumbai in the 1930s.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Material
- rice, black gram (urad dal)
- Confidence
- Qualified / contested
Worth knowing
The earliest idli was not the modern one: the Kannada Vaddaradhane (920) and Chavundaraya II's Lokopakara (c. 1025) describe a black-gram-only preparation, and in 1235 idlis were praised as 'light, like coins of high value'. Rice, long fermentation and steaming appear in Indian texts only after 1250.
Achaya's Indonesian origin for idli rests on a dish he called kedli, which Janaki Lenin could not trace; Colleen Taylor Sen argues fermentation was discovered independently, and Dorian Fuller dates steaming in south India to about 2000 BCE. For dosa, Achaya reads Sangam references as placing it in the Tamil country around the first century CE, while P. Thankappan Nair argues for Udupi.
Connections (5)
- Traditional linkUdupi
Popular tradition makes Udupi the home of the dosa, and the historian P. Thankappan Nair argues the same, but Wikipedia suggests the link comes mainly from the fame of Udupi restaurants; K. T. Achaya puts the earliest written dosa in eighth-century Tamil literature, a century before any Kannada mention. What is documented is the restaurants' role: the dosa reached Mumbai with the opening of Udupi restaurants in the 1930s, and the thin, crisp Karnataka dosa became the version known across India.
- Historical linkBasavakalyan
Both dishes are written down at a Chalukya court. The Manasollasa, the encyclopedic Sanskrit work composed in the early twelfth century by Someshvara III of the Kalyani Chalukyas, includes a recipe for idli, which it calls iddarika, and one for dosa, among chapters on food that describe many dishes still eaten. The dynasty took its name from its capital Kalyani, today's Basavakalyan in Bidar district. Wikipedia dates the idli recipe to 1130.
- TransmissionLanka / Sri Lanka
Dosa crossed to Sri Lanka with South Indian emigrants under British rule. Merchants from Tirunelveli and Tuticorin who settled on the island opened vegetarian 'hotels', at first for the emigrant population, and spread South Indian cooking from there. The dish has since become a Sri Lankan version quite distinct from the Indian dosa, called those in Sinhala and thosai in Sri Lankan Tamil, and idli has its own island variations.
- Historical linkConnaught Place
The dosa moved north in two steps. Udupi restaurants brought it to Mumbai in the 1930s, and after Independence in 1947 South Indian food became increasingly popular in north India, where the Madras Hotel in New Delhi's Connaught Place was one of the first restaurants to serve it. The capital's commercial centre thus became an early showcase for a dish whose recipe had been written down at a Karnataka court eight centuries earlier.
- AnalogueAppam and hoppers
Appam and dosa are close relatives in the South Indian family of fermented rice batters. Early dosas were made from rice batter alone, and black gram was added later until it became essential, whereas the appam kept to rice and coconut milk and, according to Wikipedia, its recipe has remained unchanged for centuries. Appam is cooked thick in the middle and lacy at the edge in a deep appachatti, dosa is spread thin on a flat griddle, and their cousin idiyappam is steamed.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Idli", "Dosa (food)" and "Manasollasa". K. T. Achaya, Indian Food: A Historical Companion (1994).
Open Idli and dosa in the repository →