Thiruvananthapuram, May25: Kovalam tourist village at Vellar near here is all set to host a three-day ethnic food festival from 27,dishing out a wide variety of culinary delights made of jackfruit and mango, available in plenty in Kerala as summer fruits.
The festival is arranged as part of the ongoing digital video production training programme for children jointly organised by women selfhelp chain Kudumbashree and Kerala Tourism at Vellar.
The festival has been conceived and organised to open before the guests the best of Kerala’s traditional delicacies including curries, chutneys, pickles , puddings and fritters and fries made of jackfruit and mango, handed down through generations. The mouth-welling dishes to be laid out before the visitors include ‘chakka pradhaman’, ‘chakka ada’, ‘unniyappam’ made soft and sweet by mixing ripened jackfruit, jackfruit halva andand thick brown jackfruit-ghee-jaggery paste,which has a long shelf life.
For those who prefer spicy dishes, there will be ‘chakka pulissery’, made of raw jackfruit cooked in buttermilk,’chakka thoran’, jackfruit sambar, vada made of jackfruit stone, tender jackfruit thoran and to cap the list ‘chakka puzhukku’, the quintessential summer fare that goes well with rice porridge. For short-eat, there will be chakka chips , chakka pappadam and chakka vattal.
The mango delicacies to be featured by the festival are many, ranging from raw mango juice to different types of pickle to mango pudding, made without heating up. The event will also exhibit different varieties of jackfruit collected from various parts of Kerala.Sales counters are also set up for the visitors to buy and take home the items of their choice.
The ‘Kanji-and-Puzhukku” fest, organised at Vellar last weekend, had attracted a huge crowd.The buffet where different types of kanji (gruel) and puzhukku (boiled vegetables) recorded roaring sales during the festival.

Digital Video Production Workshop
Also organised jointly by the Kudumbashree and the Kerala Tourism at the same venue in Kovalam, the three-day Digital Video Production Workshop for children from May 27 is designed to equip children to learn the theoretical as well as practical aspects of digital video production and to create small videos by themselves.
Sri. KG Jeyan,Cinematographer, Smt Bina Paul, Film Editor, Sri. K R Mohanan, Film Director and Dr. C S Venkiteswaran, Film Critic will lead various sessions related to Filmmaking including Film Scripting, Cinematography, Film Editing and Film Direction. The backdrop of Kovalam Tourist Village will add vitality and creativity to the workshop. The valedictory session of the workshop will be held on May 29 with Sri. Lenin Rajendran, Film Director as the chief guest.