The Avial story

The wonderful thing about myths and legends is that everyone has a different version.The other day when on Onam(harvest festival in kerala) we decided to go the whole nine yards and have a feast,we discussed all the dishes and I waxed eloquent to the husband (who doesn't belong to our community so I once in a wile cook up a story just to make it interesting)on the origins of Avial ( a mixed vegetable dish ).My mother was at table with us and didn't say much but I was called aside after the meal and told very firmly that my version of the story was all just avial(meaning i had cooked up a storm out of nothing) so I had better set the record straight.Well as her story seemed more like an original I decided to record it.Legend has it that the reigning king of kerala decided to have a feast on Onam and ordered the chef to stir up a storm.Now like in most high profile kitchens there is a lot of waste.Cooks and cutters in their desire to present the best of the best,most often than not,tend to remove the best parts of the vegetable like the skins along with a lot of the flesh and naturally if cost is not a problem (which in this case it wasn't) then why ever not.The head chef however was pretty upset about the wastage going on in the kitchen and as his brief was to prepare a new recipe he decided to salvage all of the stuff that was being cut away from all the vegetables and use it into a new recipe.So in went all the vegetables in one big dish.Dinner served and the guest were constantly asking for repeats of the mixed vegetable dish.Naturally the king needed to know what this was all about so the head chef was summoned and asked the name of the dish.Now the poor man could hardly admit to using discards and getting away with it but being a nice sort of a bloke he decided to call it "avial".This comes from a slang word in Malayalam which means all the bits and pieces and thereafter "avial became standard fare at all Onam lunches.