KERALA, WITH LOVE
A Cultural Memoir and a Cookbook
A Journey Through the Spice Route, the Silk Road, and the Coconut Grove
Kerala, With Love is a genre-blending cultural memoir and a cookbook that explores the rich, underrepresented foodways of Kerala — India’s lush southwestern coast and one of the world’s most storied culinary regions. Through sensory storytelling, historical insight and heirloom recipes, the book traces how trade, migration, matrilineal memory, and religious diversity shaped this extraordinary cuisine.
About the Book
Drawing on her family’s Keralan Syrian Christian heritage and a life lived across continents, Sindhya Valloppillil braids together personal narrative, global history, and heirloom recipes to illuminate Kerala’s place in the world.
Readers will travel through coconut groves, monsoon-soaked backwaters, spice plantations, fish markets, temple festivals, and family kitchens where tradition is preserved one dish at a time.
At its heart, Kerala, With Love is a story about inheritance — of recipes, rituals, landscapes, and a sense of home carried across oceans.
What Readers Will Find Inside
Place
Evocative portraits of Kerala’s landscapes: monsoon rains, estuaries, coconut groves, spice markets, and the rhythmic sway of fishing nets along the coast. These scenes ground the reader in the sensory world that shapes the region’s food, rituals, and identity.
History & Trade
A narrative journey through the Spice Route and the Maritime Silk Road, revealing how Kerala became one of the world’s earliest and most influential crossroads of flavor, culture, and commerce. The book traces the global journeys of black pepper, cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, and coconut — and the people whose migrations shaped Kerala’s cuisine.
Stories
Intimate reflections on family gatherings, festive meals, interfaith traditions, matrilineal memory, and the emotional architecture of growing up Malayali across continents. These stories weave together personal history with a broader exploration of heritage and belonging.
Recipes
Authentic, home-style dishes drawn from Kerala’s diverse culinary traditions — including Syrian Christian curries, coastal seafood, vegetarian feasts, tropical preparations, and Ayurveda-informed staples. Each recipe is contextualized within the stories, histories, and landscapes that gave rise to it.
Diaspora
Reflections on belonging, identity, and the ways food becomes a home you can carry — no matter where you live.
Why This Book Matters
Despite Kerala’s profound influence on global cuisine, its stories remain vastly underrepresented in Western publishing.
This cultural memoir and cookbook offers:
an intimate, research-driven exploration of a region rarely centered in mainstream food narratives
a celebration of matrilineal knowledge and the women who preserved culinary memory
a diasporic lens that bridges Kerala’s ancient history with modern identity
a sensory, deeply personal portrait of a place where food is both inheritance and compass
Kerala, With Love fills a cultural and culinary gap — and invites readers into a world few outside the community truly know.
About the Author
Sindhya Valloppillil is a journalist, strategist, and storyteller whose work spans technology, health, beauty, culture, and the global consumer economy. Raised in a Malayali family and shaped by time living, studying, and traveling across Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, she brings a deeply global perspective to her writing.
Her journalism has appeared in Forbes, TechCrunch, Fast Company, BeautyMatter, Business Insider, and more. Kerala, With Love is her first cultural memoir and cookbook.
She lives in New York with her husband, daughter Gia, and their dog, Teddy.
