Akka Cheti Vanta – Secrets of an Telugu Brahmin Cuisine

“A recipe book again! So what’s new about it? There are a whole bunch of blogs on Telugu cuisine which vie with each other to be the early firsts on a google search. Akka cheti vanta is yet again one such attempt in print ?” These might be a reader’s thoughts when one comes across a recipe book – the name isn’t novel nor is the content. So what’s it about this book that definitely needs your attention? I’d say ‘conversations’. Akka cheti vanta is an outcome of one such after-lunch ‘conversation’ with my sister (akka in Telugu) who is now an octogenarian(she is 84 years old now). 

We all have grown up in the kitchen alongside our mothers and grandmothers and their conversations. They are always about the next meal for the family. Our family is from Andhra Pradesh and our cuisine is primarily Telugu Brahmin in nature. My akka has been our family’s annapoorna dutifully serving food with love. Her memory has been our recipe book. While we believe that she will be our go-to person for food, wisdom, and love, we want to preserve her culinary skills in print as well as in digital formats. So here we are sharing our food story with you in ‘Akka Cheti Vanta’. 

The road to success is not in postponing things. So as soon as we finished our after-lunch talk about our childhood and the life after, I rushed out to fetch some books and pens. Gave it to my akka and asked her to scribble down everything she knows – one recipe each day. Quite taken aback by my suddenness and after much prodding and pleading, she agreed to retrieve recipes from the by-lanes of her memory and write them down in the books. She patiently spent her leisure writing down those gems of recipes, some of the names which most of us wouldn’t have heard – let alone tasted. I brought along those books with neatly written recipes. 

Xeroxing? Spiral binding and distributing to aspiring cooks? were some of my thoughts to spread the aroma of my akka’s recipes. By then, the word spread that I have the hand-written copies and many of our friends and relatives wanted copies. ‘Ok. Let me give this a face-lift’ I thought. I discussed this with my cousin Madhu and he got excited and seemed invested in the idea of digitalizing it. He took the onus of typing and organizing the manuscript so willingly. Being a foodie and having tasted my akka’s recipes, he was more than happy to do it. He came up with a witty ‘upotghatam’ ( preface or introduction) in his characteristic East Godavari Telugu dialect. It is indeed the book’s highlight. 

We had as much help as we just needed. For this magnum opus, we have an excellent photographer, a talented photo editor, an intuitive designer, a meticulous proofreader, and an organized indexer. They are the very best in their fields of expertise. 

My go-to buddy for everything ‘design’ in YK antiques is Bala, the maverick designer. He came up with a number of blueprints taking suggestions after suggestions until the book is publish-ready. He added a great value in fine-tuning the look of the book. I have been happy all along with how the book has been shaping up. 

Vinay, our everything-English guy in all YK Antiques initiatives wrote a wonderful introduction in English which was later translated into Telugu. 

Venkat – behind all portraits in the recipe book. The beautiful portraits of my akka and YK in the cookbook were by Venkat, a very talented artist Madhu introduced to us. Venkat painted akka’s sketch inside the book, vegetables, and other relevant illustrations in the book. He is definitely our best pick as far as brown-tinted portraits and illustrations in the book are concerned. 

The beautiful rustic portrait of akka dishing out a delicacy out of brinjals we see on the cover page was painted by the very talented artist Arka Srinivas. He is a new addition to our team and we are proud to have him work for our recipe book. 

Satya – What? Stop! They aren’t stock images – the photos you see in the book. They are all Satya’s photography skills. If a picture is worth a thousand words, we don’t deny that Satya’s photos are just the right kind of tadka we needed for the recipe book. It sounds funny but creating recipes and writing the book was the easiest part. The most challenging or surprising part was all the other kinds of work that needed to be done and that we have no experience in. Honestly, it was more work than we ever imagined. So more suggestions poured in. This time it’s about putting the pictures of the recipes and the vegetables at the beginning of each recipe. YK cooked all the recipes in the brass utensils that YK Antiques owns. In every recipe, the uniqueness and importance of cooking in a specific vessel is explained beautifully. Satya photographed all the recipes and we incorporated those original pictures into the book. It’s no doubt time-consuming but the effort is all worth it because everything is ‘original’ and organically done. 

Madhu – we generally assume it’s good to have several proofreaders check our book. But Madhu is a one-man army.

We’ve had innumerable conversations back and forth about self-publishing our cookbook which is why we thought it’s a good idea to share with you how we learned along the way. 

Publishing and printing our book: Self-publishing doesn’t require you to be an entrepreneur. This was our first foray into print. Everyone’s journey of self-publishing is different, and so is ours. One step doesn’t necessarily start after the previous one finishes. Sometimes things overlap. But generally, these are the steps that include the tedious task of self-publishing a cookbook: 

Planning the cookbook 

Creating and testing the recipes (probably the easiest of all we realized) Writing the recipes and proofreading them 

Shooting and probably reshooting the photos of the book if needed 

Designing and interior layout of the book 

Proofreading 

Indexing 

Printing 

Marketing 

Shipping and Distribution 

More marketing 

Last but not the least – word of mouth about the book 

You can find a pani puri stall or a chat stall easily but to find a recipe like ‘Arati Doota pachadi’ (banana stem chutney) on the menu is a rarity. Ever heard of ‘kanda bachali’ and ‘panasa pottu’ koora? These are not the recipes that are made at home these days. The non-availability of ingredients or not finding time to cook everything from scratch when there are a number of ‘heat and eat’ options available in the market only meant that recipes like my akka cheti vanta are steadily dwindling away into oblivion – out of sight out of mind indeed. So there is more than a reason to buy these kinds of books and re-introduce them to your families to bring back our culinary heritage. Like to give it a thought? 

To really put your best whisk forward, we realized we need the same kind of passion from every member of our team. They have all given unconditional support to this production. But does it stop here? No, there’s more work, more ideas, and more teamwork. YK antiques is proud to have published this cookbook and we wish it reached out to all those passionate cooks. Let’s get the ball rolling by spreading a good word or two about the book and helping us gain momentum financially and morally. 

Most importantly, we value your feedback. It never hurts to put a fresh and interesting spin on the chapters or recipes in the book.

Our Sincere thanks to our beloved writer Sandhya Aluri for crafting this article for our readers.