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Next: 14 Apr 2027

Puthandu and mango pachadi

The Tamil New Year, when six tastes are blended in a pachadi of neem flower, jaggery, tamarind, chilli and salt.

Puthandu is the traditional Tamil new year. The calendar and day migrated from Indian Tamils to Sri Lanka and southeast Asia in the 1st millennium CE.
Photo: Amila Tennakoon, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Spices for Puthandu and mango pachadi

Tamil households mark the new year with a dish that includes all six tastes: sweet jaggery, sour raw mango or tamarind, salt, bitter neem flower, pungent chilli or pepper and astringent unripe mango. A spoonful of the mix is the first thing eaten, a reminder that a year holds many flavours. The rest of the meal includes sambar and vadai seasoned with asafoetida and mustard. It is a small, clear case of a spice cabinet carrying a philosophy.

The spices

Chili pepperSupplies the pungent taste in the six-taste pachadi.TamarindThe sour element and a base for rasam and sambar.AsafoetidaSeasons the sambar served in the feast.
About this page

Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Puthandu" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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