Christmas is still two months away and Cardamom County is nowhere close to a location that receives snowfall, but we still rang in the holiday season a little early by holding the unakka pazha kootu ceremony. Unakka pazha kootu is a mixture of dried fruits, spices, and liquor, which is used as the core ingredient to make Christmas cake and pudding.

A MASSIVE amount of dried fruits—dates, cherries, cashew nuts, black current, sultanas, apricot, plums, fig, ginger peel, and orange peel—were elaborately and colorfully organized on top of carefully plastic lined tables laid out side by side inside the conference hall. Then, Shinou, our bakery chef, lit up a candle and literally set the fruits and alcohol on fire!

The chefs continuously dumped 13 liters of brandy and whiskey along with 1.5 kilograms of spices on top of the fruit. The guests and staffs with gloves, aprons, and cafeteria lady hairnets started tossing and turning the piles of fruit and spices a, mixing everything on the table together.

The fruit mixture is apparently 150 kilograms, which is equivalent to the weight of two average male human beings! The mixture is put in airtight storage for 2 months until December, and it will then be used to bake 300-400 KILOGRAMS of cake. I can’t wait for Christmas to come!