The Onam Sadya Leaf, Decoded: What Goes Where and Why

Onam 2026 runs from Atham to Thiruvonam on Wednesday 26 August. Most calendars put Atham on Monday 17 August, though a few mark it on the 16th. Kerala's official holiday list then gives four days off in a row: First Onam on the 25th, Thiruvonam on the 26th, then Third and Fourth Onam. Somewhere in there, most of this city sits down in front of a banana leaf.

A good number will not be entirely sure what they are looking at. The sadya has a layout: part fixed, part argued about, and almost nobody tells you which is which.

Which way does the banana leaf go?

The narrow tip of the leaf points to your left, with the cut end to your right. That is the one rule everybody agrees on; if the tip is on your right, the leaf has been laid wrong.

The leaf is read in two halves. The far half carries the sides. The near half, closest to you, is working space for rice and everything poured over it.

What goes where on the leaf

Serving starts at the tip end, the settled part of the arrangement.

Where on the leaf	What lands there
Tip end, first of all	A pinch of salt
Tip end, alongside the salt	Puli inji, then lime and mango pickles
Tip end, near edge	Pappadam, a small ripe banana, banana chips and sharkara varatti
Along the far half	Olan, kalan, erissery, kootu curry, avial, thoran, pachadi, kichadi
Near half, centre	Rice, served after all of the above

Two notes on that table. The banana is a small ripe one, poovan or cherupazham, the same fruit under two names, not the big nendran the chips are cut from. And the last row of sides is deliberately unordered, because the curry order along the far half is not fixed. Compare any three published sadya guides and you get three different sequences: one starts with thoran and the curd dishes and leaves olan till last, another opens with avial and reverses the whole run. Households differ, caterers differ, districts differ. Treat the middle as a zone, not a sequence.

What you are actually being handed

Olan is the light one, ash gourd and cowpeas in coconut milk, finished with a drizzle of raw coconut oil. Kalan is its opposite: thick and sour, yam or plantain cooked down in curd and coconut. Erissery is pumpkin, black-eyed peas and coconut. Kootu curry is banana or yam with chickpeas, coconut and black pepper, which is why it and erissery taste like cousins, both pairing a pulse with a great deal of coconut.

Pachadi and kichadi are both curd based, and anyone who tells you which is the sweet one is describing their own family's version. The names are used almost interchangeably across Kerala. Puli inji, the sweet pickle of ginger, tamarind, green chilli and jaggery, is the one thing on the leaf nobody should skip.

The order the curries arrive in

Rice comes late, not first, and then the pouring dishes follow in sequence. Parippu, the plain toor dal, goes on first with a spoon of ghee over it. Sambar comes next, usually with more rice, then pulissery or moru curry. Rasam and sambaram, the thin spiced buttermilk, come towards the end, and payasam is served alongside or after, commonly two, one jaggery and coconut milk based and one milk based.

The bookends here are stable: parippu and ghee open it, buttermilk closes it. The middle moves. Sources put rasam before the payasams, after them, or leave it out altogether, and moru and rasam swap places freely. What holds is the direction of travel, heavy to light, so the last thing on your tongue is buttermilk rather than ghee. Mixing everything together at the start throws that away.

How many dishes is a real sadya?

Twenty six is the number on every banner this month. Treat it as a target, not a rule. Counts described as traditional run from about twenty four to twenty eight, and the Aranmula valla sadya can go past sixty. Restaurants advertising twenty six are counting the salt, the pappadam and two payasams to get there.

Which is fine. A sadya of twelve well made dishes beats twenty six rushed ones, and anyone handed a lukewarm avial off a hotel conveyor belt at 1pm on Thiruvonam knows what that difference tastes like. If you are booking rather than cooking, we rounded up the Kochi sadya options for 2026 and where to reserve early.

The fold at the end

When you have finished, you fold the leaf. You will be told, with total confidence, what the direction means: folding it towards yourself signals you enjoyed the meal, or the exact opposite, depending on who is telling you. Both circulate widely, and the meaning genuinely differs across parts of Kerala.

So watch the family you are eating with, and copy them. That is more useful than the confident answer. Onam properly opens with the Athachamayam procession at Thripunithura, and more of the season, the city and the food is in our Lifestyle section.