MADHUR Jaffrey, in A Taste Of India � her definitive guide to regional Indian cooking, says that heaven must be a bit like Kerala. She writes about the Arab traveller Ibn Batuta who discovered that everybody in Kerala has his own garden and his house is firmly planted in the middle of it. Which, if not entirely true, is close enough to it. �The gardens, then as now, are kitchen gardens which do not sit neatly and demurely on one side of the house as an European herb garden might, but encircle it with some abandon,� says Jaffrey.

Houses often disappear entirely within their verdant, forest-like foliage. Black pepper vines clamber tenaciously up mango trees, the peppercorns huddling together in bright green clusters like bunches of embryo grapes. Nutmeg fruit hang like tennis balls, ready to split open and offer both their nuts and their special bonus, curls of tangerine-coloured mace. Cinnamon, clove and tamarind trees compete for a view of the sky while cardamom stays close to the ground, hugging its mother bush. There are ginger and turmeric plants as well, sending fingers of their tuberous rhizomes out into the cool, dark earth. Above all, there are the two trees that give the foods of Kerala their special character � the sweetly aromatic curry leaf tree and the arching, swaying coconut palm.

However, everybody is not fortunate enough to have a kitchen garden in his backyard from which vegetables are plucked daily and put into the pot. Such people in Calicut go to the Malayam Market in the city�s congested Palayam area. It is a delightful place, somewhat old world, and bustling with the cacophonous activity of a city that has come awake and is out shopping in the early morning for its daily quote of veggies. In Calicut, doing the bazaar is a man�s chore, and you will find Malayalis of all classes with their lungis hitched up engaged in fierce bargaining with the fruit and vegetable vendors.

The veggies, fortunately, are garden fresh. From some farmer�s organic garden on the outskirts of the city. Colourful trucks with grinning drivers unload the produce at the Malayam Market in the mornings, and from then on, everything is up for grabs. Hitch up your lungi, and prepare to wade into the thick of the action. That is the only way the bazaar can be done. Examine the fruit, feel the vegetables, prod, poke and run a bony finger to check for freshness and absolute freshness.