IF you ask your Malayalee friends to name their favourite traditional sweet, their answer would probably be payasam, a milky porridge-like dessert that is enjoyed across south India and the diaspora.
The dessert is so loved by the Malayalees, a community that traces its roots to India’s Kerala state, that sadhya (feast) on Vishu (spring festival) and Onam (harvest festival) are incomplete without several varieties of payasam on the menu.
