In Malayalam, the language of Kerala, snacks are known as palaharam. This is probably a corruption of the word fala-aharam, which means a meal of fruits. Fruits are typically consumed in their natural form without cooking or processing. However, there are many painstakingly prepared snacks like appam, ada, murukku etc. These can be categorized into sweet snacks and savories. Sweets are prepared with sugar, jaggery, rock sugar, or palm sugar. Appam and ada are sweet preparations but the former is fried while the latter is steamed, while murukku is a deep-fried savory. Savories may be pungent, salty, or sour and are greatly enjoyed by Keralites.
