Dishes · Malabar food glossary
Banana Chips (Upperi)
Also known as: Upperi, Kaya varuthathu, Nendran chips, Kerala chips
Kerala’s signature snack - thin slices of raw Nendran plantain fried crisp in coconut oil and salted, called upperi in Malayalam.
Banana chips - upperi, or kaya varuthathu - are the everyday snack of Kerala: raw Nendran plantain sliced thin, fried in coconut oil until golden and crisp, and salted while hot (traditionally by sprinkling salted water into the oil in the final moments of frying). The Nendran cultivar and the coconut oil are both essential; together they produce the crisp bite and unmistakable aroma that define the Kerala version against generic banana chips.
Upperi is also ritual food: the salted chips and their jaggery-coated sibling, sharkara varatti, are among the first items served on the banana leaf at an Onam sadya. Because the chips keep for weeks airtight, they have always been Kerala’s most portable food - the packet in every school bag and every suitcase headed abroad.