A dosa is a thin savoury crepe in South Indian cuisine made from a fermented batter of ground black lentils and rice. Dosas are served hot, often with chutney and sambar.
Dosa is a signature dish in South India and Sri Lanka and is popularly served in their respective restaurants around the world.
There is a very interesting story about the origin of ‘Dosa’. Let me give a brief context of the times and the native origin of the place of this interesting story.
This interesting narrative was from the times of the famous Telugu Poet Tikkana Somayaji (1205 – 1288 AD) who is considered as one among the ‘Trinity of Telugu Poets or Kavi Trayam’ (Nannayya Bhattaraka, Tikkana Somayaji and Yerrapragada / Errana) who together translated Vyasa Mahabharata into Telugu version ‘Andhra Mahabharatam’.
Those were the times when Tikkana worked as a poet and also as one of Amatya in the Royal court of Telugu Chola king Manumasiddhi II (1248 – 1263 AD) of Nellore Pakanati seema region (consisting of present Nellore, Kadapa, Chittur (in AP) and Chengalput (in TN) districts with Vikramasimhapuri or present Nellore (in AP) as it’s capital) which was part of the much bigger Kakatiya dynasty of Ganapatideva (1199 – 1261 AD) of Warangal.
Now let us go to the main answer.
King Manumasiddhi is also considered a connoisseur of good food and his royal palace used to have a great cook ‘Narayana Sarma’.
Every day King used to have ‘Idly, Uppu Pongali (salty pongal) along with coconut chutney, Masala Kharappodi (famous masala red mirchi powder or Gun powder), tasty Pulusu (a sambar kind of preparation with a lot of vegetables) and fresh Ghee in the morning breakfast and he is very particular about this.
One fine day the cook comes to the palace for duties after quarreling with his wife and gets drunk.
Hence, while grinding the ‘Idly batter’ he ends up pouring more water in a disturbed, intoxicated mindset making the batter diluted in its consistency (which no longer will be suitable for making Idli’s).
Worried about the punishment from the king, it is believed that the cook approaches his friend and personal assistant ‘Madhavacharya’ who used to look after the food needs of the royal palace.
Then, after prodding over the development, Madhavacharya gives an idea to the cook and assures him that he will try his best to manage the situation the next day morning.
The next day morning, the cook Narayan Sarma and Madhavacharya manage to make ‘thin crispy Ghee Pan Cakes’ as part of the morning breakfast list of items to serve the king and his palace guests.
Fortunately, King is pleasantly surprised with this new dish of ‘thin crispy Ghee Pan Cakes’ and gets curious to know what is this new item and how it was made.
The king decides to visit the Royal kitchen to check personally accompanied by the royal Poet and Amatya ‘Tikkana Somayaji’ and Madhavacharya.
Then they oversee how the cook is making the item using the ‘diluted ‘Idly batter’ and with the help of a hot iron flat Pan.
Then they all happened to observe that while making it two times a typical sound ‘Suyiee’ once while water is sprinkled on the hot pan and a second time while the batter is spread over the hot pan to make that thin crispy pancake.
Then out of excitement, the witty poet Tikkana happened to exclaim as ‘Dve Suyiee – “ద్వే సుఁయ్” about the typical sound emanated while making this pancake (Dve meaning two times like in Ekam, Dve, Thrini and Suyiee sound).
So, it is believed that’s how the ‘thin crispy pancake’ originally got the name ‘Dve Suyiee’ which got transformed into ‘Dosuyie – Dosai – Dosa or Dose or దోశ’.
Now, the reason it’s called dosa is a funnier tale. The word dosha in Kannada refers to things like vice, blemish, and offence – which is all that this Brahmin cook performed when he got drunk and over-diluted the idli batter.