Singapore Daily Street foods in every week. Appam is a popular Indian bowl-shaped pancake made from a batter of rice flour and coconut milk. Typically consumed for breakfast or dinner, appam is most popular in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, and Kerala, where it is culturally linked to the Syrian Christians called the Nasranis, who bake appam on a stone. According to an American food writer and historian, Gil Marks, the pancake first appeared in the southern tip of India. Although not much is known about the history of appam, some also speculate that it originated from Jewish communities in India. Today, it is traditionally served with spicy condiments such as coconut milk curry.