I met a South African lady recently for work. The original
plan was to meet in a coffee shop. A really bad sand storm meant the plan had to be changed, so I suggested “Why don’t you just come over to my place and we can discuss work
over some hot masala chai.” “Perfect!”, she replied.
After the work was out of our way, while we discussed life
and food, she asked me if I, like every other Indian woman, had a ‘Spice box’ in
my kitchen. “Oh yeah,” I said.
As I showed the contents of each box, she looked
at me amazed.
“So, you use all of
these every day?”, she asked curiously.
“Most of them, yes.”
“That’s a lot of spices!”
“Oh, wait till you see the other Masalas that are neatly
stowed in the fridge door,” I said, opening the fridge. (Thank God I had
cleaned it recently 😉 )
“See, these are not
used every day. But for example when I make Dosa and Sambhar..”
“Dosa – those crispy pancakes with spicy lentil soup, right?”
I smiled. “Yeah that spicy lentil soup aka Sambhar would
need this Masala,” I said, pointing to the Sambhar masala.
“This is interesting.”
“Wait, we aren’t done
yet!”
I opened a kitchen drawer that that had some whole spices
and some other special Maharashtrian Spices. Her eyes grew wider.
“These are local to my cuisine. If you go to South India for
example, you will see a new treasure of spices there.”
“Gosh, that’s a lot of masalas!” Her face resembled the ‘Astonished
Face’ emoji. 😲
"And I thought ‘curry powder’ was
all you had!”
Face-palm emoji! 🤦🏽♀️
***
After she had left, as I sat down,
finishing of the spicy Chivda that she hadn’t touched, I couldn’t help be amazed
and proud of the wealth we Indians possess.
That kick we get as the Paani from the
Paani Puri travels through the gullet,
The tingling sensation when we drink a
glass of Rassam on a bad cold and flu day,
The comfort we experience as we take the
first bite of a Kanda Bhaji on a rainy day,
The flavor that bursts in the mouth when
we dig into some Spicy Misal on a cold wintery morning. I could go on.
“What a rich spice culture we have,” I said
to myself ,and got up to make myself another round of 'Masala' Chai.
