Spice it up!

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about pepper. I jokingly said that I would overdo the pepper if things go wrong between us and the friend retorted that the pepper can be removed and eaten anyway, making nothing difficult to eat. So much to fighting spirits in all of us! To which I immediately said, that then I will powder it, so that it cannot be taken and kept aside (a tactic learned from my grandmom).There was but a smile and the friend admitted that it will be good anyway! Making that conversation fall flat and have no spice to chew on! Spices have always represented ‘Anger’, ‘Grudge’ and ‘Spite’ as most of the spices that we know of are, hot ! With Pongal around the corner and my grand plans to make both the sweet and the kara Pongal, I was making sure I filled my spice box with enough pepper to splash to the Pongal .

Coincidentally, I watched ‘The Mistress of the Spices’ over the week end. Not to mention just how beautiful Ash looked in it and the homely plaits she wore right through the movie! Enjoyed the movie thoroughly as it brought alive the fact that the famous world renowned spices of India had far deeper roots to cultural and traditional values. Every spice had a power to heal and they were interestingly very unique. The asafetida was an antidote to love, the pepper made a person confess his deepest secrets that he so carefully nursed, the almonds brought out the sweet words even beyond the anger in the argument, the saffron was for the love of life, lent flavor and kept it glowing,  cinnamon sticks helped make friends who stood by us, ground black sesame kept one from danger and the holy tulsi was a cleanser of thoughts as well(I’ve always given it to my husband and daughter though for cleansing the phlegm that they seem to have 364 days in a year…the one day being the day when they decide to eat guava and they go back into their cycle of running nose, phlegm, cold, sneeze and cough!! Sigh) .Thats their cycle of life you see ;). The spices were depicted godly and they dictated how one must live. It kind of tickled my senses more than it did to my taste buds.

I grew up in a family where all of us loved spice and married into one where spicy food wasn’t great cooking. Bland was considered sensible. Now I scale somewhere between spicy and bland.   While from a medical perspective spices are indeed harmful, its still my kind of ‘good’ food. Even today its very easy for me to be tempted by spicy street food.  It simply still runs deep in my DNA to prefer the spicy samosa and the sambar too. Well, I have enough damage done already to the system and yet the kachoris and masala vadas always tickle my taste buds.   This time after a long drive and some shopping in the cold Bangalore weather, my bro and me stopped by a string of shops, selling street food. After a lot of thought we decided to go for it! I’m always a little more adventurous with such deals than my skeptical bro. Masala sweet corn, hot and straight out of the frying pan mirchi bajji(had a special tangy touch too that I loved) and crispy medhu vadas that had a generous shove of pepper and green chillies too! To send all this down for a proper digestive process(hopefully!) we finished with Jaljeera. At the end of it all, the bad throat infection that I had, seemed numb and as for him his eyes were watering throughout the time we drove back!

Its been many many times that I vow at the end of such sessions that I will never go back to eating food like this only to find that I am the first to suggest it next time. Not to forget another experience like that with my daughter to celebrate her Swimming medal-it was a vada pau in Bombay Café. She said that she could feel fumes through her ears. The waiter was so kind to bring in some sweet cold lassi immediately to nullify the burning effect for her. And yet it remains one of the best vada pau we ever ate!

Spicy food is not hugely healthy. Knowing it, doesn’t change a thing when I make my choices. I just eat what I like and of course take some precautions to nullify the bad after effects. When a day of such indulgence happens, there is a lot of fresh cucumber, curd and steamed broccoli to be eaten. Not sure if all spices have the healing powers that the movie featured. But they certainly give you a kick like none other. Like, when you stand in the middle of the ‘Anand sweets’ in Commercial street gulping  hot papdi chaat(lots of fresh raw mangoes sprinkled)  and a huge glass of cold badam milk. It’s a heavenly experience to then compensate it with some hot,salted dry peanuts that simply bore through your nose, inviting you to buy it from the street vendor at the end of the road before going ahead with some more crap  shopping of bindis and trinklets!!

Hot salted peanuts .

  So just eat what tickles your taste buds today!