The patriarchy of spices

With popular Indian spice brands being recently banned on account of high levels of pesticides in their mixes, I take solace in the fact that the most dedicated mothers and mothers-in-law have never let up on guarding their family ‘secret blend of spices’.

I always wondered why these women undertook the rather laborious task of going to the market, selecting spices (sometimes hundreds of them), roasting each under the scorching sun or on wood fires, hand-pounding them at the local masala mill and finally mixing them in specific ratios. No shortcuts, no—God forbid—mixer-grinders.

I’ve found that homemade masalas prevail largely in the west and south of the country. Perhaps it has something to do with the long monsoons when fresh spices are hard to come by. The yearning for good homecooked meals, however, doesn’t know any seasons. So, the women of the house devised homemade spice blends to last till the following summer.

The entirely artisanal process is also a way to ensure that the final product is not adulterated like mass-produced ones. It’s a practice that dates back centuries. And because these recipes are so closely guarded, one can assume that the masalas themselves go back a few centuries in authenticity. What a wonderful way to keep one’s heritage alive!

But there is another angle to this story—and that’s patriarchy. Let me unpack that. While Indian cuisine uses all manner of dry and whole spices, the powdered ones—the mixed masalas, the Malwani/ Pathare Prabhu bottle masalas—are specific to each community. These blends are not the same as garam masala, which is also handmade.

Mixed masala, as the name suggests, is usually a blend of many types of local chillies and whole dried spices, in varying proportions according to each family’s recipe. A slight variation in the amount of say, cumin, in the mix, will give it a whole different flavour profile within the same variant.

These spices are ground by the kilo and stored in stoneware or glass jars, sealed tight to prevent the moisture of the monsoon from spoiling them. Small amounts are then removed from these large receptacles and put into lovingly used spice boxes. What looks like regular chilli powder is a mixture of anything between 12 and 45 spices. It lends a distinct aroma and taste to many types of dishes, and yet, it is not used in isolation. That would be too simple for the Indian palate! Instead, it is added to different dishes in different proportions, along with other powdered spices like coriander.

As if this wasn’t complicated enough, the passing on of these secret spice recipes happens at quite another level.

If we look at it from the angle of the erstwhile royal families of India, we might assume that the influences the new bride brought with her found a place in the house she married into. This did happen, to a limited extent. But did these influences find pride of place at the royal table? Most probably not. Instead, the princess had to carry on the traditions of the prince’s family, even in the matter of food.

For instance, Digvijaya Singh and his father Prince Dilip Singh of Sailana (present day Madhya Pradesh) were avid connoisseurs who collected recipes from the royal families of Bhopal, Hyderabad and Rampur, creating the Sailana Food Archive. The men of the Sailana family were famed cooks and took pride in reviving old recipes and creating new ones. Digvijaya Singh went on to write Cooking Delights of the Maharajas (1982), that bible for so many seasoned chefs and gourmands.

But male royals stepping into the kitchens to cook up a storm is not the patriarchy I refer to. What I’m talking about has to do with royal families feeling insecure about their treasured recipes being ‘sent’, as it were, to other princely states by way of marriage. As we know, royals in India prefer to marry other royals. Here geography comes second to genealogy. And while the rajas might have been diligent chroniclers of their cuisines, they weren’t generous about sharing them. So, while young princesses grew up on food that was distinct to their principality, the recipes were rarely shared with the daughter of the house. What they feared was losing prized recipes to the family their daughter was marrying into. In effect, patriarchy ruled at the dining table.

I wonder how difficult it would have been for these princesses to get accustomed to completely foreign tastes and rituals in another palace. How dearly they might have longed to eat the familiar food they were brought up on, but sadly never taught how to make, by virtue of being girls.

While this was the norm in most royal circles, there are exceptions like Maharani Gayatri Devi, herself a hybrid of influences from Cooch Behar, Baroda and Maratha. When she married the maharaja of Jaipur, Gayatri Devi brought this eclecticism with her—Cooch Behari ways of cooking cauliflower or fish with radish, as well as the simple Marathi dish amti-daal made sumptuous with cashew nuts, ghee and coconut.

‘Commoners’ are no different from ‘royals’ when it comes to this kind of patriarchy. I’ve seen it ever so often amongst the people of the Konkan. Here marriages are arranged within and between villages, which leads to subtle tweaks and shifts. I remember a girl named Shaila who worked in a cashew factory in Vengurla in the Sindhudurg region of Maharashtra. I struck up a conversation with her and later, was treated to a local Konkan delicacy, the humble but delicious snack of ghavne (similar to a dosa) and chutney.

When I asked her to join us, she simply smiled sweetly and said that though she had learnt how to make it, she hadn’t yet learnt to love it. Originally from Pune, a region that doesn’t share the Konkan’s fondness for coconut, she never knew this dish before she got married. And yet she identified with her husband’s family to the extent that she called herself ‘Konkani’ without the slightest hesitation. It was then that I realised how much of themselves women in India leave behind when they marry.

Food is identity and if it is swapped for another type of cuisine, it erases a large part of who you are and the memories you grew up with. Do the sons of the house ever have to alter their palate? Why would they? Their mothers and wives are taught to make only what the family (read patriarchy) allows, in order to continue tradition. In effect, the longevity of a cuisine rides on the shoulders of the women and their ability to take it forward. I’m all for keeping culinary legacy alive, but at the cost of losing one to carry forward another? It makes me wonder how many opportunities for delicious fusion are lost this way.

On further probing, Shaila mentioned that her mother-in-law had recently entrusted her with the family masala recipe and asked her not to share it with the daughters of the house. After all, they would soon ‘belong’ to another family and one’s secret masala recipes were as integral as the family name. I asked her if she longed for her mother’s food. Again, she smiled and said, “Who doesn’t?” Did her mother teach her her family recipes? Sure, she taught her how to cook. But did she share the recipe of the homemade masalas that she cooked with? Obviously not. That was to be shared only with the future daughter-in-law.   

(Denise D’Silva is the author of The Beyond Curry Indian Cookbook. Her Instagram is @eatwander.repeat)