The food of the gods

When we were kids, once in a while, usually on a Sunday, amma made vengaaya sambar (onion sambar) and a potato-curry.  Would I love to have that combo for dinner tonight!

I didn't know then that potatoes, red chilies, and coriander (cilantro) were not really Indian. There was no reason to suspect they were not.

How wonderful to later find out that none of those is native to the old country.  Two came from the world of the Aztecs and the Incas--from the other side of the planet!  I was more shocked to learn that the coriander plant is native to the eastern Mediterranean.

The Subcontinent made them all its own.

But, there is one kitchen ingredient that I would never have imagined not being Indian.  Never would I have even remotely wondered if it was really Indian.

Asafoetida.

Who would have thunk that!  No sambar can ever taste great without a pinch of asafoetida, but this ingredient is not Indian!

It was only late in life did I figure that out.

The BBC adds more to my understanding.

Asafoetida, or hing as it's commonly known in India, is a perennial, flowering plant that largely grows in the wild. It thrives in dry soil in temperatures under 35C. So India's tropical plateaus and plains, humid coast and heavy monsoons rule out much of the country for hing farming.

So, where does India get its fix?

Instead, Indians rely on imports mostly from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan - worth more than $100m in 2019 - to get their fix.

They should rename that region as Asafoetidastan ;)

asafoetida in Latin means "fetid gum". The smell is so strong that raw hing, a greyish-white sticky resin collected from the roots, is dried and mixed with flour - wheat in India's north, rice in the south - to turn it into an edible spice. ... Although the Persians once called it "the food of the gods", hing is now barely found in cuisines outside of India. In other parts of the world it's either used for medicinal reasons or as an insecticide!

However, unlike the potato or the red chili, which came to India after the "Columbian exchange," asafoetida has a long history: "It also makes an appearance in the grand Hindu epic, Mahabharata, whose composition historians believe began around 300 BC."

Now, Indian scientists have "planted about 800 saplings of the plant in Lahaul and Spiti, a cold desert nestled in the Himalayan mountains."  If those plants survive, and the resin is collected, then asafoetida will be made for the first time ever in the old country.

Step back and survey this landscape of food.  Global is a simple and routine combination of vengaaya sambar and potato-curry.  There is so much good that comes from being open to the world.

If only we would think globally!