Indian cooks build their dishes, it strikes me, in the same way that the country’s musicians play kritis (devotional songs) and ragas (the classical Indian Karnatak form). The kriti allows a singer not only to show off his talents but to sing in praise of the divine. A raga isn’t a melody but melodic potential; it allows for the combination of hundreds of different notes, ornamentations, and pitches. They sometimes bob and weave, taking off in countless directions before returning to the original phrase. Improvisation and symmetry meet, as in a jazz tune that will never be heard again in the same way.
In india, the spiritual is heard and seen everywhere. Even in the smallest villages, little neighborhood Hindu temples and shrines lie behind walled areas. Like the entrance to Disneyland, the roofs are swarmed with vibrantly painted statues of gods: Shiva, Ganesha, there must be millions of them. It makes the Roman gods look like members of Planned Parenthood. Out here, people may not even know what goes on 15 miles from their town. They stay within; there is something that goes down, not out, that has great depth.
I felt I needed to better understand this way of introspection before I could even think of cooking an Indian dish. The spiritual is such an integral part of their lives. So I spent ten days in silent retreat at a vipassana meditation center near Chennai. Vipassana practitioners don’t relinquish control to a higher being but work toward detaching themselves from their desires, to accept things as they are. With about 30 others I sat, eyes shut, without speaking, focused on my breathing. This may sound simple, but for a cook used to running in many directions at once, it was a very difficult thing, a powerful thing. And in this silence I felt layers of myself peeling away and an openness beginning to root itself. I was ready, then, to continue my journey.
I headed for the neighboring state of Kerala, which, in its customs and its cuisine, even in its tropical breezes, is another India. Switchbacks traversing the Cardamom Hills, thick with coffee and tea plantings, led us to the coastal city of Cochin, where, in the harbor, “Chinese” fishing nets, arched like bows poised to shoot arrows toward heaven, emerged from the water groaning with mackerel and gray mullet.
One of those gray mullets, plucked from the bay not more than three hours earlier, was soon on my plate at a harborside restaurant. The chef smothered the fish in a curry paste, wrapped it in banana leaves, and steamed it, instructing me to scrape some of the curry onto the plate so that the fish maintained its “separateness.” Unlike many of the curried fish dishes I’ve had, in which the long simmering left the fish tasting funky, not fresh, this mullet had integrity and intense flavor. It was the best thing I’d put in my mouth since I’d arrived in India.
I was growing anxious to get into the kitchen again, to shop for vegetables and grind spices, to stir the ingredients together over a fire. I could feel myself waking up, I guess you could say, and it felt good. So I left Cochin for Thelliyoor, a small village where I’d arranged to spend two weeks with a local family, the Nayars, learning to cook like a Keralan.
That can mean different things, depending on whom you’re cooking with, for Kerala itself is a masala of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Hindus. Although Kerala means “land of the coconut”—and every dish here, regardless of the religion of the cook, seems to pack a cup or so of the stuff—Nayar is also the name of the ancient warrior caste of Hindu Brahmins, who are vegetarians. So for me, Keralan cooking would be without meat or eggs.
The Nayars—Sidu, her husband, and their teenage son—are landowners who live in the middle of a lush rubber plantation. Their home is compact and comfortable, with a long, shaded porch, a small prayer room (where Sidu spends a couple of hours at the beginning of each day), and a kitchen that in most ways resembles a typical American setup. But she never uses the oven. Everything is cooked in granite Chinese-style woks on the stovetop.
And every meal, Sidu says, is constructed along Ayurvedic principles, which call for all six tastes—salty, sweet, bitter, sour, astringent, and pungent—to be included, and for harmony among the elements to achieve good health. If the body’s system is out of balance, an emphasis on a certain taste might bring things back into alignment.
Ayurveda aside, a way with a spice grinder is the true measure of a Keralan cook, because the grind can significantly change the taste of a dish. If you roll the spices, you break them in a different way, which in this part of the world can lead to verbal sparring matches. You may hear a man say, “My wife cooks better than yours because she grinds spices better; they are finer.”
Just behind the kitchen, outdoors, Sidu’s assistants were grinding spices for an aviyal, a Hindu classic of mixed vegetables with coconut and tamarind. I walked back to watch them and was greeted with a chorus of giggles; they self-consciously covered their mouths. A man in the kitchen is a rarity here.
They took cumin, cayenne, and turmeric and ground them, continuing to roll the mixture with water until it looked like clay slip. It was that smooth and shiny, even though it was all particulate, and formed this incredibly beautiful mass that blended into the wet masala.
As Sidu and I grated coconut with a strange little utensil especially designed for the task, she told me the Hindu story behind the aviyal. Bhima, a Pandava prince, was poisoned and tossed into the river by rival Kaurava princes. Brought back to life by the king of the underwater world, Bhima returned to his family just in time for the feast that marked the end of their period of mourning for him. The feast became a celebration of his return, and Bhima himself contributed a dish, a potpourri of vegetables picked at random.
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