The Book Of Rasams
Rasam, is where it all begins.Who invented it? Who named it? We will never know.
Who owns it? Well, who doesn’t? You taste it, you own it.
Rasa , we are told means nectar. As a verb, it means to have an appetite for the good things of life. Mostly, though, it simply means “essence”. The finest part of anything.
The finest part of our meal. Rasam.
Rasam is the magic potion fed to children “to unlock the tongue and let Saraswathi flow out."
Rasam is eternal and enduring. Even the Taittiriya Upanishad speaks of rasam- Man consists of the essence of food, it says. The self consists of food, of breath, of understanding, of bliss.
Anyone will vouch for the bliss that swamps the being when rasam is consumed. It takes so little of everything -time, effort, ingredients, to rustle up a rasam that rises to the occasion.
From contemplating the little jar of rasam powder, watching the tomato and tamarind extract simmer gently while you add the rasam powder, never allowing it to boil over, tempering with mustard-cumin popped in ghee,throwing in a sprig of coriander and curry leaves, and finally, adding lashings of it on a steaming mound of rice…………. truly, the self consists of rasam, …….and bliss!
The Book Of Rasams , however, is a different cup of , well, rasam altogether. A hand-written letter from dear school-friend Nirmala dated August 16, 2000, now yellowing with age, has been a constant reminder of inexcusable procrastination. After a delightful, unexpected reunion that included Anita and Nivedita and Sharmila, Nirmala returned to Vellore promising to send me the recipes of nine rasams to go into The Book Of Rasams .
She did, filling the page with inconsequential titbits, along with a telephone number of a Reiki master to be passed on to Sharmila, and of course the recipes.
The Book Of Rasams is no orange-spined little tome from Penguin, which is how it has existed in the imagination, nor is it a must-have in every girl's library, like Meenakshi Ammal's Samaithu Paar aka Cook And See.
It is, now RasamNirvana . Following food. Mapping the geography, history and the politics of food. Learning the mythology of food. And discovering the secret ingredient in the recipes of moms and grandmoms everywhere.
