Roasting spices

    Though it was late in the season, I chose a warm-ish November afternoon to roast spices for my family's proprietary curry powder blend. Usually an activity I do with my mom, this time I did it alone.

    Sri Lankan curries are unlike Indian curries because our combination of spices is ever-so-slightly different. The magical marriage of coriander, fennel and cumin, in South Asian cuisine, is a fine balance - tipping it one way or the other can push you to one side or the other of the vast continent. To that minute flavor profile, add the subtly-screaming nuance of a roasted powder that brings depth and strength, transforming meat and hearty vegetables into a rich and complex dish.

    In my grandmother's day, she custom-toasted the blend each day for that evening's meal. After a slow and steady roasting, the spices were cooled and ground fresh. These days, my roasting happens on a day when I can sit outside on the patio, constantly stirring a pan of seeds over the low and steady heat of an electric burner.

    After the sun started to descend, I began to feel the chill in the air and my arm was getting tired from the constant stirring. Leaving it for even a minute would mean the tiny seeds would burn, imparting an acrid and unacceptable scorch.

    For the last eight or nine years, this traditional/modern roast was an annual activity that I did with my mom. When she died in April, I knew this was one of those things in our family that would change forever, and that I, in turn, would have to find the one who would continue the ritual.

    Sure, you can find Sri Lankan roasted curry powder online, but there's no guarantee that anyone even remotely Sri Lankan has assembled them. And no way to know how close to the brink of scorching they've gotten (you've got to get reeeaaaly close to get that chocolatey color!). Besides, when you cook Sri Lankan food once or twice a week, you'd go through one hell of a lot of teeny McCormick's bottles.

    At the beginning of my personal roasting history, I knew little except that it had to be done this way - no short cuts. I followed my mother's leads, measuring three parts coriander to one part cumin and one part fennel. Even the traditional name of this concoction is confusing... It is called thuna-paha, which roughly translates to 'three-five'. My logical mind says it means "take three of this one and add one of the other two to get five." Regardless, there is an alchemy to it that transcends the simple recipe and tedious assembly - plainly put: roasting takes time, and in ethnic cuisines, time equals love equals deliciousness.  

    So, I'd set up the electric burner on the back patio in early winter, slipped on my gloves, assembled the separate ingredients, grabbed the cast iron wok, and got to work. The coriander goes first because it is the biggest and takes the longest, followed by medium cumin and slivery fennel seeds. Each batch of seed goes into a bowl to cool and at the very end, the other herbs and spices meet to complete the flavors: curry leaves/karapincha, pandan leaves/rampé, cardamom pods, cinnamon bark, cloves, peppercorns, fenugreek. The fragrance that emanates from this is nothing short of divine. You might ask why this roasting has to be done outdoors until you've done it once inside your kitchen... But trust me, it does.

    When my brother and I were kids, we totally took Sri Lankan cooking for granted. We wanted Swanson's TV dinners or Chef Boyardee or McDonalds. We didn't get why my parents craved their spicy meals. We get it now - flavorful and filling, these dishes have evolved over thousands of years. They are now the stuff of our ancestry, our shared traditions and family feasts. 

    A good friend recently shared an article on how even the term curry was both colonized and dismissive. Across India and Sri Lanka, none of the traditional dishes is really considered a curry, like in the British-take-away sense. There are baduns (stir-frys), malluns (finely shredded sauteed greens usually mellowed by grated coconut), mild dishes with creamy turmeric gravy, and spicy dishes redolent with tomato and coconut milk, and sambols, and chutneys, not to mention many varieties of rice and types of flatbreads, rice cakes and vermicelli. I think our mother would be happy to know her cooking will live on and that the traditions we hold so dear are ones we learned from her.