Spice Wanderer

Journey with me to India…

“Another day in India, another curry stained shirt,” says an Instagram post of mine from August 29th, 2013.

Just a couple of weeks into my 4.5 month stint of living and working on a boarding school campus an hour outside of Hyderabad, India and I had already dealt with my fair share of stains caused by turmeric. Native to Southern India, turmeric has been used for centuries as a culinary spice, a natural clothing dye, and for medicinal purposes in Ayurvedic medicine. A member of the ginger family, when dried and ground it turns into a bright yellow and orange powder. Turmeric is what makes curry mixes yellow.

Alone, turmeric tastes bitter and earthy which is why it is often mixed with other spices. India still cultivates the majority of the turmeric used around the world but it is also grown in other tropical locations. Indian turmeric is definitely the best in the world. No surprise there since Kerala, a state in southwestern India, is home to the Spice Capital of the World! While turmeric is most famously used in curry spice mixes, its Ayurvedic history has recently been highlighted and seen a revival in the United States with the introduction of golden milk lattes and other golden powder mixes. I think I’ve even seen turmeric pills for sale! It is believed to help with circulation and digestion and it has antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antibacterial properties. Turmeric definitely stands out as an all-star Indian spice and I consumed it nearly every day while I was living there.

In 2013 work led me to a rural Indian boarding school. By the time I arrived in India, I had become pretty accustomed to boarding schools. In three years I lived on three different boarding school campuses in three different countries. The traveling high school I worked for partnered with international schools around the world, sometimes they were boarding schools. While “boarding school” is a universal term, each new school was very different from the last. If I close my eyes and think back to the school in India, I can picture the large white concrete fence that surrounded the 27-acre compound. I slept, ate, worked, socialized, ran, and swam within those walls. Beyond the gate, water buffalo and cows roamed the fields for miles in all directions.

As Logistics Director, I had to ensure that students and staff were housed, fed, and had enriching experiential education activities each term wherever we were in the world. I worked with transportation companies, restaurants, vendors of all kinds, translators, and many generous and wonderful people in each location to make everything happen. I learned a lot about the culture through the work I did. Life as a Logistics Director in India, responsible for 65 youth and adults was stressful. I learned that road travel is least reliable – thanks to the monsoon washing out roads, a 10hr bus ride turned into a 19hr ride. We relied on planes and trains after that. Getting 65 SIM cards to work so everyone could have functioning cell phones took over a month. Few things ever went smoothly but I learned a very valuable lesson.

“I’m beginning to learn that the only way to relax in India is to accept the fact that things will work out in the end. They just won’t happen in the time or way that I normally expect them to. There will be wrong turns, late arrivals, missed opportunities but there will also be adventures and stories that I’ll remember for years to come. I’m always talking about adventures. It’s about time I listen to myself and turn the miscalculations and the daily happenings into adventures. No good will come of anything if I hold onto my frustrations and share them with others. Tomorrow is a new day and I intend to add one more step in my goal of being a patient, adventurous, and calm person.” Excerpt from my journal entry on September 14, 2013

India taught me to be patient and it also made me realize that I couldn’t approach everything with the same expectations that I had when working in developed countries. Once I adjusted my expectations, I became calmer. While I faced many challenges working in India, I found that feeding the group wasn’t a problem. One of the perks of living on a boarding school campus is the cafeteria. Of course it’s only truly a perk if the food is good. The German boarding school I lived on had the worst food, the Thai boarding school had the best, and the Indian one fell somewhere under mediocre. It’s tough to prepare amazing food in large quantity. Besides being convenient, not having to cook for myself meant that for every meal other than breakfast (I ate that in my residence), I ate Indian food.

When you have full control over your meals, you end up adding variety and eating different cuisines once in a while. When you have absolutely no control, you eat what’s put in front of you. In my case this meant I consumed turmeric daily and got introduced to the myriad of flavors of Indian cuisine. I served myself from big metal tubs, plopping whatever the day’s yellow-tinted offerings were directly onto the metal tray that doubled as my plate. I ate everything with a spoon and fork; knives aren’t commonly used as cutlery in India, they aren’t usually needed since most meat is served in bite-sized pieces.

Korma, aloo gobi, paneer, dal, chana masala, vindaloo…I ate it all! My all-time favorite dish, the only one I never got bored of, was chicken biryani. Wednesdays were chicken biryani days. I loved Wednesdays. Hyderabadi chicken biryani is made of basmati rice, chicken, onions, ginger, turmeric, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, cardamom and a long list of other spices. I probably like it because it is FULL of rich spices.

Are you hungry yet?! Check out that yellow tinted rice. That’s the turmeric showing off its rich color! Due to the fact that I didn’t have a fully functioning kitchen while living in India and because I didn’t organize a cooking class (no clue why not), I did not learn to cook the rich and flavorful food. Instead, I left with spices I collected while on a trip to Kochi in Kerala, aka the Spice Capital of the World. I still have many of them. They’ve lost some of their potency but they’re still good! Go grab your turmeric and try out these recipes but be careful not to get anything with turmeric on you. If you don’t act quickly, it could stain!

Recipes

• Chicken Biryani – A rice and chicken dish very popular in Hyderabad, you’ll need lots of spices for this one
• Chana Masala – Simple and delicious vegan chickpea curry dish with tomatoes, onions, and spices
• Golden Turmeric Latte – A caffeine free hot beverage that tastes lovely and is full of antioxidants

Bhojan kaa aanand lijiye (enjoy your meal in Hindi)