The Meaning of Masala

I was sitting at the kitchen table one sunny Saturday morning here in Texas, enjoying a cup of milky tea, when my daughter, Niroshini, called. “Hi, Mom. I thought I’d come over for the day. Can we fix our chicken curry for dinner?”

“I’d love that,” I said.

I hung up, smiling to hear Niroshini call it “our chicken curry.” Every Indian family has their own special version of a curry dish—like Italians with their marinara or Texans with their barbecue sauce—and our particular curry has been passed down through the women in my family for generations and traveled thousands of miles, through more countries than you might imagine.

You see, my grandfather brought this curry recipe over with him from southeastern India to Durban, South Africa, where he emigrated when he was just 17. It was a dish he’d eaten at his mother’s table.

When he met and married my grandmother in South Africa, she inherited the recipe and passed it on to her daughters. When I set out on my own adventures in 1979, moving to the U.S. with my husband, my mother made sure I brought the chicken curry recipe with me.

Niroshini and I don’t get to cook together very often because I teach fourth grade and get home in the evenings too late to cook. And she has her own busy work schedule.

She didn’t always have an interest in cooking though. She liked to hang out with friends or go to the mall. That is, until my mother came to visit us one time from South Africa when Niroshini was 15.

She taught my daughter how to make the chicken curry and samoosas, delicious fried pastries filled with spiced lamb or potatoes. It was more than just the cooking that took hold of Niroshini. It was the connection to her heritage, something you can’t find at the mall (though these days many food courts do have Indian food!).

“I thought we could make samoosas,” I said to her when she arrived that Saturday. I grabbed the dough for the samoosa pastry and set it on the counter. Niroshini rolled it into triangles while I sautéed the lamb with garlic and cumin. Niroshini told me about her job and her friends at work. “I just hope to have a family someday too,” she said, filling the last samoosa.

“You will, honey,” I said, patting her hand. “Now let’s start on the curry. Will you get the masala down from the cabinet?”

Niroshini grabbed the jar of masala. “You know,” she said, her voice teasing, “masala isn’t that hard to make. Yet you always have your aunt send it to you from South Africa.”