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Garum Masala
- greenyoda 4y agohttps://archive.ph/xLmsi https://archive.ph/xLmsi
- c54 4y agoClever name!
- gerikson 4y agoCan recommend author Dalrymple's books about the East India Company and the first Anglo-Afghan war.
- roncesvalles 4y agoHe also has a podcast called Empire.
- HDMI_Cable 4y agoFor anyone wondering, there’s no connection between the Roman Garum (a sort of fish sauce that was very common in Roman cuisine) and Garam Masala—-I believe Garam simply means ‘hot’ (as in ‘hot spice’) in Hindi, and so bears no etymological history with Rome.
- whydoyoucare 4y agoThanks, and yes, the title caught me off guard until I realized it was fish sauce as opposed to the hot spice (garam masala).
- pklausler 4y agoI wonder what was used for "hot spices" in pre-Columbian Indian cuisine, or whether the term even existed before the introduction of chili peppers.
- om42 4y agoIts been a while since I last went into a deep dive about this, but i think the term did exist before. Black pepper, other spices, as well as ginger or garlic can add "heat" to a dish without chili peppers.
- denton-scratch 4y agoChilli retains its heat during cooking. Peppercorns and mustard don't; if you want to use them for heat, add them at the end of cooking. I don't mean "heat" in the ayurvedic sense, I just mean in terms of the burning sensation on the palate.
- ithkuil 4y agoEnglish has so many words, and yet it doesn't have a separate word for the spicy hotness that cannot be confused with heat?
- OJFord 4y agoThere's 'spicy', but then it can also be ambiguous (unless your tolerance is really low) with something that is full of flavourful spice notes but without the, er, heat. I'm not sure Hindi does either though? Garam is certainly ambiguous.
- superice 4y agoIt seems to be because the sensation induced in the mouth is literally that of heat. I remember Adam Ragusea on his excellent YouTube channel pointing out that capsaicin makes the mouth much more sensitive to temperature. So funnily enough, the sensation of something being too hot temperature-wise, and something being spicy is pretty much the same thing. It's also why cold water seems to help for a bit, but does nothing to eliminate the effects of the capsaicin as opposed to something like milk.
- ithkuil 4y ago
- bigbillheck 4y ago> so bears no etymological history with Rome It still appears to be, ultimately, Indo-European and cognate with English 'warm', among others: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/gʷʰer- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Eur...
- akavi 4y agoOddly enough, though that root does produce "fermentum", "garum" seems to be etymologically unlinked.
- abdullahkhalids 4y agoGaram masala is a blend of spices that are lightly roasted. The "garam"/hot refers to this roasting.
- yumraj 4y ago> Garam masala is a blend of spices that are lightly roasted. The "garam"/hot refers to this roasting. That is incorrect. Garam does indeed mean hot, but individual spices in garama masala don't need to be roasted, in fact I believe most, if not all, of them are not roasted, rather simply ground together. The garam refers to the taseer (in Ayurvedic terms) of the spice blend, as in is it cooling (such as fennel is cooling), or is it warm (such as black pepper is warm/hot) to the body. Almost all, if not all, of the ingredients of garam masala are warming to the body.
- manish_gill 4y agoOn the question of roasted vs not: I believe they simply need to be _dry_. Typically this can be achieved by either soaking the individual spices out in the heat, or a partial roast.
- davchana 4y agoYes, correct. Just to add, things with hot taseer are recommended to be eaten in winter, to stay warm (not temperature wise), and cool things in summer. One of my childhood memories is eating a lot of mangoes (which is hot) in one sitting in summer (which is when mangoes are available), and them getting nose bleed (because its hot). Worth it :)
- HDMI_Cable 4y agoI'm curious: is there any correlation between the perceived spiciness of a blend and the taseer, or is the designation based moreso on observations on when it is appropriate to eat them (e.g., someone noticed that it was better to eat something in winter, or people tended to eat something in winter and so designated the spice as having high taseer)?
- Tronno 4y agoSurely this is intended as a pun.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoGaram Masala isn't hot as in spicy hot though.
- dr_dshiv 4y agoAmazing. This is fantastic. I like reflecting on the fact that an ancient Greek kingdom used to border ancient India — and that a Greek king became Buddhist before Ashoka—and that Ashokan pillars had Greek written on them.
- lioeters 4y agoIt's one of my favorite topics too, I just love the imaginative mixture of ancient Greek and Indian cultures. Some tasty bits: Ancient Greece–Ancient India relations - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece%E2%80%93Ancient_India_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece%E2%80%93Ancient... _Shape of Ancient Thought: Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies_ by Thomas McEvilley - https://archive.org/details/shapeofancientthoughtstudiesingreekandindianphilosophiesthomasmcevilleymlbd_202003_142_W/page/n13/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/shapeofancientthoughtstudiesingr...
- opportune 4y agoAs long as there have been distinct human cultures, there has been cultural syncretism. What a lot of people imagine as separable cultures along borders were really cultural gradients or mixtures (this village here is mostly X, the villages north and south of here are Y, but the village even further south is also X, and we all speak each others’ language). A lot of our discourse and views on culture are still poisoned by jingoistic nationalism from the 19th and 20th centuries (a cover for othering political foes and motivating the masses to fight and die for political goals), as well as concepts like imperialism and the couple centuries of European political hegemony, plus the elimination of non-prestige dialects/local languages and cultures via mass media. It’s hard for us to imagine, but in a time before modern concepts of race/organized religion/nationalism the world was quite a dynamic cultural melting pot that wasn’t organized along these more recent distinctions. Greeks traded from Britain to India, pagan religions often saw other cultures’ pantheons as the same religion with different names and traditions, people noticed physical differences between groups of people but weren’t applying racist concepts to them. In a way, people of antiquity were often more tolerant and accepting than many contemporary people. But they could also just decide to kill and invade their neighbors with no pretext beyond wanting their stuff.
- alphakappa 4y agoSo interesting to see William Dalyrumple pop up on HN. He has been writing fascinating history books for decades, particularly about India. He’s currently hosting a podcast called Empire[1] (season 1: British Empire, season 2: Ottoman Empire). This podcast is one of my favorite things 1. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empire/id1639561921 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empire/id1639561921
- d13 4y agoYup, that podcast is incredible and, although it’s hard to pick his best book, ‘Return of a King’ is astonishing.
- ROTMetro 4y agoI love history like this. History books are so full of battles and conflict and always imply cultures were divided by huge chasms. I love to see the connections and wish we highlighted it more. <Super Ignorant Take Ahead...> I remember being taught in American History class that Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson studied and admired Native American systems of government when drafting the Constitution but my kids weren't taught this (though to be fair American History was removed as a separate subject and no longer covered in depth in their schooling). Most 'mericans would say it comes out of enlightened Europe when John Adams cited the Mohawks, who he argued enjoyed “complete individual independence,” while tribal leaders brought major decisions like declarations of war to “a national assembly.” and Thomas Jefferson said “the only condition on earth to be compared with ours is that of the Indians, where they still have less law than we. The Europeans are governments of kites over pidgeons [sic].” To me it seems today Persian history is so artificially removed from Greek popular history, but when my son and I explored Alexander the Great's history it lead to us exploring Persian history and feeling the popular narrative was manipulated from the reality with so much missing connections. I responded negatively to a previous post on here about 'Islamic Golden Age History' because it artificially divides us when huge portions of that golden age thought was coming from Christians and recently conquered lands only tangentially 'Islamic' and again popular history Pigeon holing and artificially separating us all. 'Islamic Golden Age' thought is also much Christian mindset thought (though not Germanic western European post Roman Christian thought which somehow becomes all Christian according to historians). Persia IS one of the progenitors of Western thought alongside Greece (Alexander the Great adopted much from Persia along with lots and lots of other cross pollination). But we sure aren't given that impression from popular history. Now today I learned Indian spices were influential in Roman food. But I was taught Europeans didn't covet Indian spices until way later. Why? What use does that narrative have? Over eighty percent of the 478 recipes in the fifth century Roman cookbook of Apicius included pepper and that cookbook was widely known about since the 1800s apparently. OK too many words, and hopefully I didn't offend with my Islamic Golden Age stuff. I'm not trying to lesson the Importance of the Islamic world, but expand it. I just hate that today we self isolate and apply that isolating viewpoint to the past when it doesn't appear to have been the case.
- jrumbut 4y ago
- anon291 4y agoIndia, Greece, and Rome share a common history, as Hinduism is the closest thing we have to a continuation of the Greco-Roman religion (syncretized with the indigenous religions over many years). This is seen in the resemblance between the Greek and Roman Gods and the lesser known Indian ones. For example, the Rigvedic god Dyaus-pita is a direct relation to Jupiter. The names of the days in Sanskrit correspond to the same gods the latin names are after (and also the german ones, but they become harder to suss out).
- rand0mx1 4y agoRigveda was composed some 1600-1700 years ago before greek invasion.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoYes. Indian religions and greco-roman religion probably both had roots in proto-indo-european religion. There is a website that explores these roots at piereligion.org
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- anon291 4y agoThe Rigvedic religion and Greek religion both descend from a common religion. Hinduism is a relative of the Greco-Roman religion, not a descendant. Belief in a god named Jupiter (or some variant) precedes both the Greek and Indian civilization.
- rand0mx1 4y agoHinduism also has many elments from Indus valley Civilization too.
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoWhy are these books so pricey?
- ch4s3 4y agoProbably a small publishing run meant for libraries and a few academics.
- htoiwurio34324 4y ago[flagged]
- alphakappa 4y agoHaving read many of his books, that’s absolutely not the case. His book ‘The Anarchy’ (and the podcast) goes into great detail about the excesses of colonialism.
- korginator 4y agoThe interactions between the Indian and Greek civilizations during the fourth century BCE and later have been quite well studied, and what the article describes is not surprising. For some context, the emperor Ashoka, scion of the Maurya empire, consolidated various smaller republics into an empire that covered most of Afghanistan and North-West Pakistan of today. These areas bordered the regions that were controlled by the Greeks at the time. Ashoka's time was one of consolidation and relative peace, people were more mobile, trade and cultural exchange flourished. This article [1] sheds a little more light on the story. In fact, the visual image & depictions of the Buddha had significant Greek influence, the first images of the Buddha apparently surfaced outside India centuries after his death. The common depiction with curly hair was most probably not what the historical Buddha looked like [2]. [1] https://archive.is/eNYCm https://archive.is/eNYCm [2] https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/05/15/what-did-the-buddha-really-look-like/ https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/05/15/what-did-the-bu...
- 0xDEF 4y agoThe Maurya empire covered all of modern day India/Pakistan except the southern most part (Kerala and Tamil Nadu).
- sprkv5 4y agoAshoka was anything but peace-loving before the Kalinga war, the bloodiest war fought on the subcontinent. It was because of this war, Ashoka converted to Buddhism.
- cubancigar11 4y agoHe was Buddhist before Kalinga war. His conversion to Buddhism is after Kalinga war is later invention to promote Buddhism.
- sprkv5 4y agoThat would indeed be a bad look for a Buddhist, to fight such a violent war. Any sources which specifically say he was a Buddhist before the Kalinga war?
- htoiwurio34324 4y ago[flagged]
- savoyard 4y ago> Even the name of the island itself derives from Sanskrit: dvipa-sakhadara means the “Island of Bliss.” Foreign Sailors on Socotra: The Inscriptions and Drawings from the Cave Hoq (a book mentioned in the article) refers to this as an “academic myth” and suggests that the island’s name is of South Arabian origin.
- kwk1 4y agoSurprisingly unmentioned from what I've seen here is the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a circa 1st century Greco-Roman sea travel log detailing a trading route from Red Sea ports to the Indian and East African coasts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_of_the_Erythraean_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_of_the_Erythraean_Sea
- renewiltord 4y agoThe Kushan Empire (of the Yuezhi) that had Greek language administration and a Saivite ruler fascinate me. Perhaps syncretic kingdoms were common in those days. Crazy to imagine, I can't say I expected that. Past thalassocracies and syncretic empires just really challenge my default worldview.
- villgax 4y ago@dang for the love of all things spicy, please change the title to Garam Masala
- user_7832 4y agoNot sure why this is downvoted, garam is how it’s commonly written. (It is pronounced similar to carrom.)
- tintedfireglass 4y agoit's a pun on the both garum and garam masala. It's not a spelling error.
- denton-scratch 4y agoThis. Garam masala has nothing to do with Roman fish sauce.
- user_7832 4y agoOops, my bad sorry
- potamic 4y agofor the love of all things sanity, please read the article before commenting!
- dr_dshiv 4y agoThe sad thing is that there is almost zero support for the preservation of manuscripts in India. There are still so many documents rotting in temple basements throughout the country. It is likely to be a source of major discovery—but it needs private money. Edit: if you want to help, consider funding a PhD student in Sanskrit. It’s about $8k per year, matched by government support. While a Sanskrit PhD it might seem like a route to poverty, a modern approach would be highly technical — ie, about image processing, AI etc.
- rajeshp1986 4y agoI would love to support and sponsor this personally. How do one go about funding this?
- dr_dshiv 4y agoWith an Indian company, you can fund phd research through the prime ministers fund (they pay the remainder of the fees and support). I think it is a wonderful program. Assume funding a top PhD student might be $20k per year. If I had the gumption and ready money, I would just reach out to university deans with a letter indicating an intent to fund a particular profile. It might help to have a professor in the USA to help with the mentoring, because some of the academic connections may be valuable. But this particular topic has potential because the tech could be cutting edge — so you can contribute to a field that has been very staid.
- noduerme 4y agoWhere do I sign up?
- dr_dshiv 4y agoसंस्कृतं पठितुं शक्नुथ ?
- venkat223 4y agoThe trade with Rome and Greece was naiky with Tamil Nadu in South India.Not the northern part of India.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Gordonjcp 4y agoIt's hilarious watching Americans discuss curry spices. I expect a few of you have got beyond beige goop with raisins in.
- SanjayMehta 4y agoThat's an odd spelling. Garam Masala is the usual term.
- pashky 4y agoIt's a pun (a wordplay). Garum is fish sauce widely associated with ancient Rome and Greece.