To everyone new here, welcome. I’m Elizabeth, the writer of The Delicious Bits Dispatch, a weekly missive for the curious, blending discovery, reflection, and musings, always wrapped up with a seasonal recipe to savour.
I don’t speak German, but the tangled thickets of its Black Forest vocabulary call to me—words twisted and dense, yet capable of capturing meaning with astonishing precision.
There’s waldeinsamkeit: the feeling of being alone in the woods; backpfeifengesicht: a face badly in need of a fist; and one we’ve been seeing a bit too much of lately: schadenfreude: enjoyment obtained from the misery of others.
But perhaps one of my favourites amongst the very few I know is fernweh.
Fernweh n (strong, genitive Fernwehes or Fernwehs, no plural)
From fern (“far”) + Weh (“pain”), literally “far pain” or “far sickness”, as contrasted with Heimweh (“homesickness, longing for home”).
wanderlust (desire to travel, a longing for far-off places)
Like so much of the German language, it’s an untranslatable and perfect word that describes a longing for a place you’ve never been to.
Growing up in a small town, the daughter of Italian immigrants, my longing was for India.
I’ve often puzzled as to why. Our family’s social circle was a large, vibrant and loud community of Italians. I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through high school, so my exposure to other cultures was minimal. I didn’t meet people of different faiths until I went to university.
I certainly knew nothing about India’s culture: the colour, the conflicts, the castes. But, like finding a puzzle piece that fits perfectly, my first taste of Indian food jolted me into life. Like recognizing your doppelgänger (there go the Germans again), something lit up for me. I somehow knew these tastes, understood the intricate layers of flavours, admired the painstaking art of the blending.
This magical experience happened in my hometown, of all places, at the now defunct Himalaya restaurant. I didn’t realise then what a truly exalted place this was. All I knew was that chicken biryani was possibly the best thing I had ever eaten.
Himilaya was a special-occasion place, where the elevated prices and exotic atmosphere added to its mystique. Set in an old Victorian home, it felt worlds away from what I grew up with—almost as if it were Bombay itself.
In retrospect, the fact that Chef Oza created this restaurant in a small automotive town is extraordinary. Billed as Indian-French cuisine, Oza honed his culinary skills in the homes of wealthy Indian families and in first-class restaurants and hotels in Bombay. Though the blend of spicy Indian and subtle French cuisine may seem unlikely, Oza explained it reflected an old Indian tradition, where wealthy households embraced French cooking as both hospitality for Europeans and a contrast to local fare.
Long before today’s tasting menu and the expectation of a night of entertainment at the hands of a chef, the restaurant’s popularity was fuelled by a constant stream of American clientele, who flocked across the border to eat one of Oza’s elaborate, often hours-long meals.
When I left Windsor in my early twenties, the memory of that first Indian meal had already planted the seed of fernweh, though it would be years before I tasted food like it again or dared to cook it myself.
The spice of life
“For over four thousand years Indians have been using spices as if they were colours on a vast palette. They have been added as accents; they have been juxtaposed; they have been put into a pot in quick succession so individual tastes could be experienced by diners in a cascade of varying sensations; and they have been combined to produce entirely new flavours. In short, spices have been used with a painterly mastery unique to Indian cuisine.”
—Madhur Jaffrey, introduction to Madhur Jaffrey’s Spice Kitchen
It was a dear friend who offered me my first real entry point—a little box of Indian spices and a cookbook. Called Madhur Jaffrey’s Spice Kitchen, the tiny paperback contains 50 recipes that encouraged the reader to begin painting with that immense palette of Indian spices and seasonings.
The accompanying minute tins of spices, with thrilling names like asafetida, kalongi, amchoor, along with black cumin seeds, fenugreek, coriander beckoned. While the spices were completely foreign to me, as was Madhur Jaffrey herself, the beautiful writing and storytelling invited me to step into another world, one that I had long wanted to explore.
It was here that I learned about the extraordinary diversity of Indian cuisine, all of it exciting and new. A spice route through a vast country, where each ingredient assumed a different role in the kitchen and at the table, depending on how each region pressed it into service of the dish.
Building flavours and complexities with time and patience is not unique to Indian cuisine; there are similarities across cultures. The Italian soffritto of my childhood—onions, carrots, and celery—finds its echo here with the wet trinity of onions, garlic, and ginger. This understanding of how trios of ingredients form the backbone of many cuisines was an invaluable lesson that piqued my curiosity. Yet the complexity and skill of the additional layers of flavour mark Indian cuisine as uniquely intricate and endlessly nuanced.
It could not be more different from the simplicity of a few ingredients and the purity of flavours I grew up with.
“To cook with the same curry powder every day would render our rich and varied cuisine meaningless. It would be like asking to see a good painting and being shown the same Jackson Pollock each time. I want to sense the variety — see the Picassos, the Rembrandts, the da Vincis, the Mary Cassatts, and maybe a different painting by Pollock. With the correct use of spices, I can have that grand variety. And so can you.”
—Madhur Jaffrey, introduction to Madhur Jaffrey’s Spice Kitchen
In time I created my “go to” Indian dinner for entertaining from this slim guide: spicy cashews to serve with drinks; broccoli with garlic and mustard seeds; eggplant baked in sweet and sour tamarind sauce; bazaar potatoes; shrimp in a creamy aromatic sauce; raita with roast cumin. It’s labour-intensive cooking but not difficult, and the soothing rhythm of chopping, selecting and preparing everything to be ready so you can cook efficiently is much of the fun.
Plunging in
“How do you start? Plunge in. Choose any recipe in the book and follow it through. You will be painting with spices without even knowing it, experiencing four-thousand-year-old Indian traditions without leaving home.”
—Madhur Jaffrey, introduction to Madhur Jaffrey’s Spice Kitchen
Perhaps the greatest gift of Jaffrey’s book was this sage advice. It has carried me on countless journeys of exploration, tracing history, culture, and identity through the kitchens and cookbooks of Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and beyond. My ever-growing cookbook collection reads as much like a travelogue as a set of culinary guides, and with each turn of a page, that stirring sense of fernweh—the longing for distant places—comes alive.
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Garam masala
According to Jaffrey, garam masala means “hot spices,” referring not to chili heat but to their warming effect in Ayurveda, akin to the Chinese Yang. A prized staple of every Indian kitchen, each household has its own signature version, though commercial blends often rely more on less expensive coriander and cumin than on the prized cardamom.
It’s a great addition to any kitchen, especially if you are just starting your Indian cuisine journey. And if you want to have wonderful and authentic Indian recipes at your fingertips, be sure to subscribe to
of ChutneyLovers here on Substack.1 tablespoon cardamom seeds
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 teaspoon whole black cumin seeds
1 2-inch stick of cinnamon
⅓ of a whole nutmeg
1 curl of mace
Combine all the ingredients in a clean coffee grinder and grind until you have a fine powder. Store in a tightly closed jar and use as needed.
OK. This made me hungry!
I laughed out loud at 'backpfeifengesicht'!
What a lovely homage to Indian cookery and Madhur Jaffrey Elizabeth. ❤️
I have never across a French Indian fusion. How fascinating!