Everyone I’ve talked to about it, anywhere I’ve ever been in the world, tells me that a special taste or a smell can take them home in an instant, that when they are far from home, the things they crave most are favorite foods.
Food can take us home. It can also take us into someone else’s literal or metaphorical home. Beyond basic nourishment, food possesses a near magical capacity to bridge distance and difference, to transport us to each other and back to ourselves, to ground us and make us feel at home.
I met Ayurvedic chef Sahana Murthy and her husband Tappan on the edge of the Dinetah (Navajo Nation), just south of I-40 and east of Gallup, New Mexico in the summer of 2023, in, of all places, the basecamp mess hall of a 100-year old trekking and outdoor education outfit called Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions. My pup Saku and I were camped in the Ponderosa pine forest nearby as part of a consulting gig, and Sahana was wrapping up a summer stint as chef and outdoor educator for the Gulch.
We talked Ayurveda, Mysore, yoga, street dogs, and wilderness-world travel over veggie homemade pizza. A few weeks later, Sahana cooked up a delicious Ayurveda- and Mysore-inspired supper that we enjoyed on a hot patio in Albuquerque before Saku and I headed off to find our next camp in the Sangre de Cristo mountains at the southern end of the Rockies in northern New Mexico.
Sahana kicked off our meal with Churmuri, a Mysore street food, localized by some decidedly spicy borderlands convenience-store, grab-n-go tortilla chips. It reminded me of a taco salad my mother made on hot summer nights in Georgia when I was young, but it elevated this memory to include and traverse a lifetime spent traveling and cooking my own Ayurveda-inspired meals.
With one simple dish from her home in India, localized by and shared in a place that was home to neither of us, Sahana managed to create a kind of hug that wrapped us up in the warm embrace of common ground discovered between virtual strangers whose actual homes are on literal opposite sides of the planet from each other and also far from our shared table on the New Mexico patio. That’s no mean feat, and it is with great pleasure that we now invite you to join us for this next course in our inaugural FED spring feast.
With her video, Sahana takes you around the world from the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico to Via Ferrata in Colorado, on to Himachal Pradesh in northern India and Mysore in southwestern India, to the Annapurna mountain range in north-central Nepal and then, back again to the US southwest—Arizona, Santa Fe, and the Pecos Wilderness—before spiraling north to Montana and back to Mount Taylor near where we met last summer.
Mount Taylor, known as Tsoodzil to the the Diné (Navajo), the Blue Bead or Turquoise Mountain, is one of four sacred peaks that bounds their homeland. This mountain anchors the south, and it is also a pilgrimage site for more than thirty-five tribes including the Apache, Arizona Oodam groups, Pai, and Utes. As with the Diné, the mountain is sacred to the pueblos of Hopi, Laguna, Zuni, and Acoma, and it is home to the Acoma Goddess of Creation.
With Tsoodzil embracing us from the south, Sahana and I planted the seeds on a New Mexico mesa—Spanish for table and applied to this geography and topography since 1540, when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led the first Spanish army into native lands—for the FED course we offer you now. So, cook up some Mysore Churmuri wherever you are, and with whatever ingredients you can source, and join us at the table in this most remarkable global hug. Welcome home.
Big love, Ashley
Mysore Churmuri
Churmuri is one of the most popular street foods in Mysore. I am a big fan of this delicious salad. It reminds me of my school and college days. My friends and I used to drive three miles to go to a particular street vendor and sit by the side of the road to have it.
Meeting friends and socializing over inexpensive and delicious street food was what we did, and we’d have the most amazing conversations. Life was simple and slow with no commitments. I cherish those memories and hold these street food recipes close to my heart.
For a more authentic Mysore taste, favour the Indian ingredients in this recipe. You should be able to find Nippittu and Sev—Mysore savoury snacks—plus the puffed rice and Congress kadlekai beeja—spiced, roasted peanuts—in Indian stores. If you can, I highly recommend that you use them. But, if you can’t, just improvise with the widely available alternatives I offer to create a more local-to-you twist. —Sahana Murthy
Ingredients
2 cups Bhel Puri aka puffed rice or unsweetened Rice Crispies
1 carrot, grated
1/2 jalapeño, seeded and finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
a handful of cilantro, finely chopped
1 tomato, finely chopped
1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (I like it sour.)
1/2 cup crushed Nippittu and Sev or tortilla chips
1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil
1/4 cup Congress kadlekai beeja or roasted peanuts
salt to taste
Method
Mix everything together well, and adjust salt and lemon juice to suit your taste. Serve immediately so that the crunchy bits remain crunchy.
Dive in for more goodness…
To learn more about Sahana and FED’s entire Spring 2024 all-star line-up of musicians, artists, writers, growers, gleaners, cooks, and craftspeople headed your way this season, check out Special Guests.
Pitch in to sustain inclusive placemaking…
And, if you are enjoying your place at the FED table—which is made possible via our connection-economy, with readers, contributors, and editorial all pitching in—we encourage you to pitch in, too, so that together, we create sustainable and sustaining connection and foster inclusive placemaking and global connection. To pitch in, upgrade your subscription.
When you click the upgrade button below, you can set your subscription rate based on your values, priorities, and means. Funds are then redistributed throughout the community to support contributors, editorial, production, and equitable access. For more information about our connection-economy, check out About FED.
Thanks again for pulling up your chair. We look forward to sharing the meal with you!
Share this post