​The audio recording of the cooking was made on 30th Dec, of the finale of my mother and I cooking a festive meal together. It was 'Thiruvatharai', a day sacred to Hindus as the God Shiva is said to be dancing his terrifyingly-beautiful cosmic dance of creation and destruction on this day. On this day, every year, we make a sweet dish called 'kali' in Tamil, which is eaten with 'kootu', a mixture of at least 7 seasonal vegetables (we had 11-13 in ours) cooked in a tamarind gravy spiced with sun-dried red chillies, coriander seeds, heeng/asafoetida and channa dhal that are first roasted in coconut oil and then ground with oil-roasted coconut. 'Kali' is made with native raw rice and two pulses (yellow moong dhal, channa dhal) that have been roasted and then ground roughly into a powder; this is then cooked in jaggery syrup with lots of ghee and flavoured finally with hand-pounded cardamom and cashew nuts. You can hear the sound of the gas lighter, me using an iron ladle to ghee-roast the spice and the cashew nuts, and conversations between me, my mother and Vijaya, our household help in Tamil
Gayathri R 2021