There is something very earthy and primal about feeling fresh ground spices with your fingers. It is as if the spices are whispering conspiratorially, telling you about their secrets and all the joys to be imbibed. As the cinnamon, cloves and cardamom splutter in the hot kuali, the piqued senses feel a rush. The infusion spontaneously feels reassuring, like a hug from a child. All the usual family rows and bickering of the week will evaporate by Sunday afternoon, after lunch. It must be the spices working their way into our spirits.
For me, the spices are like happy family secrets. What my mother learnt from her own mother and her mother before her. Nobody really tells you the real quantity of the spices to be used. Just agak-agak. It is for you to know and feel.
Fragrant on their own but together, creating a generational mosaic. Spanning past memories and stretching to untold future possibilities. As I stir spices into my collard greens, I pay homage to all the women in my family who made me who I am today.
Somehow, these spices link me with these women as much as blood ties. These spices have traveled along with them as they have with me. Salving the heart on cold days. Firing the spirit as we build our lives in strange lands. I hold on to the family recipes, knowing full well that it is layered by the spirit of a few generations of women.
