CUMIN

Taste cannot be caged in closed jars or steaming woks. 

Like minstrels wandering in search for the divine, 

the ridged beads of cumin travel the world 

seeking new tongues.

In her kitchen, the seasoned cook remains patient 

for the oil to reach just the right heat. That moment 

when the jeera seeds for the daal tadka crackle is 

the cadenza her eager ears wait for. Her nose smells 

the warmth of sweet sweat releasing from the seed 

beads' oil canals.

Like languages and jokes that never remain what 

they were when they travel to new lands, cumin creolizes 

into fresh flavours and sounds. Gamun in Sumerian cuneiform, 

kamûnu in Akkadian, cumino in Italian, jeera in Sanskrit, 

the humble seed is a master of travelling light 

and charming palettes.

Crushed coarsely into foul and hummus, spluttered whole 

in spicy lentils and the ambrosia of curried meat, roasted 

and crushed for the magic bhaja-moshla touch that transforms 

a pedestrian ghugni to a gourmet  pièce de résistance.

Even without the shapely beauty of a cardamom pod, 

the lanky superiority of a cinnamon stick or the stud-like 

grace of a clove nail, the cumin wins. Unlike a monarch 

and like monarch butterflies, it rejects borders and bigotry 

and makes new tongues its own.