Sambar: taste is enough. Does history matter?

Last two decades have seen “eating out” grow manifold in India and restaurants catering to every taste bud, and all possible “global cuisine” opening up. Along with the burgers and pizzas, the idli, vada, sambar have also kept pace. By-product of the booming “eating out” culture has been the number of food writers, researchers and bloggers. They wouldn’t leave the humble idli to the Tamilians, but say, hey trace its origins, it came from, sometimes Arabia, sometimes Indonesia. But, idli’s famous restaurant created accompaniment sambar has a story of its own. The Udupi boys had brought it to Mumbai, and Matunga Gujaratis queue up to slurp them, and many have tried to credit the Marathas for our “saambhar”.

I have always been doubtful of the sambar lineage being traced back to the Shahaji Bhonsale’s kitchen in the Thanjavur palace. Though the story by now is very popular, let me recount it here, straight from the social media post that is attributed to historian and writer Nandita Krishna.  Shahaji, son of Chhatrapati Shivaji’s step brother Ekoji liked “dabbling in cooking” among his diverse interests. One day Shahaji wanted ‘amti dal’ and his kitchen had not stock of kokum, the sour spice that is used in the preparation. Kokum was substituted with tamarind and thus was sambar born. “We don’t know whether it was the cooks or Shahaji himself who experimented by substituting it with tamarind, but the combination of lentils, vegetables, spices and tamarind was a great success and was first served when Shahaji’s cousin Sambha visited Thanjavur. It was named “sambache ahar” (Sambha’s food) or “sambhar” and became a royal dish at the Thanjavur palace,” says Nandita Krishna. She says it was invented in Thanjavur and not in Maharashtra, and the story was narrated to her by Pandit Bhim Rao, the late Marathi pandit of the Sarasvati Mahal Library, based on a manuscript in Modi script in the library.

That is very convincing isn’t it. We can’t rule out the possibility of what happened on a particular day in the Maratha kitchen in Thanjavur. But, somehow tracing sambar to the Maratha kitchen hasn’t been very convincing. Yes, the substitution of kokum with tamarind could have given room to a new dish in the kitchen, and by co-incidence have got the name ‘saambhar’, but didn’t Tamil Nadu have sambar before that? Can’t believe that sambar can be just a late 17^th century product. May be the name originated then, but the recipe was ancient? The strong reason for me to believe that has been the fact that sambar as a word was non-existent in the Sri Vaishnava “thaligai” (cooking). Common word used has been kuzhambu and the traditional term negizhamadhu or negizh kari amudhu. Only after 90s did sambar fully substitute kuzhambu in many households. Though sambar became the substitute, it covered only one particular kind – that is one made with vegetables, tamarind, spices and cooked tuvar dal. Many other varieties like vendhaya kuzhambu, vatha kuzhambu, mor kuzhambu, paruppu urundai kuzhmabu all continued with the kuzhambu name. This was always on the back of my mind, with nagging questions about the origin of sambar.

Later when I got acquainted with works of K T Achaya, our famous food historian, I referred to his ‘The Illustrated Foods of India A – Z’ and ‘A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food’.  “A fairly thick spicy extract of tuvar dal soured with tamarind, frequently containing soft vegetables like brinjal, drumstick, gourd, and lady’s finger. It is served in south India with rice as middle course, after a course of rice with rasam and before a course of curds. Sambar is also eaten as an accompaniment to the idli and vada. The Kannada term for the dish is Huli, the Telugu, Pulusu. The Tamil country has a pre-mixed sambar sadam, convenient for travel, and Karnataka the Bisi-Bele-Huli-Anna, best eaten with ghee.” Achaya doesn’t give any details on origin or record of its first mention. By placing the sambar course after rasam he is also obviously giving the Mysore or Karnataka tradition of serving rasam as the first course. But, this shows while Andhra and Karnataka did not call it sambar, the Huli and Pulusu existed, perhaps even before the name of sambar stuck. I went looking for a work in the older text, 15^th-16^th century one, ‘The Soopa Shastra’ of Mangarasa III for a clue. Unfortunately, the author has given only translations and we don’t know the original names or terms used. I could find two recipes in it, at least that sort of resembles a kind of kuzhambu we continue to make even today.

Though they can’t be called sambar, the closest to the idea of cooking spices, vegetables together with tamarind and adding cooked dal is found in them. The pumpkin with pigeon pea or brinjal with is still a common kuzhambu, spiced with the sambar powder.

Then, by chance I was able to get the English translation of Krishna Deva Raya’s ‘Amuktamalyada’ by Srinivas Sistla. There Verses II.96 to 98 under the sub head Vishnuchitta Goes to Dakshina Mathura talks about a few food items. We know Vishnuchitta, Periyalvar and his daughter Andal have written many verses which have references to food. In these verses the great Raya writes how they packed arisalu (adhirasam in Tamil), and few other sweets to carry it to Mathura or Madurai. Today Sri Villiputhur to Madurai is an hour’s journey by road, but more than a millennium ago it was a good distance to cover, and also Vishnuchitta had to carry enough provisions to cook for himself as was the practise then, through his stay in Madurai.

“Out of affection, his devoted wife packed in a sack,

Porivillimgaayas, old rice cleared of chaff suitable for pouring in hot water,

Sambar ingredients packed in separate packs, jaggery, tamarind paste,

Cumin seeds mixed in jaggery, cooking utensils, dry grass tied to kavadi

Cow ghee in small kettles, dry cow dung cakes for burning, curd-vadiyamulu,

Orugulu soaked in water, pulses and puja-box for the worship of Vishnu!”

There, I got the anchor to base my theory of sambar being older than what it has been presumed to be, and a name that could be of an earlier origin than Sambhaji and Shahaji’s kitchen in Thanjavur. If Krishna Deva Raya had mentioned it in his book, then it is older, isn’t. But, I had my doubts, as to the exact word used in the original Telugu version, for I was not sure if it was the word used by the translator. Luckily for me, Sistlagaru was a Facebook friend by the time I had read the book, and so I messaged him asking for the reference. He was kind enough to give me a shot of the original verse and also explain it to me. 

“The passage reads, 'Sambaarampum-jintapandu which is interpreted as 'Chintapandu mixed with 'Sambaru' ingredients, that is Tamarind mixed with the ingredients of 'Sambaram'. It's not, however, 'Saambaar' but 'Sambaram-pu' (ingredients) relating to Sambaram,” he explained. Then it stuck me to check the Sanskrit dictionary for sambar. Because the moment he explained it I associated it sambara dosai, a delicious prasadam at Srirangam temple, a thick dosa mixed with spices.

 

Sometime later a Gujarati friend of mine had tweeted: “The red pickle powder you see... we Gujjus call it "Sambhar" or "Koro Sambhar" or "Sambharo"… it has nothing to do with South India though... we are like that only…” with the picture given here.

So, the word for spices perhaps is derived from the original Sanskrit across some of the languages, and hence the sambar could have come from there, and the Shahaji court decided to name it after the source word rather than naming it after Sambhaji? Historians may take a call on it and assert whether it is Sambhaji who has gifted us the name, the delightful item, or it was only naming it after him though the recipe itself was in vogue across south India even before his time.

If Krishna Deva Raya’s early 16^th century work gives reference to what could have been the spices that goes into making sambar, the 17^th century work ‘Rayavachakamu’ by Vishvanatha Nayani makes another reference to Sambar. Though I haven’t been able to verify the exact words used in the original text, the translation as given in the ‘Tidings of the King’ by Phillip B. Wagoner reads thus:

So, perhaps all this could mean sambar as a word and definitely the recipe much older than the Marathi court in Thanjavur. What is in a name, call it Huli, Pulusu, Sambar or Kuzhambu doesn’t matter. What matters is that its combination with rice or a ragi mudde can make it a wholesome food, nutritious, nourishing and immensely tasty. So, what kuzhambu are you cooking today?

P.S. This is in no way trying to take away any credit due to the Thanjavur Marathas, for their contribution to the art and culture, and service to the Peruvudayar Temple have been immense. This started as a sheer instinctive exercise to trace to a popular dish’s history as far as one can. There may be much more to come, who knows what all is hidden in thousands of books that one has not read.