The “Achaar” Adventures: Flavors, failures and the fun of exploration
Do you know the secret to making the perfect bottle of achar?
According to my mother, it is an extremely clean environment, high quality ingredients, and the perfect proportion of spices and the fruits/vegetables. Of course she will say this, she is an expert.
As a novice in this area, I think it is the patience to keep telling yourself, “You’ve got this”, even after you have messed up your tenth attempt at making those green chilli pickles. Why is something always off! These are the times, when I look at my mother and our didis and feel a tinge of jealousy, just a tiny bit.
Well, the pickle making process has had me in a pickle multiple time. I have messed up proportions, under roasted or burned the spices, added less salt or too much lemon juice or vice versa, I can go on and on about my misadventures. However, as mentioned earlier, this entire process strengthened my patience muscle. I realized that achar making is not like any other cooking experience, it is more about thinking in the long term. Unlike dal, whose quality can be determined and fixed right after it is off the stove, achars are a long-term investment. They take their own sweet time, to unravel their flavors while you wait with bated breath for at least two days to see if you got it right.
I have always felt that inside the freshly prepared achar bottle there is an orchestra practicing a symphony. When it has the right quality and proportion of ingredients inside and gets sufficient sunlight, you witness the perfect symphony of different flavors as soon as you open the bottle after a few days. But, if any of these is amiss, well, all you get is a loud noise of individual flavors that make you want to kill yourself.
What I also learned with this initially frustrating and later interesting process is the power of these spices and their impact on the whole recipe. It was like conducting research and observing each ingredient show different effect at different proportions. The humble fenugreek is okay when it is in limited quantity but just a tad bit more, and your entire pickle tastes like an angry karela (bitter gourd). While making multiple attempts (and failing most of the times), I also got a chance to understand the effects of these spices on our body and our senses. A whiff of that achari smell when we open the bottle signals our brain that something tasty is inside, while I think our intestines feel more like, “Wow! This one’s going to make that digestion easy.” Pickles are a boon to the gut bacteria and who can deny their capability of making boring meals fun.
The achars that I made were our family recipes passed on from generations and every time I inched closer to getting the flavors and proportions right, I marveled at the genius of our ancestors. I mean to have the perfect combination of spices that balance each other’s impacts while providing immense health benefits and delicious taste, that’s awe inspiring!
To wrap it up, I did succeed, 99 and 3/4 percent guaranteed (As Dr. Seuss said). I ended up making Garlic pickle, Green chilli pickle, Flaxseed chhop and a couple more! It’s been almost a month of adventure, and the upside is that now I understand my ingredients well. My journey with pickles has just begun and I am looking forward to learning to create more unique flavors going forward.
So, take a moment to appreciate the beauty and the genius of the achar on your dinner table handmade by your mother. Its more than just a bunch of vegetables and spices put together, it is a work of art and you are really lucky to have it!
