Every masala has its backstory

I spice with my little eye…

What if the most powerful way to tell the story of South Asian food is not through restaurants, chefs, or even recipes, but through the people who grow the spices that make those recipes possible?

That question sits at the heart of Sana Javeri Kadri’s work. As the founder and CEO of Diaspora Co., Kadri has spent nearly a decade building a business — and now a book — that turns the spotlight away from the finished dish and back toward the very beginning of the food chain. Her debut, The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook  (Harvest, March 2026, co-authored with longtime recipe developer Asha Loupy), is less about teaching readers how to cook South Asian food and more about teaching them how to see it differently.

Kadri’s journey began with dissonance. Born and raised in a Muslim-Jain Hindu family in Mumbai, where food was the great unifier, she moved to the United States and encountered familiar ingredients marketed as trends, stripped of specificity, disconnected from the people who grew them. In 2017, she launched Diaspora Co. with a single product: heirloom turmeric sourced directly from a farm in Andhra Pradesh. The premise was radical – pay farmers fairly, foreground regional diversity, treat flavor as a function of care rather than mass production.

Spices historically changed hands ten or more times between harvest and kitchen shelf, with farmers capturing almost none of the value. Today, Diaspora Co. sources 30 single-origin spices from 150 regenerative farms across India and Sri Lanka, paying partners an average of six times the commodity price, compared to the roughly 15% premium that fair-trade certification offers. Since its founding, the company has paid $2.5 million directly to farmers.

The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook grew out of Kadri and Loupy’s annual, three-month harvest-season visits to partner farms, eating with the families whose labor underpins every meal. The result profiles 35 women across India and Sri Lanka and gathers 85 heirloom family recipes, adapted for a global pantry without losing their specificity. The Mir family of saffron growers shared not just their technique for blooming the spice but the dishes they love most. Recipes span chutneys, pickles, vegetables, seafood, meat, rice, breads, and desserts.

The book challenges the assumption that spices are interchangeable commodities. A single variety of turmeric or pepper carries the imprint of soil, climate, and specific hands. By centering the women farmers who hold this knowledge, Kadri and Loupy expand the definition of culinary authority beyond credentialed chefs into everyday practice, inherited technique, and the intelligence built through a lifetime working with land.

For us, the resonance runs deep. The story Kadri tells is one the Indian diaspora knows well: the gap between how South Asian food is experienced from the inside—rich, specific, rooted in memory—and how it is so often presented to the outside world: exotic, interchangeable, stripped of context. 

In a food culture driven by speed and spectacle, that insistence feels both timely and necessary. Kadri and Loupy remind us that every spice has a story, and that paying attention to those stories can change not just how we cook, but how we understand the world around us.

The following is excerpted from The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook © 2026 by Diaspora Spice Co. Photography © 2026 by Melati Citrawireja. Reproduced by permission of Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.

Gongura Pappu, Andhra-Style Dal with Sorrel 

Recipe by Divya Kasaraneni; Origin: Kankipadu, Andhra Pradesh
Serves 6 to 8 

Sorrel leaves are a monsoon staple known by different names across India, but nowhere has sorrel become as synonymous with the cuisine as in Andhra Pradesh. For me, a trip to the Kasaraneni family home during the turmeric harvest is incomplete without a lunch of bright, punchy gongura pappu served over steamed red rice. Without fail, a jar of sorrel pickle is sneakily pressed into my hands to take home with me by Venkata Narasamma, Prabhu’s grandmother and the family matriarch. 

There are thousands of variations of lentils and beans cooked as a staple across South Asia—endless combinations of chana, toor, moong, masoor, urad, chawli, matki, and rajma (see page 15 for a full glossary in our pantry section). My Gujarati nani favored simple split toor, whereas my Punjabi dadi favored heavy rajma and creamy split urad. The Kasaraneni family make their pappu with chana because it’s what they grow (along with almost every single other ingredient in this recipe!), and it gives the dish a silky creaminess that can’t really be beat. Where other lentil dishes might be supporting characters in a meal of meat mains or dramatic veggies, this one has flavor-packed main character energy. 

FOR THE DAL 

• 2[3⁄4] cups (250 g) chana dal 
• 2[1⁄2] teaspoons fine sea salt, plus more if needed 
• 1[1⁄2] teaspoons ground turmeric 
• 3 tablespoons untoasted sesame oil or other neutral oil 
• 1⁄2 teaspoon cumin seeds 
• 1 white onion, finely diced 
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped 
• 1-inch piece ginger, finely chopped 
• 2 to 3 serrano peppers, quartered lengthwise 
• 3 plum tomatoes (about 1⁄2 pound/227 g), diced 
• 1[1⁄2] tablespoons Andhra Chilli Powder (page 23) 
• 2 tablespoons amchur powder 
• 1[1⁄2] cups (65 g) roughly chopped fresh sorrel 
• 1⁄3 cup (17 g) roughly chopped cilantro, leaves and tender stems 
• Juice of 1⁄2 to 1 lemon (1 to 4 tablespoons) 

FOR THE TADKA 

• 1[1⁄2] tablespoons untoasted sesame oil or other neutral oil 
• 4 garlic cloves, quartered 
• 2 teaspoons split urad dal 
• 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds 
• 1 to 2 whole Guntur Sannam chillies, torn in half 
• 18 fresh curry leaves 

1. Place the chana dal in a bowl and rinse with cold water, swishing it around with your fingers, and rinsing several times until the water runs clear. Drain and transfer the dal to an electric pressure cooker (like an Instant Pot) and add 11⁄2 teaspoons of the salt, 1 teaspoon of the turmeric, and 5 cups (1.2 L) water. Cook on high pressure for 18 minutes, then allow to naturally release for 15 minutes. Release the pressure, mash some of the dal with the back of a spoon or a potato masher, and keep warm. 
2. When the pressure cooker is naturally releasing, start the dal base. Heat the sesame oil in a Dutch oven or other large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. When shimmering, add the cumin seeds and cook, stirring occasionally, until they start to sputter and smell toasty, 30 to 45 seconds. 
3. Add the onion and sauté, stirring occasionally, until softened and the edges start to turn light golden, 6 to 9 minutes. Stir in the garlic, ginger, and serrano peppers and continue to cook until the garlic turns light golden and the ginger softens, 3 to 4 minutes more. Add the tomatoes, chilli powder, the remaining 1⁄2 teaspoon turmeric, and 1⁄4 cup (60 ml) water and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes break down and become jammy, 5 to 8 minutes, adding more water a tablespoon at a time if it starts to look dry. Add the amchur powder, the cooked chana dal and its cooking liquid, the remaining 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 cup (240 ml) water. Stir to combine, increase the heat to medium, and bring back to a simmer. Cook uncovered, stirring frequently so the dal doesn’t stick to the bottom, to let the flavors meld, for 15 minutes. In the last 5 minutes of cooking, add the sorrel to wilt in the dal. (If the dal is too thick, add hot water until you reach the desired consistency. If it is too thin, keep simmering for an extra 5 minutes.) 
4. To make the tadka, heat the sesame oil in a tadka spoon or small saucepan over medium heat. When shimmering, add the garlic, urad dal, mustard seeds, and chillies and fry, stirring or swirling frequently until the garlic is golden and the mustard seeds are popping, 2 to 4 minutes. Add the curry leaves—be careful, these crackle and pop!— and cook until bright green and translucent, 10 to 30 seconds more. 
5. To finish the dal, pour the tadka into the dal, add the cilantro and juice of 1⁄2 lemon, and stir to combine. Taste and season with more salt and lemon juice, if necessary. Serve with hot rice and ghee. 

RECIPE NOTE: Fresh sorrel lends tangy, tantalizing magic to food from Andhra Pradesh, a region known for its sour-spicy, punchy flavors. If you can’t find sorrel, you can use one 5-ounce (142 g) container baby spinach and use the juice from the whole lemon. 

Andhra Chilli Powder 

Recipe by Venkata Narasamma Kasaraneni; Origin: Kankipadu, Andhra Pradesh
Makes 1⁄2 cup 

In both the Kasaraneni and Narne family homes (that grow our Pragati Turmeric and Guntur Sannam chillies, respectively), we encountered an unassuming jar of chilli powder that was being used to season absolutely everything. It was more aromatic, full-bodied, and savory than just regular ol’ chilli powder. After some serious interrogation, we learned what each family was blending into their “house chilli powder.” Make a full batch and use it in Gongura Pappu (page 108), Seasonal Sambar (page 114), and Country Chicken Curry (page 150). 

• 1[1⁄2] tablespoons (71⁄2 g) coriander seeds 
• 1[1⁄2] teaspoons (4 g) cumin seeds 
• 1 teaspoon (4 g) fenugreek seeds 
• 1⁄4 cup (30 g) Guntur Sannam chilli powder 
• 1 garlic clove, quartered 

1. Heat a tadka spoon or small skillet over medium heat. Add the coriander seeds and cumin seeds and toast, stirring frequently, until the coriander seeds turn a couple shades darker, 45 to 90 seconds. Transfer to a spice grinder and let cool completely. 
2. Add the fenugreek seeds and grind into a medium-fine powder. Add the Guntur Sannam chilli powder and garlic and pulse in 10-second intervals, scraping down between each interval, until the garlic is completely ground into the powder, 20 to 40 seconds total. Transfer to an airtight container and store in a cool, dry place for up to 3 months. 

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