உணவே மருந்து, மருந்தே உணவு (food is medicine, medicine is food) is a basic tenet of our traditional medicinal systems. In South Indian cuisine, the simple rasam (சாற்றமுது which is saaru + amudu; in vaishnava sampradayam, different dishes of the daily meal are named as different types of amudu or nectar) holds a very important place in the meal. Eaten after sambar rice but before the curd rice, the spices used in rasam play an important role in the digestive process. Some people even drink the rasam as a soup at the start of a meal to get the digestive juices going. Our elders made sure that the spices used in various dishes and the sequence in which dishes were eaten were meant to perform specific digestive functions during the meal.
This rasam powder which Nisha learnt from her mother in law and I also adopted, will make sure you never skip the rasam part of the meal. Even as you make it, the entire house will be permeated with the ghama ghama aroma of the rasam.
And if you make it in the ஈயச்சொம்பு or the pot made of an alloy of different metals including tin (no lead) then the rasam gets an entirely unique flavour that is out of this world
