The first thing I packed for Taiwan was a kilo of whole black cardamom, vacuum-sealed in two separate bags in case customs opened one. The second thing was a small tin of asafoetida — hing — which I wrapped in three layers of cling film because the smell would otherwise colonise everything else in the bag.
Every Indian who moves abroad has a version of this list. Aamchur powder. Kasuri methi. A particular brand of cumin that doesn't taste like the cumin available everywhere else. The spices available in Taiwan are not bad — the wet markets are extraordinary, and some Indian grocers have appeared in Zhongli and Taipei over the years — but they are not the same. The cardamom here is lighter, greener, less resinous. It is fine for tea. It is not fine for a proper biryani.
Spices as memory
There is a neurological reason for this specificity. Smell is the sense most directly connected to memory — it bypasses the rational brain and goes straight to the limbic system, to the part of us that stores feeling. When you smell hing hit a hot pan, you do not think about hing. You are suddenly in a kitchen that smells exactly like every kitchen you grew up in, with the same particular quality of afternoon light coming through the window.
This is why spices are not optional luggage for Indian migrants. They are the architecture of home, compressed into small tins.
What we use at Bhabhi
At Bhabhi, we source as close to the original as we can manage. Some spices come directly from India, carried by family members visiting or ordered through a network of suppliers in Taipei. Black cardamom from Sikkim. Kashmiri dried chilli — not for heat, but for colour: that specific brick-red that makes a correct butter chicken look the way a correct butter chicken should look. Methi seeds from Rajasthan.
- Whole black cardamom — for biryani base and slow curries
- Kashmiri chilli — colour without excessive heat
- Stone flower (dagad phool) — a must in any proper garam masala
- Dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi) — the finish on any butter-based sauce
- Asafoetida (hing) — the tarka starter that makes dal taste like dal
- Long pepper (pippali) — rare, used only in our winter specials
What gets lost, what survives
Not everything survives the move. Fresh curry leaves are almost impossible to source in Hsinchu — we use them when we can find them. Some ingredients simply don't exist here in the form we need them, and substitution is not always an option. There are dishes we don't put on the menu not because we can't cook them, but because cooking them badly would be worse than not cooking them at all.
What survives is the discipline of the spice blend. The moment when the whole spices hit hot oil and the room changes — that moment travels intact across every border and time zone. It is the most reliable thing we carry.
