Long Live the Weeds! [Indravalli Dosa]

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wilderness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
–“Inversnaid,” Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1918

Anywhere else in the world, it’s a weed. Unwelcome companion to for-export soybean cultivation in Texas, similar in size to soybean seed (glycine max) and hard to mechanically separate; unlawful to own; a colonist of flood-disturbed landscapes. In New Zealand, it is listed on  the National Pest Plant Accord, a list of pest plants prohibited from sale, commercial propagation, and distribution. In Kruger National Park in South Africa, it is listed explicitly as a biohazard: an invasive species “capable of smothering a tree of up to 10m tall.”

But in Kerala, it’s flowers place it among the Dasapushpam, or ten most sacred flowering herbs of known pharmacological value in Ayurvedic, Siddha, and homeopathic therapies. And on the red earth of Auroville where I first discovered it–by pure coincidence when I wondered why a gardener was tending so carefully to the weeds–there just wasn’t enough of it.

Cardiospermum Halicacabum, Balloon Vine, Love in a Puff, Heartseed–owing to its distinctive balloon-like seed pods and seeds with a little heart-marks on their sides–in Sanskrit it is Indravalli.

Tamilians know it as “mudakkathan keerai” (or mudakkathan greens), and know its consumption to be effective in the treatment of arthritis and joint issues. Mudakkathan keerai is part of a constellation of medicinal ingredients used in nattu vaidyam or patti vaidyam [country medicine, grandmother’s medicine] and Siddha Maruthuvam [siddha treatments].

Sure enough, the plant extract shows “significant analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity and sedative effect on the Central Nervous System” and fried in ghee, or ground into a poultice, or combined with food mudakkathan keerai is used kill headlice, as a laxative, to treat rheumatism, lumbago, skeletal fractures, nervous diseases, amenorrhoea, haemorrhoids, fistula, eczema, psoriasis, swellings, and earaches.

The leaves are ground into batter for dosas, thrown into rasams and sambars, boiled into kashayams [herbal medicinal teas], and even ground into chutneys. Fresh, they are slightly bitter, but cooked, they are easily overwhelmed by other ingredients.  Hidden from view, good for you.

Perhaps the stuff even grew in our Houston garden, and we pulled out all those treacherous weeds, never knowing their worth. Or how to extract their biovalue.

Having myself a long-standing interest in the collection of biological substances (and a personal genealogy of specimen collection), and having stubbornly determined to teach Cori Hayden’s important but eminently unreadable When Nature Goes Public, semester after painful semester, I cannot help but think of my chance-encounter with this little Indian green as akin to a prospector’s discovery of a nugget of gold.

Of folk remedies, ethnomedicine, and the enormous, global pharmacological effort dedicated to uncovering the scientific truths behind what our grandmothers always knew about weeds and spices. Of how pest plants become crowned kings. Of the terrifically high failure rates of ethnobotanical screening, and bio-tech start-ups that are made or severely broken by hit-or-miss discoveries of miracle drugs. Of biopiracy, pre-emptive publishing, intellectual property, and the international politics of patenting. Of community rights and prior knowledge and public domains. Of legal wars over patents on turmeric, neem, and basmati–each of Indian origin, and each with huge commercial biovalue. Of market research and roadside collection, as Hayden dubs routine sample collection in markets and roadsides: the research strategies scientists resort to when they have to make sure they collect something and show something in the face of intense pressure to produce and discover. Of the inherently collaborative nature of knowledge-production, and the process of drug-discovery. Of the sheer scale of need and greed and machinery and the alignment of efforts required to drive medical and research innovation. Of medicines which may never be except in their fresh, green form, because their active ingredients are un-extractable or absorbed only in miniscule amounts [as with turmeric] destroyed by stomach acid [as with erythromyacin, discovered from a Philippine soil sample] before they can set to work.

But also, down from those impossible highs: of the quotidian, unproven worth of some incidentally discovered greens, and the tremendous satisfaction of picking a handful from the garden, grinding them with raw rice and urid dal and a few spoons of methi [fenugreek seeds], fermenting the salted batter overnight, and then pouring out onto a hot greased griddle into round-round dosas to please your palate, fill your tummy, and attend to your body, a little, little, little at a time, in innumerable-unfathomable ways that you must trust and can never fully know.

Of the unconquerable colonist with heart-marked seeds and hidden powers in its reaching tendrils. Hopkins said it best: Long live the weeds and the wildness yet.

The moral of the story: Prospecting may never make you rich, but it sure can keep you happy and healthy.

To do a dosa post properly, I would need to say more about soaking and fermentation and the care of the beast that is the cast-iron dosakkal [“dosa stone,” tava, griddle], as I just refuse to use non-stick anything in my cooking [just don’t trust the stuff]. I would also need to talk about accompaniments: potato masala [filling], chutneys, and podis [spice powders]. But this isn’t a dosa post as much as it’s a celebration of weeds, so I’ll leave my instructions simple–unless anyone wants more.

Happy foraging, y’all.

Indravalli / Mudakkathan Keerai Dosas

Make the batter:

1. SOAK in water to cover: 2 cups raw white rice, 1 cup urid dal, 2 Tbsp. methi or fenugreek seeds for a few hours. These are the basic dosa ingredients. Aside from the greens if you have them, salt, and oil to grease your griddle, they’re all the ingredients you will need.
2. GRIND  in a food processor–or, what the heck, I used to use a blender as it was all I had–until a very fine paste, adding just enough water allow you to grind easily and to make a not-too-liquidy batter.
3. ADD a handful of indravalli or mudakkathan keerai and a teaspoon of salt, and blend until well incorporated.
4. FERMENT overnight, by leaving the covered container of batter undisturbed in a warm corner (or inside the oven with the light on).
5. By morning (or night, depending on when you do your grinding), the batter should have risen, become airy, and soured. Mix well and refrigerate until ready to use.

Make the dosas:

1. Set the batter out to return roughly to room temperature for about an hour or so before you need it. Add a little water if the batter is too thick: it should be of easy pouring consistency.
2. HEAT a cast iron griddle (preferably one with low or no rims) until smoking hot, and then cover the surface with a layer of salt. Leave for a minute, and dust off.
3. Reduce your flame, oil your griddle well with a brush, and pour a small soup-spoonful of beaten batter into the center. Steadily work your soup spoon in circles, from the center outwards, spreading the batter into a thin round. Try to go in concentric circles and not go over the same area twice, so as to keep the bubbles forming nicely [the fermentation or souring generates air bubbles which release further with heat and allow for the dosa to cook and crisp nicely].
4. Drop a bit of oil around the dosa, and wait for the edges to brown. You can cover with a soup pot lid for a bit, for a softer dosa.
5. Using a thin spatula and working from the edges toward the center, release the dosa–and flip it to cook on the other side. You’ll have to work to get the technique right, so don’t be discouraged if your first few stick — just re-salt or oil, and start over. The picture perfect dosa is a perfect round and releases easily–but Verne always reminds me that it’s a fetish, and that the “failures” taste just as good.
6. Once your dosa is cooked on both sides, you’re ready to fold it over in a half and eat hot-hot with chutneys, podis, sambhars, last night’s left over chicken curry or whatever else you please.