Deepa Menon
1
The sea breeze rolled in from the Malabar coast, carrying with it the scent of salt, dried fish, and something warm from Meera Kurian’s café kitchen—her signature meen curry, gently bubbling in the clay pot, laced with kokum, green pepper, and roasted coconut. “Thenga & Tamarind,” the little café she’d built with her grandmother’s dreams and her own savings, was set to open that evening. The final touches were being made—the table runners embroidered with jackfruit leaves, brass tumblers polished, banana leaves stacked beside the cutlery trays. Meera wiped her hands on her apron and glanced at the old framed photo near the cash counter: her grandmother with a basket full of spices. “Wish you were here to see this, Ammama,” she whispered. Her orange-white cat, Chinna Thampi, sprawled across the windowsill, twitched his tail lazily, as if in approval. Just then, the door creaked, and in walked the last person Meera wanted to see on opening day—Vinod Abraham.
Vinod, the notorious food critic for Kerala Gourmet Weekly, entered the café with the air of a man inspecting a courtroom rather than a restaurant. He didn’t make eye contact, simply took out a small notepad and muttered, “Meen curry, if it’s ready.” No hello, no reservation. Meera swallowed her nerves, nodded, and motioned to Arun, her kitchen assistant, to plate the dish. The curry was ladled over steamed tapioca with care, garnished with fried curry leaves and a drizzle of coconut oil. Vinod tasted it in silence, scribbled something, and left just as quietly—only pausing to glance once at Chinna Thampi, who hissed in return. By 8 p.m., the café was buzzing with a soft crowd of friends, neighbours, and curious locals. A local folk duo played near the verandah as Meera served steaming appams and crab roast. Laughter, the clink of brass tumblers, and the lull of Malayalam poetry in the background made it feel like the beginning of something special. Meera allowed herself a brief moment of pride—until her phone buzzed.
The call was from Devika Padmanabhan, her old college acquaintance and now a prominent food blogger. “Meera… I just heard. Vinod Abraham is dead.” The words struck like raw ginger on an open wound. “What do you mean dead?” Meera asked, gripping the phone. Devika’s voice trembled: “He collapsed at home. They say it was something he ate. Didn’t he come to your café today?” A cold wave washed over Meera. Her stomach clenched—not from guilt, but fear. The meen curry. Her signature dish. Her grandmother’s legacy. She turned to look at the half-eaten bowls still on the tables, the guests who’d complimented her that evening, the empty clay pot in the kitchen. “There’s no way,” she muttered. But before she could finish the thought, two police jeeps arrived and parked across the narrow street, casting a red-blue hue over the walls of Thenga & Tamarind. The murmurs among the diners died. Chinna Thampi jumped off the windowsill and slinked into the storeroom. And Meera Kurian, chef and dreamer, found herself on the verge of becoming something she never imagined—a murder suspect.
2
Sub-Inspector Malini Varghese stepped into Thenga & Tamarind with the assertiveness of someone used to solving domestic quarrels, smuggling cases, and the occasional sandalwood theft—not a potential culinary homicide. She was in plainclothes, her badge clipped discreetly to her handbag, and her expression unreadable. “Chef Meera Kurian?” she asked. Meera nodded slowly, still in her turmeric-stained apron, her pulse thudding in her ears. The café had emptied in under fifteen minutes after the police arrived. Meera answered Malini’s initial questions numbly—yes, Vinod Abraham ate here, yes, she prepared the meen curry, yes, he looked healthy when he left. The inspector’s eyebrows rose when Meera mentioned the clay pot cooking technique and the inclusion of roasted tamarind pulp. “Did he ask for anything specific?” Malini inquired, scribbling notes. “No,” Meera replied. “He barely spoke.” Meanwhile, Chinna Thampi brushed against the officer’s feet and was promptly nudged away. “That cat looks like he’s been up to something,” Malini muttered under her breath, only half-joking.
Later that evening, Malini returned with a food safety officer, who sealed the remaining curry and spices for forensic testing. The café was not officially shut down, but Meera was advised to “pause all operations until further notice.” She sat on the stone bench outside, the salty air now strangely heavy, staring at her reflection in the café’s glass façade. Her mind whirled with questions. Why would Vinod die from her food, when everyone else was perfectly fine? Could it have been a coincidence? A hidden allergy? Or worse—had someone tampered with her kitchen? The thought was too terrifying to entertain. That night, she called her late grandmother’s old friend and retired forensic officer, Joseph “Jo” Zachariah. He lived alone on the outskirts of Kozhikode, in a modest tiled-roof house surrounded by bougainvillea. “Jo uncle, I need help,” she said, her voice breaking. “They think I killed someone—with meen curry.” Jo didn’t laugh or gasp. He simply said, “Then we start with the fish. Come over tomorrow morning.”
The next day, Meera arrived at Jo’s home just after sunrise. The retired officer was watering bonsais on his verandah, a jazz record playing softly inside. He looked older than she remembered—silver-bearded, thick glasses, still in impeccable shape—but his eyes had the same sharpness as before. “Vinod Abraham?” he asked, not bothering with small talk. Meera nodded. Jo led her to a cluttered study filled with dusty files, chemical test kits, and old forensic journals. He poured her herbal tea that tasted suspiciously like peppery tulsi and began asking detailed questions. What did Vinod eat? When? Who else was present? Did anyone unusual enter the kitchen? Meera hesitated. “There was a delivery boy I didn’t recognize. Said he was filling in. Brought coconut milk and tamarind.” Jo paused. “Strange. You usually grind your own tamarind.” “Exactly,” Meera said, eyes wide. “I didn’t even place that order.” Jo set his teacup down. “Then we begin with that boy. And with the tamarind. Someone’s cooking up more than curry here, Meera. They’re trying to ruin you—or silence him.” In the background, CT the cat meowed loudly as if in agreement, pawing at a spice tin marked ‘Fenugreek’.
3
Later that week, as Kozhikode buzzed with whispers about the “killer curry,” Meera Kurian and Jo Zachariah set out toward Beach Road, where “Malabar Feast,” the upscale restaurant run by celebrity chef Damodaran “Damu” Nair, stood like a spice-scented fortress. Jo had discovered something intriguing in his initial investigation—a few grains of an uncommon spice left at the bottom of the sealed clay pot from Meera’s café. It didn’t match anything in her kitchen stock, but Jo remembered a televised episode of Spice Sovereigns where Damu flaunted an imported Portuguese blend called “Piri Verda,” claiming it could “wake the dead.” Jo suspected it might now be doing the opposite. Meera wasn’t thrilled about confronting her old culinary rival, especially since Damu had publicly mocked her café in a recent newspaper column. Still, they stepped into Malabar Feast, where the décor was polished steel and hanging boat-oars, and the air smelled of fried anchovies and ego.
Damu appeared in his signature red apron, gold chain glinting under the warm lights, surrounded by junior chefs chopping feverishly. When he saw Meera, he smirked. “Well, well. The spice slayer herself. Come for a recipe or redemption?” Meera bristled, but Jo remained calm. “Just a few questions,” he said, flashing an old police ID that still carried enough weight to turn heads. Damu’s smirk faltered slightly. “Wasn’t me,” he said, preemptively. “If this is about Vinod Abraham, I didn’t even feed him last week. He cancelled on me.” Jo raised a brow. “But didn’t he publicly trash your prawn thalassery two weeks ago? Said it tasted like ‘flavored erasers.’” Damu’s jaw tightened. “That man made enemies for fun,” he muttered. Then, unable to resist, added, “And he couldn’t handle spice anyway. He once drank rose milk during my duck ularthiyathu.” Jo noticed a box on the spice rack labeled Piri Verda – Goa Import and motioned for Meera to discreetly note it. Before they left, Damu leaned in and whispered, “You know, Meera, some recipes are better left forgotten. Especially ones that dig into the past.”
Back in Jo’s study, they began researching the mysterious Piri Verda. Jo found a paper by a retired Portuguese botanist, detailing how the original spice mix was often laced with a compound derived from fermented citrus bark—a chemical harmless in small doses but fatal when combined with tamarind acids. “That could be it,” Jo muttered. “Someone mixed a deadly dose into your curry, knowing you’d use tamarind.” Meera gasped. “But I never ordered Piri Verda. It’s too fancy. Too pretentious. I rely on local blends.” Jo tapped the spice tin gently. “Someone else wanted it in your kitchen. And I think your rival knows more than he lets on.” That night, as Meera locked up her café, she noticed something odd—Chinna Thampi was pawing at the base of the spice cabinet, trying to reach a fallen sachet wedged behind a tin. It was unlabeled, torn at one corner. Meera pulled it out and froze. The scent was unmistakable. Smoky. Sharp. Foreign. Piri Verda. Someone had planted it there. And Meera now knew—this was no kitchen accident. It was a recipe for murder.
4
The next morning, Meera walked briskly through the alleys of Kozhikode’s old town, passing Portuguese-era buildings with fading blue shutters and ivy-covered balconies, until she reached a small heritage library above a spice shop—home to the blog and brainchild of food historian Devika Padmanabhan. A brass plate on the door read Spice Scrolls: Colonial Food Histories & Forgotten Flavours. Meera knocked, and the door opened to reveal Devika, wearing a faded kurta dusted with nutmeg powder, a pen tucked behind one ear, and a spice grinder in hand. “I heard about the café,” she said, voice soft but steady. “And Vinod.” Meera nodded grimly. “I need your help. I think the meen curry recipe—my grandmother’s—has roots older than I realized. Jo found traces of a Portuguese spice blend in the pot. And Vinod may have known something.” Devika’s eyes lit up with a mix of concern and curiosity. “You’re not wrong,” she said. “Come in.”
Inside, the room was a cozy chaos of colonial cookbooks, handwritten ledgers, spice samples in tiny glass bottles, and fading prints of Vasco da Gama’s voyage. Devika rummaged through a drawer and pulled out an old parchment. “Three years ago,” she explained, “I stumbled across this diary belonging to a Portuguese cook named Duarte Avelar, who served in Kozhikode in the 1500s. His recipes were strange hybrids—sardine masalas with vinegar, pepper-stuffed duck, tamarind-infused fish stews. One of them, written in broken Malayalam-Portuguese, closely resembles your meen curry.” She laid out the translated notes, and Meera read the familiar ingredients—seer fish, coconut paste, fenugreek, and a peculiar entry: “verde pó seco das Índias”—green dry powder of the Indies. “Piri Verda,” Meera whispered. Devika nodded. “Yes. He used it for flavor and preservation. But modern food chemists now think some versions contained wild citrus toxins—safe if fermented properly, lethal if not.” Jo, who had joined them after a call from Meera, examined the parchment carefully. “This diary,” he said, “may be the reason Vinod was killed.”
As they discussed further, Devika’s expression clouded. “Vinod came here two weeks ago,” she confessed. “He was obsessed with the idea that some coastal restaurants were using adulterated heritage spices to gain an edge. He said he had proof—maybe linked to Damu or his suppliers. He even hinted he might expose someone in a big write-up.” Meera leaned back, stunned. “He never said anything to me. Just came, ate, and died.” Jo tapped the notebook slowly. “Maybe the meen curry wasn’t the only thing he tasted that day. Or maybe he found something while here.” Chinna Thampi, who had wandered in quietly, leapt onto a stack of books and knocked over a heavy spice tin. From beneath the fallen pages spilled a folded note—yellowed and brittle. Jo picked it up with gloved fingers and carefully unfolded it. “A bill of purchase,” he murmured. “Addressed to someone at Malabar Feast. For a consignment of ‘Piri Verda – experimental blend.’ Dated a week before Vinod’s death.” Meera’s breath caught. “He found proof,” she said. “And he was silenced before he could reveal it.” As the coastal light filtered through the jalousie windows, the trio sat in tense silence—knowing now that this murder had nothing to do with a spice gone wrong. It had everything to do with history someone desperately wanted to bury.
5
The coastal winds carried an unnatural stillness that afternoon as Thenga & Tamarind sat shuttered, its cheerful mural of jackfruit leaves looking faded behind the grilled windows. Meera returned to the café to pick up her grandmother’s spice ledger, hoping it might hold some clue about the original recipe. But the silence was quickly broken by the sound of raised voices—Sub-Inspector Malini Varghese was inside, flanked by two constables and a food safety officer. “We received a tip,” Malini said without preamble, holding up a sealed plastic pouch, “about tampered spice packets found in your storeroom.” Meera blinked in disbelief. “What? Who tipped you off?” Malini ignored the question and began examining the café’s backroom with trained eyes. Among the familiar jars and handwritten labels, the officers found three small pouches of turmeric marked with Meera’s café logo—but filled with a yellow powder that smelled faintly metallic. “These aren’t from your usual vendor,” the safety officer said, squinting. “See the ink? Different shade. Labels misaligned.” Meera felt a cold sweat form along her spine. Someone had been planting evidence.
Later that evening, Jo returned to the café with his portable forensic kit and spent two hours dusting surfaces, photographing spice tins, and checking the locks on the back door. His discovery was alarming—fresh scratch marks on the storeroom’s window latch and an oily fingerprint on the handle of the sealed clay pot, long after Meera had stopped using it. “Someone entered after hours,” he concluded grimly. “They knew exactly where to go.” Chinna Thampi meowed softly and rubbed against the bottom shelf, where Meera noticed something odd—a faint footprint in tamarind powder. The size was too small to be Damu’s. Jo looked up sharply. “Who else had access? Any deliveries? Extra staff?” Meera hesitated. “There was a delivery boy that night. I didn’t recognize him. Said he was filling in for Hari.” Jo jotted it down. “Fake identity. Classic move. He could’ve slipped in while you were distracted and swapped the packets.” Just then, Jo’s phone buzzed. “Devika called,” he said, glancing at the screen. “She’s found something.”
Back at Devika’s studio, tension hung thick in the air. She was visibly shaken, her hair tied hastily in a bun, eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “There’s something I didn’t tell you,” she admitted. “Vinod and I… we were seeing each other. Off and on. He trusted me. And the night before he died, he sent me a message.” She handed Jo a printed screenshot from an encrypted chat: “I think I know what they’ve done with the recipe. But it’s not just about food anymore—it’s fraud, and maybe worse. Will talk tomorrow.” Devika’s voice broke. “But he never made it to tomorrow.” Meera sat in stunned silence. “You didn’t tell us this earlier,” she said, her voice tinged with disbelief. “Because I was scared,” Devika whispered. “Vinod was digging into something huge—corruption, imported spices being relabeled as local, fake heritage recipes being passed off for profit. He thought it could bring down some big names in the industry. Including Damu.” Jo nodded slowly. “Which means we’re looking at a motive far bigger than rivalry. Someone’s protecting an empire built on fraud. And they used your café to stage a murder that would shut the whole thing down before the truth got out.” Devika stared at her spice grinder, as if it had betrayed her. Outside, the waves crashed louder than usual, as if echoing the weight of the deception unraveling inside.
6
The following day, Meera and Jo boarded a rickety morning train heading north to Goa, chasing a lead Devika had uncovered in an obscure footnote—mention of a retired colonial food archivist named Br. Luis Almeida, who once curated exhibits on Indo-Portuguese cuisine at the Goa Heritage Conservatory. According to Devika, Almeida had referenced a lost banquet menu titled The Feast of Duarte, said to have introduced an early version of the meen curry Vinod had been investigating. The two-hour ride hummed with nervous silence. Meera stared out at the changing landscape of coconut groves and church steeples while Jo reread the crumpled diary pages from Duarte Avelar, the 16th-century cook. “If we’re right,” Jo murmured, “Vinod died for discovering that what people are selling as ‘local heritage’ was actually colonially manipulated—and someone’s profiting off the lie.”
In Panjim, Br. Almeida greeted them in a crisp white mundu and cotton vest, surrounded by shelves of old recipe logs and pickling guides in both Latin and Konkani. When Meera mentioned Duarte Avelar’s diary, the old man’s eyes lit up. “Ah yes, The Feast of Duarte!” he said, gesturing them to an old chest. “It was hosted in Kozhikode in 1583. A diplomatic feast—intended to merge Portuguese pomp with local flavors. The fish stew you mention? It was the centerpiece. Cooked with seer fish, tamarind, coconut milk, and… something that doesn’t exist in modern cuisine anymore. A green powder—Piri Verda.” Jo raised an eyebrow. “Was it ever toxic?” Almeida sighed. “It could be. There were many iterations. The safest ones used fermented green bark and sun-dried citrus rind. But if processed wrongly—or adulterated—its compounds could react fatally with tamarind acids. That’s why it was later abandoned. Too volatile. Too unpredictable.” Meera looked horrified. “That’s the exact spice someone planted in my kitchen.” Almeida continued, “Worse still, modern chefs are reviving it—without the knowledge or care of its danger. In fact, a batch was recently requested by a chef from Kozhikode. Someone calling himself ‘Damu N.’”
That evening, back at Jo’s house, they pieced together the web Vinod had been pulling at. Damu had likely sourced a modern synthetic replica of Piri Verda to recreate the long-lost recipe, using it in dishes to win over judges, critics—and possibly investors. But when Vinod discovered that the blend was a fraud, and dangerously so, he planned to expose it. Fearing career and financial ruin, Damu had him silenced. The murder was designed to look like a tragic culinary accident at a new café, pinning the blame neatly on Meera while removing the only person with historical access to the truth. Jo opened his journal. “Vinod didn’t just die because of what he ate. He died because of what he knew.” Meera felt the weight of her grandmother’s spice ledger in her hands. The last page was written in her grandmother’s curling Malayalam: “Some secrets should be preserved, but never served.” Suddenly, a low growl emerged from the spice cabinet—CT the cat had cornered a rat, and in doing so, knocked over a bottle of dried kokum. It cracked open, revealing something tucked inside—another note, sealed in wax. Meera pulled it out. It was a copy of a blog post Vinod had drafted, with the title: The Heritage Hoax: What Lies Behind Kozhikode’s Colonial Cuisine. At the bottom, scribbled in blue ink, were the words: “If I disappear, follow the feast.”
7
Back in Kozhikode, the monsoon clouds had thickened, casting a sepia gloom over Thenga & Tamarind. The café remained shuttered, the warmth of cooking fires replaced by cold suspicion. Meera sat with Jo in his study, Vinod’s hidden draft open on the desk. “If I disappear, follow the feast,” the note had said—and they had. Now they had proof: the Feast of Duarte’s recipe, the adulterated Piri Verda, Damu’s spice order, and the motive of preserving a fraudulent culinary empire. But motive wasn’t enough. Jo, leaning on decades of forensic experience, wanted hard evidence. “We still don’t know how the poison got into your dish, Meera,” he said. “We need to recreate what happened, down to the second.” Meera exhaled deeply. “Then let’s do it. From delivery to plating.” They returned to the café, unlocked the backdoor, and re-traced every step of opening night. Jo wore gloves, handled each spice tin, even examined the banana leaves used for plating. Suddenly, he stopped. “This leaf,” he murmured, “smells off.”
Jo extracted a folded banana leaf from the prep station, sealed in a zip-lock bag. He ran a simple reagent test—his old forensic kit still functional. The result? Positive for a compound known to bond with citral, a key element in tamarind, to form a fatal neurotoxin. “It wasn’t the fish. It wasn’t the curry. It was the leaf,” Jo said, stunned. “That’s why no one else got sick. Vinod’s dish was the only one wrapped in this leaf.” Meera stared at it in horror. “I wrapped it. But I didn’t check the batch. It was rushed, last-minute…” Jo nodded. “Which means someone gave you poisoned wrapping—knowing you’d use it for him.” They checked the supplier records. Nothing odd. But one note stood out—a “substitute delivery boy” named “Ramesh” who dropped off banana leaves that evening. Hari, her usual supplier, later confirmed no one from his shop was sent that day. Jo tapped the ledger. “This wasn’t clumsy sabotage. It was precision. Someone studied your routine.”
That evening, Devika joined them in Jo’s study with an envelope in hand—something she hadn’t dared share earlier. “Vinod sent me this anonymously two days before he died,” she said. Inside was a flash drive containing a video file. The footage was grainy, seemingly taken from a hidden camera in the storeroom of Malabar Feast. In it, Damu Nair was arguing with a man over spice quality. “Too strong,” Damu barked. “One leaf, that’s it. Enough to shut his mouth and ruin her café.” The man nodded, counting packets of Piri Verda and handing over a sealed box. Jo paused the video, zoomed in on the shipping label: “To: D. Nair – Kozhikode – Confidential.” That was the final thread. “We have motive, method, and now premeditation,” Jo said. “It wasn’t rage. It was murder, served cold.” Just then, CT darted across the study with a shrill meow, knocking over a bottle of tamarind extract that spilled across the draft Vinod had typed. The ink bled and blurred, but one line remained clear: “Authenticity isn’t about taste. It’s about truth.”
Jo called Sub-Inspector Malini Varghese immediately. This time, she didn’t hesitate. A warrant was issued for Damodaran “Damu” Nair. The café’s back storeroom was sealed as a crime scene, and the forensic report confirmed everything—trace toxins in the banana leaf, planted spice packets, and fake delivery records. As Malini led the team out for the arrest, she turned to Meera and said, “I don’t trust cats, but that one might just have solved a murder.” Meera smiled faintly, tears forming. The café was still quiet, still broken, but a corner of her name had been cleared. One dish, one leaf, one man’s buried secret—unraveled by spice, memory, and persistence. But one more thing remained: a final tasting, not of food, but of justice.
8
The arrest of Damodaran “Damu” Nair shook Kozhikode’s culinary world like a cracked coconut on stone. The media descended with predictable frenzy—“Celebrity Chef Behind Poison Plot!” “Killer Curry or Sabotage?” Meera Kurian, once accused of murder, was now being hailed as the victim of a meticulously orchestrated crime. But glory tasted strange on the tongue. Even as the headlines cleared her name, Meera remained quiet, her focus on reopening the café and reviving the sanctity of the kitchen her grandmother once ruled. The day after Damu’s arrest, Meera and Jo sat at Thenga & Tamarind, reviewing the final report submitted by forensic labs: the poisoned banana leaf contained high levels of oxalytherin-C, a tampered variant of the citrus-bark toxin once used in Portuguese spice blends. The envelope of Piri Verda found in her spice shelf matched exactly with Damu’s imported batch. Jo leaned back, eyes closed. “This wasn’t just about protecting a secret. It was about eliminating the only person who knew enough to expose the lie—Vinod.”
That evening, a quiet memorial was held in Vinod Abraham’s honor, organized by Devika and attended by a modest circle of writers, chefs, and curious locals. Meera read aloud a passage from his unpublished piece: “Food is memory. It is ancestry. It is not to be packaged with lies or plated with arrogance.” As she lit the lamp beside his portrait, CT the cat wandered into the gathering, sat beside the sandalwood garland, and pawed at a lone peppercorn that had rolled off the offering plate. The room erupted in bittersweet laughter. Later, Devika approached Meera with a worn folder. “Vinod wanted you to have this,” she said. Inside were early drafts of a collaborative book Vinod had envisioned—“The Forgotten Feast: Recipes from the Crossroads of Empire.” Meera clutched the pages, her throat tight. “We’ll finish it,” she said. “In his name. With the truth.”
A month later, Thenga & Tamarind reopened, not with grand fanfare, but with soul. The walls now displayed framed recipe notes—some in her grandmother’s hand, others from Duarte Avelar’s old diary. The menu featured a special section: “Recovered Recipes,” with dishes rooted in honesty and heritage. The meen curry remained, now renamed “Vinod’s Vindication”—served on fresh banana leaves, handpicked and tested by Meera herself. The café bustled again, filled with curious foodies, heritage lovers, and travelers drawn by the story. Sub-Inspector Malini became a regular customer, her usual order: crab roast and lime soda, no ice. Devika’s blog soared in popularity, and she agreed to co-author the book Vinod started. And Jo? He began weekly forensic workshops at the nearby college, affectionately titled “Murder by Masala: A Forensic Journey Through Indian Kitchens.” When Meera jokingly asked if he missed retirement, he replied, “Retirement is overrated. Especially when spice is involved.”
As the sun dipped over the Arabian Sea, casting golden light through the café’s terracotta windows, Meera stood quietly at the kitchen door, watching the tables fill. CT leapt onto the counter, tail flicking near the spice rack. She handed him a small plate of tamarind-soaked sardine, which he devoured with delicate sniffs. “No poisons,” she whispered, smiling. “Only stories.” And in that moment, with the scent of coconut oil and curry leaves swirling once more through the air, justice finally tasted sweet.
End
