In my mother's kitchen the tadka was the first sound of dinner. Whole cumin hitting hot ghee at the back of the stove, cracking like rain on a tin roof. The whole flat would smell of warm spice in thirty seconds. Half my cooking memory is that sound, and almost every dish I make still starts with it.

I cook regional Indian food across the subcontinent (Punjabi, Bengali, Goan, Tamil) and I will not call any of them "curry". I name the spice, the dal, the region, and I'll show you what to eat the dish with, because in an Indian kitchen the dish is half a meal.