Kashmiri Masala from Abba's Shop in Srinagar

Snow on the mountains, green in the meadows, houseboats asleep on the lake. The valley of Kashmir is often called Paradise on Earth. Past the views and the quiet houseboats, though, Kashmir keeps something that has murmured down through the ages: its food. Of all its threads, none runs brighter than Kashmiri masala.

Arriving in Srinagar, the summer capital, is like walking into a painting done in gold and green and white. The air smells softly of pine. The Jhelum River hums along beside the streets, and if you are lucky, somewhere far off a rabab is playing something slow and full of feeling. For a traveler who loves to eat, as I do, the real pull is the cooking. That pull brought me to the door of Abba’s little shop.

It sits in a busy market, off the main road, and it is a treasure house for anyone who loves spice. Bottles, jars and small packets are stacked from the floor to the ceiling. In the middle of them all sat Abba, his old eyes bright with mischief and with knowing.

“Ah, you have come for the soul of Kashmir,” he said before I could open my mouth. “Kashmiri masala.”

How did he know? Legends simply know these things.

His hands, lined by years of work, went through a drawer and came out with a small carved box. “The story of Kashmiri masala,” he began, “has as many layers as the masala does. It holds our land, our history and our spirit.”

The story he told carried me back centuries. Kashmir sat where Central Asia meets the Indian subcontinent, a great stop on the old Silk Road. Traders, monks and invaders all passed through, and each left behind a piece of their ways and their cooking.

Under the Mughal emperors, Kashmiri cooking began to take its own shape. The royal cooks, serving emperors who loved good living, worked with what grew in the valley and seasoned it with spices carried in from Persia, Afghanistan and farther still. In those royal kitchens the first form of what we now know as Kashmiri masala came to be.

Abba was quick to add, “It was not only the Mughals. Our Pandit families, who keep a strict vegetarian table, changed the masala, adding here and taking away there to suit their own taste. The Gujjar and Bakarwal herders, moving their flocks through the valleys and over the dangerous mountain passes, brought the secrets of herbs and spices from faraway places.”

The blend itself? Every spice carries a piece of the valley. The red chilies burn like the passion of the people and the painted houseboats on Dal Lake. The fennel seeds are soft as the chinar trees swaying in autumn. The ginger bites like a Kashmiri winter. Cardamom, cloves and cinnamon carry the long notes of Sufi song.

When Abba handed me a packet of it, the smell rose up and held me, rich and heady and somehow comforting, like a coat warm from someone else’s shoulders.

“Every family has its own recipe,” he said, laughing. “Every family believes theirs is the best.”

His own had a secret ingredient. “Love,” he said quietly. “Memory too. Memories of grandparents, of festivals, of meals eaten together, of stories told low under the winter sun.”

When I walked out of his shop, the streets of Srinagar looked different. They rang with stories of kings and poets and lovers, and of ordinary people with remarkable lives. In my hand I held a small packet of all of it, Kashmiri masala, the soul of a valley and the heart of its people.

The sun went down over the Jhelum and turned the city to gold. I brewed a cup of kahwa, the old Kashmiri tea, and added a pinch of the masala. The steam rose, the smell of Abba’s shop came back into the room, and the valley was with me again. A spice is a story small enough to carry home.

The next time a dish with Kashmiri masala reaches your table, breathe it in before the first bite. Somewhere behind it an old man in a crowded shop is opening a carved box, and the whole valley is waiting inside.