How “vadouvan” became French by using and effacing its Tamil Roots

Walking about Bruxelles one sunny November morning, we chanced on a spice shop with bottles of pepper and something called “Curry Vadouvan” stacked enticingly in the window display.

I recognized “vadouvan” at once as the Gallicization of the Tamil “vadagam” (alt. spellings: vadavam, vadaham)—which, the way I know it at home, is a unique spice preserve made by combining, incidentally fermenting, and eventually just slow drying shallots and garlic (primarily) with curry leaves, rock salt and a predictable range of whole and powdered spices. Longue durée drying, I wanted to say, adapting a term from French historiography: a lengthy, intense, patient, life-encompassing process in which Tamil women in a household convert fresh ingredients into oil-and-salt preserved spice balls which blacken and improve with age, and are used to flavor a variety of dishes for the coming year or two.

The mixture is stored out of the house—the smell is frequently too pungent to bear indoors—drying terraces commandeered when the sun is the hottest, neighbours notified by both bustle and redolence of what is being prepared and fully primed to beg a share. Since the process enmeshes sun-cooking, fermenting, and drying, the threat of spoilage is ever-present and must be painstakingly warded off. Periodic rounds of castor oil-coating serves this purpose, as do other obeisances.

Hindu families preparing vadagam for instance will fashion the first one in the shape of a Vinayaka, right down to a red chilli pottu [bindi] for good beginnings, and an iron nail and a bright red chilli are present with the whole drying lot as dhrishti [evil eye] protections. Nothing is taken for granted.

Vadagam-making sits right alongside the large-scale household preparations of vadaams, varthals, and applams, a mixed array of dry condiments and wafers, each one in its way making full use of seasonal abundance and preserving it for the sparser seasons ahead.  Each community and region boasts a set of methods and proportions that, in turn, produces at least some of the signature flavors of their cuisines.

But now what was this elaborately made spice mix to anyone else beyond the old Tamil neighbourhoods of its origin? This Gallicized alter ego of my own Tamil self, this immigrant to the erstwhile centres of colonial power—what was it doing, here in Bruxelles?

Just like that, what had begun as a casual tourist romp turned into an ethnographic moment: before my family knew it, I was in the shop talking to the proprietrix, who was herself from Cameroon. She knew the Tamil origins of vadouvan, of course, being intent herself in expanding, even so many centuries after the start of the spice trades, the still-limited taste palates of her European clientele. But, even by her own reckoning, few others would know this spice, or its origins—even less what to do with it.

The Myth of the French Colonial Masala

So, what is “vadouvan” that vadagam has become? The most common definition is that it is a “French masala,” a “French take on curry powder” originating in Pondicherry, because that was, of course, from 1674-1954, the key French comptoir of the Coromandel coast. It is to be differentiated from the “curry powders” of British India, as being both French (read: distinguished), chunkier, milder, and wetter, too, added the Bruxelles proprietrix.

In a strange way, spice mixes reflect the tension between these erstwhile European superpowers and resolve them in a sort-of culinary equivalent of territorial separation: the British had Madras curry, the French had vadouvan. Thinking of curries this way, however, as but-of-course colonial creations—degrading “British oversimplifications,” Madhur Jaffrey dismissively called them in 1974, things that “the Europeans imposed on India’s food culture”[1]—unfortunately allows most casual observers to simply attribute curries and their essential spice mixes to the colonizers. It effectively erases not only the actual origins of the kari/curry idea, and the role of those local cooks and savvy entrepreneurs who innovated, adapted, and made Indian dishes palatable to foreign tastes in the first place. “Madras curry” might have been a British fixation, but the famous Vencatachellum Madras Curry Powder was produced for nearly a century by P. Vencatachellum Pillai and his son, P.V. Subramania Pillai, an immensely successful Adi-Dravidar business family in erstwhile Madras, with J.A. Sharwood & Co., Ltd. appointed as sole agents and distributors in the UK.[2] With scant attention paid to the roles of these mediators and middle-folk, a spice mix like vadouvan easily becomes a creation of the “French colonialists in a southern region of India.” Chef Cedric Maupillier of Convivial in Washington DC’s trendy Shaw neighbourhood then affirms this in The Washington Post: ”Vadouvan originated with French colonization of Pondicherry,” he says, “The French brought back with them the idea of a curry blend, but one that ended up milder than the Indian version.”

But did they, really?

The French, with their own extolled gastronomic traditions were known to be “less accepting of the foods of their south Asian empire than the British or Dutch … there are virtually no traces in their cuisine of their long association with India, which lasted until 1954” (Taylor Sen 2009: 110). Paris got its first Indian restaurant, opened by an Indian government delegation, as recently as 1975. Chances are that the French brought back nothing of India’s cuisine during their colonial sojourn, least of all a flavouring as potent and distinct as vadagam.

I phoned Dr. Lourdes Tirouvanziam-Louis, an old acquaintance and author of The Pondicherry Kitchen, a collection of family recipes in which this flavouring mixture features large. She was categorical: vadavam, as it is known in local lingo, is neither French nor creole. “Don’t get these things confused,” she cautioned. “It is Tamil.”

When I asked about vadouvan in particular, she conjectured that this may have been a derivative of the typically Jaffna Tamil “vadaham” sold these days at Sri Lankan grocers in France; there are distinct regional pronunciations of “vadagam” after all, with vadavam, and vadaham as common variants. Whatever the route, “vadouvan” appears to have burst onto European scenes only in very contemporary times. Gourmet put up a recipe for “Vadouvan spice” in 2008, attributing it to the much-feted Michelin starred chef Iñaki Azpitarte of Le Châteaubriand in Paris. The American morning Today Show then touted it in 2015 as “the curry powder you need in your life,” though it wasn’t until 2021 that The Washington Post remarked on its increased presence on many chic restaurant menus, exotically flavouring everything from pumpkin potage, lamb-accompanied “dahl”, skate wing, foie gras and (eventually) blue crab and kale salads. A “Vadouvan Sweet Curry Sauce” is even on the menu of New York’s 3-Michelin-starred La Bernadin. Even though none of these vadouvan spice mixes appear to have been produced by the traditional methods of castor oil-coating and patient sun-drying, this suddenly trendy Tamil spice mix was clearly having its moment in the shining Western sun.

Pondicherry’s Vadavam

Dr. Louis and I chatted at length about the uniqueness of Pondicherry’s traditional vadavam formulations: unlike the thalippu vadagams [literally, tempering spice mixes] of other Tamil Nadu regions, Pondicherry’s vadavams rely heavily on shallots and garlic, with only minimal spices, dals, and even curry leaves added in.

But they are central to local Tamil fare in nearly all community foodways. “This is how we make them in my community,” Dr. Louis said repeatedly, “My Chettiyar and Mudaliyar friends do it a bit differently.” Whatever the specific recipe followed, these slow-dried, slowly ageing, slowly darkening balls not unsurprisingly release blasts of rich, earthy umami flavor when they are fried quickly and added to dishes. They complement just about all tamarind-based saucy preparations (fish or vegetable puli kuzhambus) beautifully. In some communities, they also can flavor a range of meat dishes: particularly the darker duck and lamb. And, at Pongal time, which is (fortuitously for Evangelists) coincident with Epiphany, a serving of Muunru Raja Pongal—Chakkarai or sweet Pongal by any other name, but here evangelized with the three “kingly” ingredients of rice, sugar, and coconut milk—and a side of Vadavam tovaiyal or coconut-based vadavam chutney are the customary offerings of Pondicherry’s Tamil Catholic households, alongside an odd-numbered array of seasonal vegetable dishes.

Broader Tamil uses across community and region are not much different, though the vadagams themselves may be. Vepampoo [neem flower] vadagams may simply be crumbled, fried and served as crunchy condiments (not unlike varthals). Onion vadagams are essential flavor boosters in keerai masiyal or mashed greens preparations. It would not be a stretch to read vadavams as both specific to a region like Pondicherry, and emblematic of Tamil approaches to flavouring generally, even if those staunchly vegetarian, typically Brahmin communities who eschew the use of onions and garlic or the distinctly meatier flavours of a condiment caught by the sun, as it were, somewhere between fermenting, drying and not-spoiling would not consume them with equal relish.

Tamil Flavour, French Twist

What distinguishes vadouvan, then, from its Tamil predecessors? If it’s not colonial origin, it’s the shallots the French added! some will quickly and enthusiastically add—to which, ‘ow you say “bull-shit” en Français?

For Tamils, “onions” often mean only shallots, sambar or small/ kutti vengayam, which are preferred more for flavour and health benefits. The “Curry Vadouvan” I found in Bruxelles was a coarse powder, heavy on turmeric, using white mustard instead of black and possibly other aromatics: cloves, nutmeg, thyme have apparently become common additions in this Indianized “all spice” formulation. Perhaps some of these added tastes plus quicker preparation by frying rather than sun-drying make for a milder flavour profile, though the claim that the French ramped down the spice levels needs itself to be tempered by the fact that “burning” spices like pepper and chillies are notably absent in all Tamil vadagams.

More than likely, it’s the imputed Frenchness of vadouvan with its Oriental twists that makes for at least some of its modern chic and trendy appeal. That Oriental “twist,” however, is a central flavor of my Tamil world—not to be dreamily romanticized as part of some imagined colonial past, but acknowledged, front and centre, as a crucial Indian contribution to global gastronomies in the present.

I write this as a tribute to Dr. Lourdes Tirouvanziam-Louis, to whom I spoke in early 2024 but who passed away sometime after, and offer thanks Madhu Naidu for introducing us so many years ago. In her honor, I reproduce this very special recipe from her book The Pondicherry Kitchen: the vadavam thuvaiyal. She often encouraged me to make my own vadavams from scratch–which I will, someday, right alongside Kallidaikurichi applams made with pirandai saar or juice.

[1] Lizzie Collingham, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006: 115

[2] https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/the-long-story-of-how-a-dalit-family-once-ruled-the-global-condiment-industry/article67193814.ece