Try Some Salt, Fresh And Seasoned

Uttarakhand's age-old flavoured salts loaded with micronutrients are not only a healthy option, but can also tickle your taste buds

- Megha Prakash

SALT CAN add piquancy to any food. But is there something that can add colour and freshness to this pale edible mineral and enhance its taste? Ask people of Uttarakhand and they will tell you a myriad ways of doing so. “I remember my mother preparing a variety of flavoured salts,” says Vimala Rawat of Clement Town, Dehradun. “We call it pisi loon—salt ground with herbs and spices. And my all-time favourite is daindoosa—a pungently flavoured salt made with mustard seeds and chilli. In winters, she used to spread ghee on chapatis, dust them with daindoosa and offer us as rolls. In summers, she would sprinkle it over fruits to prepare chaat,” recalls Rawat. In fact, says Rekha Kothari from Dehradun’s Shivnagar locality, most people in the region use pisi loon as a relish with mandua (finger millet) ki chapati or rice.

Though little historical evidence is available about how and when pisi loon became a part of