Join me for a conversation with Miriam Kasin Hospodar, author of Heaven’s Banquet, the Maharishi Ayurveda Cookbook with over 700 international recipes. Artist, writer, and chef, Miriam has cooked internationally, including in France and India. For Miriam, Heaven’s Banquet was a labor of love and palate, taking twenty-three years to complete.
Miriam introduces basic Ayurvedic food principles: eating fresh food, not dried or preserved; eating seasonally; and eating for your unique mind-body type (called dosha). Ayurveda believes that disease is caused by what is referred to as “mistake of the intellect”; it’s like looking at the ocean but only seeing the waves on the surface. Regaining a deeper understanding is the key to good health. The main principle is balance: it is important to create the conditions that enable you to listen to your body’s natural intelligence.
Ayurveda recommends minimizing leftovers as they lack prana – life force – meaning you receive more energy from freshly prepared food. Ayurveda encourages cultivating positive thoughts when you cook; positive thoughts are considered health promoting. It’s also important to praise the chef, to show appreciation for the person who prepared the food. Meals are to be celebrated – how you eat is as important as what you eat.
An Ayurvedic meal is designed to promote optimum digestion and maximum pleasure. Nutrition can feel very compartmentalized and is forever changing. Ayurveda offers universal principles. It recognizes that one man’s manna may be another’s poison. Comfort is not to be disregarded. The foods you grew up with may be very nourishing to you while not to someone else.
Ayurveda uses the word “agni” to describe the digestive fire and believes that there is a direct correlation between the strength of a person’s agni and state of health. Miriam offers tips to keep your digestion strong.
In Ayurveda, there are six tastes and each taste helps bring you into balance, thereby aiding digestion. The Western diet has a plethora of foods that include sweet, sour, and salty tastes and fewer foods that include pungent, bitter and astringent tastes.
As for cravings, Ayurveda views cravings as the body’s attempt to regain balance. Ayurveda encourages you to cultivate awareness - to begin to see what is fueling a craving. Often cravings indicate excess ama (toxins) in the body and a cleanse or consultation with an Ayurvedic practitioner may be helpful.
Ayurveda, while not wholly vegetarian (Miriam’s book is vegetarian), does not recommend eating meat in a large quantities – mostly in small amounts to treat a particular health condition. For individuals transitioning to a vegetarian diet, Ayurveda recommends a gradual approach. An Ayurvedic vegetarian meal looks very different from a meat-based meal. You want to aim for balance and consider the season. Dal is a very good gentle vegetarian protein. The six tastes are important for balance. A greater variety of smaller dishes is one way to approach meal preparation.
Sauces, condiments and chutneys are another way to incorporate the six tastes. They also enable you to feed a family if some members enjoy simple food and others like to spice it up.
As for families, loving preparation, eating in an uplifting atmosphere, sitting down for meals – all are good ways to start eating Ayurvedically. Someone asked the Maharishi what is the best food to eat. His response:
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