Eight spices for the feast

December is the month of tables. We eat late, we eat too much, we eat with people who make us tense, and the belly keeps the account: bloating, wind, a heaviness after the meal that lasts into the night. The Ayurvedic cooks and the Ayurvedic physicians were often the same person, and Hingvastak is their answer, eight spices ground together and taken with a little ghee in the first mouthful of rice. Asafoetida, the strong one, unknots the gut; ginger, black pepper and long pepper light the digestive fire; ajwain, cumin and black cumin carry the wind out; rock salt makes it taste of food rather than medicine. It is for the person whose digestion is cold and slow rather than hot and sharp. Light its stars and you will see them huddled in the Ayurvedic corner like guests around one dish.