Tell us the story of Atina Foods. From an Interview with Doorstep. Summer 2021. Answers from Suresh.
- How did you get started?
Carrie, an American, and Suresh, an Indian, met in India quite unexpectedly during a particularly intense hurricane season through one of their common friends, soon Suresh came over to America. They got married and settled in their newly found home on the foothills of Catskill mountains , the abode of Great Manitou. Leaving behind their long careers in arts, media and culture they began to live off the little piece of land that they got and by using their traditional knowledge and natural skills. Suresh and Carrie are traditionally food lovers and Suresh has been cooking as a practice since he was five assisting women in their kitchen and Carrie an avid food experimenter since childhood. They started cooking food for friends and soon an opportunity arose, when a friend who is a practitioner of Acupuncture recommended a terminally ill cancer patient who was going through chemotherapy and high medication for her cancer treatment to cook some food, which could give some comfort to the ailing woman from pain.
Usage of spices and herbs which supply necessary nutrients , vitamins, minerals and many other beneficial compounds in cooking is an important area of knowledge in the theory and practices of the ancient Indian system of medicine, Ayurveda. Suresh, through his upbringing, is familiar with the Ayurvedic teachings and practices that says, metabolic imbalances of the body can be brought to normal state as well, body disorders can be brought to control through food. Inspired by the love given by the dying patient during her departing days, they began to develop shelf stable foods, which are “functional” in providing necessary nutrients using wholesome ingredients and prepared using traditional methods. Friends from far and near encouraged them in many ways to pursue their objective and in August 2015, a year after they moved to their Catskill home, they first displayed their products in the local Catskill Farmer’s Market. People loved their products and soon they began to appear in many farmers, festivals, shops and online
- Where did the name Atina Foods come from, what does it mean?
Like many traditional cultures around the planet, one of the foundational teachings of Ayurveda is that each habitat has its own food and medicine and food practitioners are advised to look for the ingredients in the local habitat to make and share food. Atina is the name of the Corn Mother Goddess of the Native Americans who lived in the geographical territory where our house and dreams are presently located. Carrie and Suresh always believe that land can guide them and listening to the land will give name and form to go forward. The name “Atina” came to them mysteriously and soon they discovered the fascinating story of Atina, the Corn Mother Goddess who helped human beings to move away from the darkness to the light of life.
See Blog: Who is Atina
- What was the first product you made?
Inji Puli is the first product that we developed for commercial marketing. Inji Puli is the combination of two words, Inji means Ginger, Puli means Tamarind. Inji Puli has a great importance to Suresh personally, as it is the first dish prepared and served during the ten day festival Onam, at his home in Kerala, South India. Inji Puli is an ideal example of Ayurvedic functional food where the six tastes of Ayurveda such as Sweet, Bitter,Salt, Hot, Sour and Fermented are perfectly balanced. Inji Puli represents a time tested technology to naturally preserve useful compounds in natural medicinal herbs such as Ginger, Tamarind, Black Pepper, Fenugreek, Mustard, Asafoetida, Cumin and Curry leaves preserved in Jaggery, an unprocessed cane sugar which provides clean sugar as well as many vitamins, minerals, amino acids, digestive enzymes in easily digestible form. The combined effects of these herbs help users in many comfortable ways, especially in digestion and breathing.
See Blog: Story of Inji Puli
- What is your best selling product?
It really depends on the weather, some sunny days its ferments, some cooler days it’s the Herbal jams, some snowy days its Garlic and some hotter days it’s ginger! People’s palates are all so different, we are happy to have a range to choose from!
- What is your personal favorite product, and what do you make with it?
My favourite products are Garlic Scape Pickle and Rhubarb Ginger Herbal Jam. The reason why these products are dear to me ( Suresh), is because the main ingredients in these products are locally grown vegetables which are either underutilized or discarded. Garlic Scape is a kind of a discarded part of a hard neck Garlic plant, which is generally consumed by local people in a limited time period in just a few ways. Most of the time, Garlic farmers throw this Northeast vegetable away as there are few popular recipes available either to cook as part of regular food or to make value added products from it. It is not commercially viable for garlic farmers to keep it for a long period of time. Understanding this local vegetable and its under utilization have led us to develop this unique product, Garlic Scape pickle is lacto fermented and combined with traditional spice combination, it remains crunchy and almost sweet, with an energetic kick, like our own local caper, you can really eat it on anything!
It is most rewarding to not just live in the season, with seasonal foods, but to be able to preserve the harvest for seasons to come, helping a cold weather person survive through the winter!
We are also honored that our Garlic Scape Pickle has been recognized nationally, as a Good Food Award winner for 2021!
See Blog: Garlic Scape Pickle
My second favourite is the Rhubarb Herbal Jam. This product is a local adaptation of our King of Condiments , Inji Puli. In this product we have replaced the imported Tamarind with locally grown Rhubarb as part of our efforts to localize the knowledge by adapting to its local environment. Rhubarb was also one of the few remaining edible plants we found on our property when we moved there.
- Where do your ingredients come from?
We are happy to combine from both local and global markets. We have built many sustainable and good relationships with local farms, for our rhubarb, garlic scapes, garlic and other seasonal products we make (fennel, watermelon radish, peppers, beans). We do grow plenty of our own food, though keep this for testing, specials, and personal use. Other ingredients come from their countries of origin, where they grow sustainably in the environment. We use fresh organic turmeric and ginger and start with the original pulp of the tamarind. We have also begun to work with Burlap and Barrel for some of our spice needs.
- What makes Atina Foods unique?
Our food products are made from wholesome natural ingredients and processed through traditional processes to provide nutrients such as vitamins, enzymes, amino acids, minerals and many essential compounds to be eaten along with a person’s regular food. While it helps the body to increase its natural immunity it also helps the users to regain their naturally existing six tastes as explained in Ayurveda and also help users to discover newer ways to make healthy food.
While some of our products come from original recipes used in India, Atina Foods has adapted many of them to the environment we now live and have crafted new products not available anywhere else in the world.
As we talked about, Ayurveda is that each habitat has its own food and medicine and food practitioners are advised to look for the ingredients in the local habitat to make and share food, these adaptations are useful for the health of one’s being and the sustainability of the land, it is also important to understand that Ayurveda does not mean, imported.
- What does Ayurveda mean to you?
Ayurveda as a system of medicine treats food as medicine and medicine as food like many traditional societies across the world. It teaches that human beings are natural beings like all other beings on this planet and are naturally designed to be in a state of happiness or Ananda, when it is in harmony within and outside. The physical body of human beings are made of five basic elements such as Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Sound/Space, so are everything on this known world. Ayurveda classifies all the metabolic functions of the physical body as Doshas and there are three Doshas in the body such as Vata, Pitta and Kapha . When all the five elements are in a state of balance and when all the three Doshas are in harmony, then the physical body feels healthy or happy provided the time and habitat are also favorable for such a healthy state of existence.
The Ayurvedic system identifies all food materials as the combination of these five basic elements. Further, all food ingredients or raw materials are classified as combinations of six basic tastes, naturally existing in the human body such as sweet, bitter, peppery hot, savoury , salty and astringent. The Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia identifies all food materials first for its Rasa or taste before processing , secondly, Guna or qualities such as its ability to induce digestion, mobility, causes diarrhea purgation, laxative, constipation etc. , thirdly, Veerya or power such as Ushnam or Hot, fourthly, Vipaka (after taste) and finally effects on three Doshas or metabolic functions.
In our present food world, people go to the grocery for their carbohydrate, protein and fat requirements and expect pharmacies to provide them with vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other vital compounds and health workers. We, like many, feel that this bi-furcation of food materials as food and medicine both in theory and practice is the main reason for many ailments or disorders.
Thus we are continued to be inspired by the teachings of Ayurveda to create nutrient rich food using locally grown or sourced materials.
- What makes Ayurvedic foods unique?
The uniqueness of Ayurvedic food is that it offers a wide range of possibilities to prepare food using wholesome ingredients to provide a healthy, tasty, rich and nutritious diet at any stage of health of a human being. Ayurveda recommends a host of natural foods, processing techniques and methods to prepare food to meet the human body’s daily requirement of all the nutrients in easily absorbable forms. The food in Ayurveda is meant to help the natural metabolic functions of the body and also provide necessary immunity to the body to maintain its natural balance and to be in a state of happiness. Ayurveda recognizes that each person's taste profile is different and therefore each person’s food/ medicine requirement is different. Depending on each person’s state of physical and mental health, Ayurveda gives broad theoretical and practical frameworks to produce appropriate food/ medicine from locally available natural materials sourced through ethical means. As the quality of the food materials are dependent on the nature of the physical habitat from where the food comes from, Ayurveda gives tremendous importance for a healthy bio-cultural environment for growing food.
- Tell us something about Ayurveda/Ayurvedic foods that is not well known.
Like many traditional systems of health and medicine across the planet, for various reasons, many food materials and food making processes mentioned in Ayurvedic texts and practices are relatively unknown to the western world. Similar to many indigenous systems of medicine, Ayurvedic food offers natural solutions to address many common health issues. For instance our famous Turmeric Ginger Herbal Jam is a product that we developed following Ayurvedic therapeutic practice of making Lehyam (Herbal Jam) or cooked concentrate of several medicinal herbs such as Turmeric, Ginger , Black pepper, Tamarind, Asafoetida, Mustard, Fenugreek naturally preserved in unprocessed cane sugar. A daily intake of one tablespoon of this Sweet Turmeric herbal jam provides a sufficient quantity of “curcumin'', which is proven as the most effective natural medicine to fight cancer and many disorders such as Rheumatoid Arthritis etc. Curucumin is one of the many useful elements present in Turmeric Rhizomes which is better absorbed in the body and performs well when it is consumed in its natural form along with other useful ingredients such as Black Pepper etc.
Today Curcumin, extracted through an energy intensive process is sold as a medicinal drug through pharmacies in tablet and capsule form whereas natural ways of consuming fresh Turmeric as part of the daily food is nearly missing. Ayurveda and many indigenous systems of medicine are still considered as magical remedies and are far away from any “ official recognition” from the authorities who have no problem in accepting an extracted element of a compound as medicine while the compound or its source itself is ignored or discarded .
This is about wholeness, not extraction, being involved with the food in its original form, this is what Ayurveda expresses, we see this as also a systemic method of wholeness, holistic living, rather than separating based on specific research.
- What is a common question you get from customers at local markets when they visit your booth in person? (and what is the answer to give)
Is it Spicy? This is the most common question that we face from customers at the local markets. Many people often confuse themselves with the word Spice for any food which has different flavour and unfamiliar taste. Many of them know Spicy taste to mean peppery hot. We have been explaining to those interested customers that spices are a whole range of food materials which are meant to provide essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids etc. to be eaten in small quantities regularly along with their daily intake of carbohydrate , fat and proteins. There are many kinds of spices and its usages not only provide high nutrients but also accentuate the ability of the body to increase its taste and flavor profile. Finally, we give them a spoonful of our condiments, which generally help them understand our practice.
- What is your proudest accomplishment related to Atina Foods?
Over the past five years we have created a large number of committed users for our products and we feel proud when they say that our products are helping them in many ways in maintaining body balance . They keep encouraging us to move forward and face our difficulties.
- What next for Atina Foods?
We are looking forward to creating a broad platform to facilitate food practitioners from different cultures to produce nutrient rich natural food using traditional knowledge systems, skills, cognitive ideas and practices which could address many problems originating from improper or mishandling of ingredients/ materials to make food.
- If you weren't running Atina Foods, what would you be doing?
Suresh would have opted to live in some forest doing nothing, if possible.
Carrie may be running a shop of Arrows and facilitating performances and preservations.