What the Body Forgets, the Meal Remembers

There are languages older than words-spoken not by the mouth, but by hands, by breath, by the gentle steam rising from a quiet kitchen. In our Kashmiri home, food was one of those languages. It waited for you when you didn’t know what you needed. It offered warmth when no one had the right words to say. You didn’t have to ask for it. You simply came in from the cold, and it was already there—rice still steaming, haakh wilted in mustard oil, a cup of noon chai passed silently into your hands. My mother never asked if I was hungry-she just knew. Like love that senses your hunger before you do.

She never followed recipes. Her knowledge was older than instructions, carried in her hands and breath. If I had a cold, she would simmer Chatta Ras in silence-lamb bones, dried ginger, time-and somehow it tasted like warmth had learned to walk. If I was restless, she added fennel to the rice. When my stomach hurt, she stirred turmeric into the dal. She never spoke of inflammation or immunity, but her food worked. Years later, in medical school, I learned the science: gingerol in ginger suppresses inflammation; curcumin in turmeric quiets cytokine storms; anethole in fennel soothes the gut. But my mother didn’t need science. Her cooking was prayer without words, remedy without name.

Then, just before I began medical school, she had left us ..

One morning, she hummed over a pot of rice. By evening, she was taken-suddenly, like so many in our valley—by a kind of unrest that leaves no time for farewells. There was no last recipe, no goodbye, only the feeling of something unfinished and the stillness that followed.

The kitchen remained, but it was silent. The clay stove, the spice jars, the folded namda-all untouched. The rhythm was gone and into that silence stepped my elder sister. Her rotis were thick and uneven, the onions sometimes burned, but she returned to the stove every day. My father, who had learned to cook in forests and camps, stood beside her. He didn’t explain; he simply adjusted the flame. Together, they cooked not for perfection, but for presence-for the simple act of keeping the fire alive, of remembering what it means to feed.

When I left for Srinagar to begin medical school, I carried that memory with me—not in containers, but deep inside. The hostel mess served food that filled the stomach but left the soul hungry: watery dal, overcooked rice and meat that tasted like absence. I drank sugary Lipton tea in the mornings—not for flavor, but for comfort.

In medical school, food became numbers and risks. Ghee was bad and rice was a threat. We learned how saturated fat raises LDL cholesterol, how sodium contributes to hypertension, how high-glycemic foods increase the risk of metabolic syndrome. All true, but it felt cold and empty. We never spoke of food as memory or belonging. We never asked who made it or how it felt to eat alone.

I stopped eating the foods I loved and followed the rules-less oil, less salt, no rice. The science was right, but inside me, something grew quiet. I was hungry:not for food, but for something older-for the warmth behind the taste, the love behind the cooking. It wasn’t hunger of the body, but hunger of the heart.

During residency, I married my wife. She understood tiredness-the kind that words can’t reach. She began sending me food-rice, greens, rajma, sometimes sweetened rice just like at home. She didn’t hold back on the ghee. I would open the tiffin, count the fat, hesitate-and then eat every bite. Because what she gave me was not just food, but love wrapped in steel containers. It said, without words: you are still worth feeding.

Later, I moved to Delhi for training and lived alone again. My meals became simple-Maggi, toast, boiled eggs, and rice with pickle. They filled my hunger but not the emptiness inside. I was alive, but not living.

Then one day, a patient reminded me what I had forgotten.

He was fading-not just from illness, but from everything that makes eating human. He refused every supplement, every diet plan, every carefully measured shake. He didn’t want science. He wanted something else, though he couldn’t say what. His daughter came in-quiet, tired, holding a steel tiffin that smelled like home with rice , vegetables cooked in mustard oil, a little pickle. She didn’t ask about calories or protein,she  just asked if she could feed him.

I said yes  and the  word ‘yes’ was the magic that opened his silence. And in that simple grain, his hunger finally found a voice.

For the first time in days, he opened his mouth. Not just for food, but for memory. For the love in her hands. For the life that still breathed through mustard oil and a bite of something familiar. He wasn’t just eating. He was coming back.

Later, I asked him how he felt. He looked at me and said, “Doctor sahib, this food reminds me who I am.”

Since then, I have asked my patients different questions. Not just “What do you eat?” but “Who made it for you?” “What food feels like home?” “What did your mother cook when you were sick?” One man with heart disease told me he missed a simple rice dish.His appetite returned, his strength came back. He followed his diet not because he forced himself, but because something sacred had come home to him.

Science is finally catching up to what our grandmothers always knew. Poor diet is the leading cause of death worldwide-more than smoking or high blood pressure. But this crisis isn’t just about processed food. It’s about losing the rhythm, the tradition, the presence.

Studies like the PREDIMED trial show that a Mediterranean diet-rich in olive oil, nuts, vegetables, legumes, and shared meals-can reduce heart problems by over 30%. Not just because of nutrients, but because of patterns. Because food is eaten in time, in place, in community.

In Kashmir, we have always known our own quiet science. Haakh is rich in iron. Yogurt feeds the gut. Turmeric calms inflammation. Walnuts lower bad cholesterol and help blood vessels work better. Mustard oil, once blamed, is full of heart-healthy omega-3s that lower triglycerides, steady heartbeats, lower blood pressure, and reduce inflammation-key factors in heart disease and stroke. Our meals are never rushed. They are eaten beside a kangri, passed hand to hand, celebrated not just as food, but as a return.

As a cardiologist, I still write prescriptions. I still check labs and adjust medications. But I have learned to ask about smells, about kitchens, about memories. Because sometimes, healing doesn’t start with a pill. It starts in a bowl of rice stirred slowly, in silence, in bread made by someone who knows you. In food that remembers you-even when you’ve forgotten yourself.

Rumi said, “Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”

I believe that sometimes, that treasure is a meal.

Not something new.

Something old.

Something that calls you home.

Dr Showkat Hussain Shah is consultant Interventional Cardiologist, GMC Anantnag