The rajma masala may have the flavor and feeling of being an ancient Indian dish, but its past is marked by cultural and colonial exchange, and its recipe is just a bit older than my grandfather.
Although rajma masala is a modern icon of North Indian cuisine, the bean itself is not indigenous to the subcontinent, nor is the base of the dish, tomato. The ingredients that many consider an integral part of Indian diet do not always originate there.
The bean is native to the Americas, with sources pointing to Mexico and Peru. The bean traveled from the New World to the Old, and then through spice trade routes to Asia, in what is known as the Columbian Exchange, where beans and other plants and animals and peoples and information and diseases were transferred between continents in the 15th and 16th centuries.
It is possible that the bean arrived via cattle caravan routes to the Mughal Empire in the north, but the recipe for rajma masala appears only about 130 years ago, according to culinary archaeologist Kurush Dalal. Dalal believes it is unlikely that the Portuguese traded beans when they themselves ate them, because they are not mentioned in medieval Indian texts.
The rajma masala, which has made its place in North Indian cuisine, is not as popular in the south. Mannur recalls being told at a restaurant in Mangalore — another ancient Portuguese conquest — that the North Indian thali was unique because it included rajma masala.
