Entries of “nagkesar” and “nag kesar” from The Bloomsbury Handbook of Indian Cuisine, edited by Sourish Bhattacharyya, Helen Saberi, and Colleen Taylor Sen, reveal the ambiguity, confusion, and misidentification surrounding this spice.
Is nagkesar:
• Cinnamomum cassia?
• Mesua ferrea?
• Piper cubeba?
In Pangat, a Feast: Food and Lore from Marathi Kitchens by Shrimati Saee Koranne-Khandekar ji, nagkesar is listed as cobra saffron, which refers to Mesua ferrea.
Meanwhile, in The Essential Marathi Cookbook by Shrimati Kaumudi Marathe ji, nagkesar is identified as cassia buds, or Cinnamomum cassia.
Adding further to the confusion about the true botanical identity of nagkesar, Shrimati Niloufer Ichaporia King ji, a renowned scholar of Parsi cuisine based in San Francisco, USA, writes in her book My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking:
"Recipes for these mixtures [Dhana Jiru or Dhansak Masala] often call for esoteric ingredients, such as dug-gar ka phul [Parmotrema perlatum], a lichen, and tiny amounts of hard-to-find spices like nag kesar [note the space between "nag" and "kesar"], or snake saffron—often mistranslated as “saffron,” but a completely different spice resembling a peppercorn with a tail. I have left them out here because they are generally unavailable in the United States. I’ve eaten great amounts of lichen to determine its effect and still don’t know. Should you be determined and able to find them, add one teaspoon of duggar ka phul and half a teaspoon of nag kesar (King 2007, 38)."
What Niloufer-ji describes as nag kesar—“a peppercorn with a tail”—is actually Java pepper, also known as cubeb (Piper cubeba). In contrast, the black peppercorns commonly found in our kitchens are from Piper nigrum. It is crucial to clarify that nagkesar, or nag kesar, is not Piper cubeba.
In conclusion, it seems everyone is confused about the true identity of nagkesar!
Is nagkesar:
• Cinnamomum cassia?
• Mesua ferrea?
• Piper cubeba?
In Pangat, a Feast: Food and Lore from Marathi Kitchens by Shrimati Saee Koranne-Khandekar ji, nagkesar is listed as cobra saffron, which refers to Mesua ferrea.
Meanwhile, in The Essential Marathi Cookbook by Shrimati Kaumudi Marathe ji, nagkesar is identified as cassia buds, or Cinnamomum cassia.
Adding further to the confusion about the true botanical identity of nagkesar, Shrimati Niloufer Ichaporia King ji, a renowned scholar of Parsi cuisine based in San Francisco, USA, writes in her book My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking:
"Recipes for these mixtures [Dhana Jiru or Dhansak Masala] often call for esoteric ingredients, such as dug-gar ka phul [Parmotrema perlatum], a lichen, and tiny amounts of hard-to-find spices like nag kesar [note the space between "nag" and "kesar"], or snake saffron—often mistranslated as “saffron,” but a completely different spice resembling a peppercorn with a tail. I have left them out here because they are generally unavailable in the United States. I’ve eaten great amounts of lichen to determine its effect and still don’t know. Should you be determined and able to find them, add one teaspoon of duggar ka phul and half a teaspoon of nag kesar (King 2007, 38)."
What Niloufer-ji describes as nag kesar—“a peppercorn with a tail”—is actually Java pepper, also known as cubeb (Piper cubeba). In contrast, the black peppercorns commonly found in our kitchens are from Piper nigrum. It is crucial to clarify that nagkesar, or nag kesar, is not Piper cubeba.
In conclusion, it seems everyone is confused about the true identity of nagkesar!
Bibliography
King, Niloufer Ichaporia. My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking. United Kingdom: University of California Press, 2007.
Koranne-Khandekar, Saee. Pangat, a Feast: Food and Lore from Marathi Kitchens. Gurugram, Haryana: Hachette India, 2019.
Marathé, Kaumudi. The Essential Marathi Cookbook. New Delhi, India: Penguin Books, 2009.
Mehendale, Aditya. Rare Gems: A Non-Vegetarian Gourmet Collection from Maharashtra. India: Om Books International, 2015.
Sen, Colleen Taylor, Sourish Bhattacharyya, and Helen Saberi, eds. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Indian Cuisine. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023.