One staple across the tables of South India is the sambhar — a lentil-based vegetable stew specific to the region, typically made with pigeon peas, tamarind, and a blend of spices. The stew is relished with steaming hot rice and often papadums (a deep friend flattened snack).
But whilst the dish has thrilled palates for decades now, it is interesting how it got its name.
Legend has it that this dish was named after Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj. During one of his visits to the Thanjavur Marathas in Tamil Nadu, he was served a unique dal (lentil soup) and instantly fell in love with its flavour. As the story goes, the dish was created by chance—when kokum ran out, the cooks substituted it with tamarind, leading to a delicious new variation.
The revamp of the traditional Maharashtrian aamti (a slightly spicy and tangy Maharashtrian dal) was relished by Sambhaji and eventually became known as sambhar.
Author Sonal Ved’s book ‘Whose Samosa is it Anyway?’, a compendium of Indian cuisine and the origins of popular dishes, seconds this story. “The story goes that one day, the regular stash of kokum did not reach the Tanjore palace’s kitchen on time. Instead of telling Sambhaji that aamti could not be made, the sous chef improvised by adding a dash of tamarind pulp, something the locals had been using for years for its tartness. The dish became such a hit in the court kitchen that it was named sambhar after Sambhaji, and from Tanjore, it spread to other parts of south India.”
Edited by Khushi Arora
