Chaku Wasa: — चाकु वास:, "medicine containing chaku" — slow-cooked in a copper vessel for four hours, blending jaggery, ghee and 32 Ayurvedic herbs.
From Covid-19 to Chaku Wasa: — born in a pandemic kitchen.
In the farming households of Bhaktapur, chaku wasa: was once a winter staple — eaten after meals, fed to anyone unwell, prepared from a recipe handed mother to daughter. As Newa life moved away from farms and toward allopathy, the recipe almost left the kitchen entirely.
In Nepalbhasa, चाकु means jaggery taffy and वास: means medicine — so chaku wasa: is, plainly, "medicine containing chaku." For generations it lived only in vaidya pasa, the Newa Ayurvedic shops, and in homes that still remembered how to cook it.
Chaku Wasa: began in December 2020, when Shova Laxmi Gosai of Bhaktapur cooked a batch for a relative's wife bedridden with Covid-19. A photograph, a thank-you on Facebook — and a steady line of strangers asking her to make them some too. The recipe was the same one her mother and grandmother taught her. Only now, it is weighed and labelled.
For centuries, Newa families have used chaku wasa: to relieve cold, cough, pneumonia, diarrhoea and indigestion — and to rebuild the body after birth.
For centuries, Newa families have eaten chaku wasa: when the weather turns — to ease colds, cough, pneumonia, diarrhoea and indigestion. The pandemic reminded a wider audience why. A spoonful before bed; a spoonful at the first sign of a chill.
For generations, Newa grandmothers have prepared chaku wasa: for daughters in the postpartum period — fed warm, with milk, to help the body rebuild slowly from the inside. It remains, for many families, the first food after birth.
The most common misconception is that only lactating women should eat chaku wasa:. Newa vaidya have always disagreed — children, adults, the elderly, anyone prone to seasonal illness can take it in moderation. Energy and warmth in a spoon.
Chaku is folded with milk, ghee and the full ingredient list into a sija foasi: — a traditional Newa copper vessel — and cooked, slowly, for five hours. Right balance of taste and thickness; right consistency of fudge. "Not easy," says Shova. "It requires experience."
Sugarcane chaku is broken down with milk and ghee — the medium that will carry the herbs.
The mixture is moved to a sija foasi:, the traditional Newa copper vessel that gives the recipe its name and its character.
Five hours over a low flame, stirred patiently until a fudge-like consistency settles in.
More than thirty-two Ayurvedic herbs are folded in — a recipe carried mother to daughter, weighed only by hand and memory.
Most popular
A six-week supply for one adult on the daily ritual; a forty-day course for a new mother. Eco-friendly matte pouch jar.
Every batch is cooked in Bhaktapur by Shova Laxmi Gosai, from the recipe her mother and grandmother taught her. The jar is the only thing that changes — three sizes, the same hand, the same five-hour sija foasi:.
When Urmila KC of Dallu had her first child, her grandmother prepared chaku wasa: and fed it to her — and she credits it with much of her recovery. By her second child, her grandmother had passed and no one in the family knew the recipe. The story is common; it is also why we exist.
A note on misconception — chaku wasa: is not only for new mothers. Newa vaidya from Itumbaha to Bhaktapur agree: children, adults and the elderly all benefit from it, in moderation.
The crimson band hemmed in fine gold — drawn from the haaku patasi, the black-and-red sari worn by Newari women — runs through weddings, the guthi rituals, and the kitchen cloths of every grandmother who has ever cooked chaku wasa: on her stove.
Shova Laxmi Gosai learned the recipe from her mother and grandmother in Bhaktapur. Over a roaring traditional copper cauldron, she boils, stirs and pulls the molasses by hand — the same way it has been made for generations. Our packaging changes. Her hands do not.
"My grandmother makes the same recipe — exactly the same. Finally something to send abroad."
