The story of Diaspora Spice Co., a spice company that partners directly with farmers in South Asia, begins with turmeric.
In 2016, Sana Javeri Kadri was a recent college graduate living in San Francisco, and kept seeing golden milk lattes on cafe menus around town. She had grown up drinking warm turmeric milk in Mumbai, and was struck by the fact that all of a sudden, her grandmother’s go-to anti-inflammatory drink was becoming a wellness trend in the U.S. (and “being sold for $8”). She grew curious about who was growing the turmeric to feed the burgeoning craze, and set out to tell the story of the South Asian turmeric farmers behind the golden milk.
“I think the world should know where their turmeric comes from,” Kadri tells Vogue, thinking back to her goal at the time.
This led her to the Indian Institute of Spices Research, where she met the scientist Dr. Prasath, who introduced her to an heirloom varietal of turmeric called Pragati Turmeric—and it was the best she had ever tasted. He connected her with the Kasaraneni family in Andhra Pradesh, one of the farms that grow the varietal, and she visited soon after. She returned home with a suitcase full of turmeric and a dream to bring this stunning spice variety to market. In 2017, she founded Diaspora Spice Co.
“The hope with Diaspora was: How could we build the most idealistic, equitable, joyous, extremely gay pocket of the world, where we could sling really beautiful, delicious spices?” says Kadri. “It started with one human, one farmer, one spice.” Nearly nine years later, they’ve grown significantly. “It’s now about 30 humans, 140 farmers, about 40 spices,” Kadri says.
The turmeric also played a role in bringing recipe developer Asha Loupy into the fold. She found Diaspora’s turmeric through her work as a specialty food grocery buyer, and was stunned.
“Turmeric, to me, didn’t really have that much flavor until I tasted this. It was citrusy and earthy and bright and vibrant and truly shocking,” Loupy says. She started cooking dishes with the turmeric, and tagging Diaspora and Kadri on Instagram. Kadri noticed. “Asha made these cumin lamb dumplings with a homemade turmeric wrapper, so it was like bright marigold yellow and perfect little pleats. And I was just like, who’s that? Everything she’s making, I wanna eat.”
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Loupy began working as a recipe developer for the brand in 2020, crafting “Indian-ish, Californian- inflected spice-forward recipes,” like strawberry cardamom crumble bars. In January 2021, the duo started working on the idea for their first cookbook. Now, that cookbook—The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook: Seasonal Home Cooking from South Asia's Best Spice Farms—is out in the world.
One of Kadri’s goals for the book was to platform the home recipes of Diaspora’s spice farmer partners. “The cultural thing that felt important, and to begin with, was: The spice trade has been in the hands of the colonizers for hundreds of years. And as a result, they have also been able to define the archive of the cuisine,” she says.
“I just feel like culturally here in the West, when people think about South Asian food, they think about butter chicken, about saag paneer, about naan, chicken tikka masala. I like all of those things, but it’s kind of like saying that American food is only a cheeseburger. It’s just not,” Kadri says. “And so I wanted to show the kinds of food that most of South Asia eats at home,” which, she added, is fresh, seasonal, and produce-forward.
The book features 85 family recipes and was made with home cooks of all levels in mind. More than recipes, Kadri and Loupy wanted to share the stories and traditions of the families who grow the spices at the heart of Diaspora Co. Below, they share a recipe in which the spice that started it all truly shines: turmeric-banana snacking cake.
Turmeric-Banana Snacking Cake
Recipe by Asha Loupy | Serves 8 to 10
This golden, spice-forward cake is an ode to Prabhu Kasaraneni, our Pragati Turmeric farmer, who inspired this entire business. In addition to turmeric, the family farm grows an indigenous variety of peanuts, coconut palms, and multiple banana varieties to provide supplementary income when the turmeric season is done. Inspired by a banana cake made by Prabhu’s mum, Siva Nagendramma Kasaraneni, Asha’s version adds orange zest and a toasty coconut-peanut topping.
- 2¼ cups (270 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1¼ teaspoons ground turmeric
- ¾ cup (144 g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (48 g) light or dark brown sugar
- Zest of 1 large orange
- 2 very ripe bananas, mashed well (about 1 cup/225 g)
- 2/3 cup (160 ml) neutral oil, such as canola
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) fresh orange juice (from the zested orange)
- ½ cup (120 g) full-fat sour cream
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2/3 cup (85 g) roasted, salted peanuts
- 1 cup (96 g) shaved, dried, unsweetened coconut strips
- 2 tablespoons demerara sugar
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment paper and set aside.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and turmeric in a bowl, mix well, and set aside.
- Place the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and orange zest in a large bowl and rub the zest into the sugar with your fingertips until it looks like wet sand, 1 to 3 minutes. Add the bananas, neutral oil, orange juice, sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and salt and whisk until smooth and most of the sugar has dissolved, 1 to 4 minutes. Add the dry ingredients and gently fold in until incorporated, being careful not to overmix.
- Scoop half of the batter into the prepared pan and spread into an even layer. Sprinkle with half of the peanuts, half of the coconut strips, and half of the demerara sugar, then dollop the remaining batter on top, gently spreading it into an even layer. Sprinkle the top with the remaining half of the peanuts, coconut, and demerara sugar. Bake until deeply golden on top and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the cake, 50 to 60 minutes.
- Cool for 1 hour in the pan. To remove from the pan, run a paring knife around the edge of the pan, place a plate over the top, and flip.
- Remove the parchment paper, place a serving plate on the bottom of the cake, and flip it to be right-side up. Serve slightly warm (it’ll still be warm after an hour) or at room temperature. Store any leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
- Recipe notes: If you are avoiding peanuts, you can swap in cashews, walnuts, pecans, or even almonds. To amp up the coconut taste, swap in melted virgin coconut oil for the neutral oil.
Excerpted from The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook: Seasonal Home Cooking from South Asia's Best Spice Farms © 2026 by Sana Javeri Kadri and Asha Loupy. Photography © 2026 by Melati Citrawireja. Reproduced by permission of Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
