Vikram Doctor writes about Garam Masala and it’s Ayurvedic significance:
The heat in its name refers to something quite different — the fact that these spices are considered ‘heating’, in the sense of raising body metabolism. This is the reason often given for garam masala’s use in the North, better at keeping people warm in winter, you are told, than chillies which make you perspire and further chill you.
This theory is ascribed to Ayurveda, and is taken as further proof of how much garam masala is part of Indian tradition. But Ayurveda is not the only theory of traditional medicine: there’s also Chinese yin/yang, and the theory of body humours propounded by Greco-Roman physicians like Galen and developed in both Europe and the Middle East (these theories may all have linkages, but they developed independently). [How Garam Masala symbolises India's culinary traditions]
