tryska

hmm..i think i've just found a good place to start my research. The Great Silk Road

i think you may be on to something, because i've thought the same thing. but god...pierce your face or something...don't offend others just because your trying to make a point to mom and dad.

question? what exactly is the texture of prosciutto? i had a baguette today with prosciutto, apricot preserves, sweet butter and parmesan cheese, with a roast fingerling and green bean salad in lemon vinaigrette, iced mango tea and half a smore. but the prosciutto was not like prosciutto i've had int he past and was pretty much the texture of raw bacon, minus the flavor. am i just hopelessly uncultured?

hmmm..ijackal is this the book where the researcher was looking at various different tribes in different countries and their eating habits before he narrowed it down? i remember some theory on the Lost Tribe of Israel, and the researcher looked at the Pathans, and also a tribe in South India based on the fish they chose to eat, and finally settled on a tribe in Africa itself. I believe there was trade between Africa and Indian, i mean after all there is only a sea between the two land masses, if i recall correctly the last National Geographic i rea don the Human Genome project genetically tied certain tribes in South India to those on the coast of Africa and the Maldives. I wonder if samosas then have far more ancient roots then anyone has thought to consider.

yeah the skin has always been key to my chai experiences from childhood on. When my mom made it it would be for 4 or 5 servings at a time, and since i've grown up cooking for 5 i have difficulty scaling back! *lol*

hmm my chai recipe - loose tea in water with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, pepper, anise, and clove. bring to a boil, add half n half and sugar, bring to another boil until it's a medium brown, and to the point where if it cooled there would be a skin, and then strain. love it. and am amused that it has been the latest hip thing, after nose piercings and mehndi.

interesting threads - i like the breakdown in the first one on the different Indian samosas. I think my real question (being a former anthropology major) is the ethno-historical angle. I just read somewhere else that Sephardic Jews also have a samosa analog. Why along the middle east, northern africa, and asia do we all have this same similar food? I can see the Spice route as one possible reason, but that doesn't necessarily account for Ethiopia and Eritrea (or does it?) and then how do Sephardic Jews come into the mix? or it could be the Mughal empire.....or perhaps it was the Mongols, and it came the other way? either way this is an intirquing ball of string for me to play with.

can anyone shed some light on the connecting line between the spiced meat or potato filled pastry triangles that seem to be universal to asia and africa? i started wondering after speaking with an Ethiopian aquaintance who was thrilled when i had made samosas for a potluck once and said they have the same thing back home called sambusas. and then another coworker from Hong Kong said he used to get these in stalls all the time back home and they were called curry puffs. the closest i came was an excerpt from tandoorimagazine.com that goes like this: "Writer K.T. Achaya, in his highly informative book A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, defines the samosa as "a deep-fried snack, consisting of a crisp, triangular and layery wheat casing filled with spiced meat or vegetables". Interestingly, throughout the centuries, there have been various names accorded to this snack food with its origins said to go back to the rule of the Moghul dynasty in India. Even more fascinating is the universality of the samosa-like food both in Asia and the Middle East, where a similar looking snack is called ‘sanbusak’. In Turkey it is called ‘samsa’, in Afghanistan ‘sambosa’ and in parts of Iran as ‘sambusas’. Of course, that doesn’t include the definitions of ‘patties’ and ‘curry puffs’ in Sri Lanka and Malaysia respectively!" does anyone have any less vague information on this intriguing universality? and ehtiopian injera bread - i don't remember having eaten it, but is it similar to dosas? the grains are different, but the method seems the same.

*lmao* at this! i know so many people like this....that come from good homes too. it's so puzzling to me.

today was ghetto hot wings and fries.

yum...i must find some sambal around here and try it!

dark n stormy's and mojitos make me happy.

yay a site to keep me occupied for a little while. silly question? what is sambal? i keep reading it and thinking "sambar" in the Indian lexicon.

tomatoes are very poisonous, i heard.

erm..i don't know fi you were referring to me - but my friend didn't take advantage of anyone. he jsut swallowed a little glass and went calmly to the emrgency room.

oh god - amen sister! and that doesn't have to be in a restaurant - i want to throttle my roommate everytime i here she eats. and my nerves fray even more when it's something like ohhh..chips and salsa. i've almost cured her of talkign with her mouthful. i find it hard to imagine she was raised by wolves, but she does hold her spoon like a truckdriver, so maybe she was. *shrugs*

what about diaspora cooking? jamaica is an example, guyana and trinidad too - indian and african roots, new world ingredients - any of the formerly Portuguese held countries have a portuguese stamp on their food, certain types of Mexican food have spanish roots.. Actually i'm of the opinion that most food of the new world is fusion cooking at it's best, but i'm not exactly sure this is the answer you were looking for.

cabbageless slaw? today i had barbecue! from Daddy Dz. It was some ribs in their sweet, tangy, spicy sauce, and some yummy baked beans, with bread and sweet tea. just might be my best bbq in Atlanta to date.

the 80s.

this sounds really yummy.

are you from upstate new york originally by any chance? and what about warm german potato salad, with yummy bits of pork in it, among other things?

beef patty, coco bread and ting.

yes, but as amitav ghosh describes in "shadow lines" (when ila takes the narrator and robi to dinner at a "indian" restaurant run by sylheti east pakistanis in london) the food that sprang up in indian restaurants in england wasn't really anything like what the british colonials might have experienced back in india. this is true. i think this is where curry powder and apples came from. *shudder* but my point was that this is how brits got "acclimated" for lack of a better word to indian food.

I agree it definitely has to do with how quickly the cuisine is adopted. And also I think a lot of the wide spread of Indian food in the UK had to do with British Colonials coming back home and wanting the food they had when stationed in India - prior to mass immigration to the UK from India and Pakistan.

most irritating thing ever - dining with a coworker at a Mexican restaurant: "i'd like the tacos with ground beef - but could you make sure there are no onions and no spices in the meat? i don't like spicy food."