v. gautam

If i might suggest a tiny modification: boiled potato [ you can try several types, red, Yukon gold, fingerling, ratter, russet, skin on/off to suit your taste, steamed, boiled whole-then drained-placed whole back on fire for a it to cook/steam etc] toss the slices or rough broken chunks with the chaat masala and black/pink salt [rock salt], chopped red onion, and/or cilantro , chickpeas first. Seasoned potatoes seem to taste better? Lightly sprouted mung beans, just showing tips of roots, cooked. Chutneys, beaten yogurt. Proceed according to Percy's directions with generous helping of SEV. Ce'nedra, why wait for restaurants and waste $5/6???? You can make several helpings for that amount! Plus your time and hassle (or fun!), of course. Are you anywhere near Berkeley, CA? Vik's Chaat Corner is famous. In NYC, Sukhadia's and Dimple Chaat. g BTW, Ce'nedra be careful when you speak of "Indian" restaurants: these chaats,like dim sum, have regional identities and are best eaten when prepared by those hailing from the same places the chaat originated. Many "Indian" restaurants are run by Bangladeshis, others by Pakistanis . The former are geniuses of the fabulous, i.e. in their own inventive imaginations that bear little resemblance to any traditional styles of cooking from India. The latter may do a few chaat items well [e.g aloo tikki] but not all [esp. dahi poori, papdi, bhel, etc.]. Many Chaats are regional specialties of the North and the West, with subregional specialties like Bhelpuri and Dahi puri being best prepared by those restaurants whose owners AND cooks come from MUMBAI and GUJARAT. [by way of comparison, have you seen Korean owners of Japanese restaurants turn out first rate Japanese food, sushi etc.? Same issues here.] Papdi ka chaat, samosa ka chaat, aloo tikki are essentially Uttar Pradesh/Hindu vegetarian in origin from whence they spread to Punjab and Pakistan. For example, just as roast pork buns vary latitudinally across China, so do the round airy puffs in the North: Pani Puri Mumbai: puffs with boiled split mung beans, tamarind water, mint/green Gol Gappa puffs Delhi, Punjab 1.phoochka puffs with spiced mashed potato filling, only spicy tamarind water 2. aloo kabuli ....Kolkata, Bengal, redaction of N. Indian ideas 3. churmuri: potato slices dressed in sour, hot tamarind sauce, sliced onion, crushed puffs, i.e. (semi1+ 2)

Namaste, Waaza, As you may have noted in the discussion upthread, the dahi puris apparently are constructed from a base of pani puri/ gol gappa puffs [see Percy's post, #3 for a lavish version hidden under sev, no features distinguishable!; and Ce'nedra's post, first picture, anatomy open to investigation!]. The 'crisp wafers' in question are a second type of chaat, not too dissimilar other than in its base, from the dahi puri. They are round flat, (not fluffy gol gappa puffs) dough crisps cut and fried from sheets of short flour dough, variously flavored with carom etc, called "papdi". Treated in the usual style, and I believe, visible, (but not to my poor sight) in the second of Ce'nedra's photos. Hope that clairfies, not confuses, what you were getting at? So gol gappa puffs go into making dahi puris, papdis into papdi ka chaat. g

I would be most grateful if anyone could point me towards the archaeological/ethnological studies about the earliest evidence of sweet potato cultivation in Japan. Searched in the various Japan/ethnography/national museum categories but ultimately was unsuccessful for this particular subject. Migrations from Indonesian/New Guinea archipelago to South Japan pre-dating European contacts: one intriguing source of pre-Columbian sweet potato??? Any other parallel Melanesian+Polynesian contacts??? Are there genetic studies on the Japanese sweet potato germplasm compared to the South American, the center of origin? I do know that the CGIAR Institute, CIP, Lima, Peru, is woefully underfunded . Therefore, this nodal institution is unable to respond to such key issues. From what I have been able to glean, Ipomea batatas is native to South America and domesticated there. There may be some few wild relatives in South east Asia. Perhaps Helen-san's botanist students may be able to clarify this issue? The earliest verified evidence for sweet potato outside it South American origin comes from the Marquesas islands in 300 C.E. The "Polynesians" are believed to have originated somewhere near Taiwan, not too far from Japan. Their movements across the Pacific are interesting because two very important food plants seem to have been carried in a counter-current fashion: Colocasia/taro from the Indian coast across the Pacific, and the sweet potato the reverse way. I include beloww some notes that may be of interest. Thanking you, Gautam. "It’s also possible that the sweet potato reached Polynesia without human influence. The plant lacks uniform or distinct forms characteristic of other human introductions and some researchers have noted that, because the Ipomoea species are strand plants, they could be distributed by sea. Sweet potato capsules float in water and the seeds, which have an almost impervious outer covering, eventually germinate after emersion in sea water. Carbonized sweet potato found in the Cook Islands has been radiocarbon dated to around 1000 CE, so at the very least it’s arrival preceded this date. One of the world’s foremost authorities on the sweet potato in Oceania (Douglas Yen) notes that the area covered by the Marquesas to the Society Islands constitutes the most likely gateway to Polynesia for the sweet potato and that there may have been as many as three different introductions of the plant. He goes on to speculate that possible contact between the Marquesas and Easter Island implies that the sweet potato must have been introduced at or earlier than the 9th century CE. The equivalent time-frame for introduction of the sweet potato to the Marquesas is 300-600 CE," Clarke, William C. The Sweet Potato in Oceania: A Reappraisal (review) The Contemporary Pacific - Volume 19, Number 1, Spring 2007, pp. 318-322 Introduction of Taro into the Pacific: The Indications of the Chromosome Numbers Douglas E. Yen, Jocelyn M. Wheeler Ethnology, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Jul., 1968), pp. 259-267 doi:10.2307/3772891 This article consists of 9 page(s). Yen, Douglas The Sweet Potato and Oceania - Bishop Museum Bulletin 236, 1974

Photo. #1 (on top) by Sir Percy's Mumbaikar canon seems to be the the exact dahi puri described by him upthread. We await his 'recipe'! The second photograph could be papdi ka chaat; my eyesight is poor, i distinguish mint leaves, green chutney, but cannot quite see the whole wafers or their outlines, are their potatoes there(bottom left hand corner)? [should not be there in a papdi chaat] Whatever, it is important that it made you happy! And it can be replicated easily and cheaply at home from off-the-shelf goodies with no fuss at all in seconds. Plus, the chutneys etc. once opened stay in the fridge for a long time unspoiled, lending themselves to other types to other types of chaat like bhelpuri, samosa, aloo kabuli, churmuri, etc. The other nice thing with Greek yogurt in the US is that it comes in several fat contents from 0-12% but each having an almost equally "creamy" mouthfeel when beaten. Finally, the unbeatable convenience [and healthy attributes] of canned chickpeas, as well as the increasing availability of SEV in supermarkets and via mailorder. gautam P.S. Thanks to the inimitable master (mistress), Gingerly, see her fantastic chaat recipe link upthread (lots of recipes ), post #8, from which I extracted this very useful baked dish that can be used as an (potato/chickpea) aloo-tikki chaat base, no frying involved: http://www.tarladalal.com/ViewContributedR...p?recipeid=2353

Percy, How would you construct your favorite dahi puri? Thanks. gautam P.S. BTW, Ce'nedra, packaged pani puri puffs are available and may be refreshed in the oven for a passable home-made fix. Now, follow Percy's directions!!

Ce'nedra, Strongly suggest you check out this video: http://www.thaifoodtonight.com/thaifoodton...TUBEPadThai.htm Excellent depiction of preparing the pad thai sauce with tamarind, as well as making the dish itself. Plus, a great series of visual how-to-s for a small number of Thai dishes. Do let us know if you you found these helpful. gautam

Ce'nedra, I don't know if by dahi poori you are referring to the concoction that also goes by the name Papdi ka chaat : crisp flour wafers, w/, w/o garbanzo beans, thich beaten yoghurt, tamarind sauce? While the papdi-s in question do have carom seeds etc. incorporated in their dough and have a short crust and may be slightly thicker etc.,a serviceable homemade 'fix' [quicker, cheaper!] may be made from good quality wheat flour tortillas, cut up and deep fried. [Perhaps you could also try brushing these with oil and baking them to crispness, having placed them on wire racks; I have not.] You have canned chickpeas (drained), tamarind and green chutneys pre-made plus MDH brand chunky chaat masala on many supermarket shelves these days. Chopped red onions, and thick creamy yoghurt (beaten), Greek style, of fat level from 0-12 % appropriate for your diet and lifestyle: adjust seasonings with a bit of lime juice and green/red fresh Thai chillies, salt, if need be, and you are in business! You may even wish to sprinkle the finished plate with SEV, the thin strings of fried chickpea flour (found packaged in Indian groceries or through mail order), or with BOONDI-s, tiny round balls of same, for added crunch. This is not necessary, and may be heterodox, for this chaat! Similarly non-traditional but lovely: sprinkle a few fresh pomegranate vesicles over, for a special visual and taste treat. gautam

Thank you so much Kristin. Now the mystery is solved: clam --> scallop; I can see where my memory played a trick, retaining a semblance of the original name and interposing its own visual interpretation after all these years in an attempt to describe the 'ridges' of the 'shell' ! gautam

Thank you very much. You are both right. Many lashes with udon to my idiot self for confusing the issue by interposing scrambled egg and scallop shell, sumi masen. Kristin has the photograph that refreshed my memory and corrected my errors; and, yes, the marks were made with metal skewers. Thank you so very much all, and a special thanks to the ever gracious Hiroyuki-san for devoting time, not that Kristin-san and Helen-san also have not, not at all my implication!!!! I would suppose googling the correct name would offer sufficient recipes? What a delightful visual conceit this dish offers. I so love the lines of Japanese aesthetics, and wonder if there are English language works explaining to neophytes something about the same? I look in amazement and delight at the thick coils of straw ropes that are decoratively strung on various structures; these are different "lines" than those expressed in the 'rough' tea pottery that again differ from those underlying bamboo plates/server. But throughout, there is some unifying sensibility, some commonality that speaks of its unique Japanese nature. It is strange and wonderful that cultures have developed (each their unique) this underlying idiom of subform, or line, that runs like a measure or ideation of proportionality [called tala in Indian aesthetics, and used in many different senses] throughout their visual arts, be it food art, scultpure, painting, woodwork, any mimetic craft at all. gautam

Dear Hiroyuki-san, Thank you so very much for taking so much trouble over this request. I feel quite ashamed for having eaten into your precious time! Sadly, I cannot supply a photograph because the one I saw was in an English-language book of Japanese cooking in a used bookshop. When I returned to buy, it was gone; thus, my uncertain bibliographic memory. However, the striking photograph therein and description remains fresh, and hopefully, accurate [but one never knows, does one?] I hesitatingly put the query before this group with far-reaching expertise in the faint hope it might ring a bell somewhere. That still might happen. Again, thank you so very much for your kind efforts. gautam

What Katie said: PB and dark chocolate, chips even; speaking of which, potato chips (no salt), w/ or w/o the choc. [and no, i am certifiably sane] All this talk of scaring people! gautam P.S. PB flavored bread (i.e. dough flavored with PB) and chocolate(filling, slices) sandwich also a very temperate and excellent thing. P.P.S. 1) Hot, Spiced Plantain chips (if they are of good quality) available at some Indian grocers. 2) South Indian spicy legume/coconut "chutney powders" called chutney podi-s ; and, 3) Plantain Chips, lightly sweetened, flavored with cardamom, fantastically better tasting than ithis yucky description of mine. For 2 & 3 ideas [no sales] contact eGulleteer Peppertrail, Ammini Ramachandran; her NYT reviewed book 'Grains, Greens and Grated Coconuts' also has these recipes, in case you want to DIY. Podi-s also in "Dakshin" by Chandra Padmanabhan. 4. Fried eggplant slices, if you like eggplant. Asian eggplants especially good. Also rollatinis. Indians stuff tiny eggplants with PB, then fry-braise them very simply, sometimes with a sprinkling of coconut. You can see how this reverse PB filling can become a great sandwich with whole wheat bread. You can try this with sweet Italian frying peppers as well.

I wonder if someone would be able to identify this preparation and provide a an English language cookbook reference/recipe? An egg preparation where the eggs, scrambled(?) are placed in shapes like scallops, and with some device, charred dark streaks (?) are made on them to further create the impression of the ridges of a scallop shell. Perhaps the dark streaks are made by some tare sauce, but the effect is to produce a facsimile of several scallop shells arranged on a plate. Many thanks. gautam

Sony, The reason I stopped precooking the mix as in traditional Chinese style was that I worked as a cook in a Lao-Thai restaurant where their fried spring rolls were pretty close to what i described, with the addition of fish sauce. Lots and lots of bean thread though, understandable from the economics of that small business; but these rolls were and are extremely popular; and not even so many ingredients, just cabbage, carrots, bean threads! Also, just my feeling, precooking and discarding the "juice" seems to remove at least some of the nutrients that came from the vegetables, leaving more of a textural delight behind and less of a nutritional one?? Anyway, glad your inventive "juices" [!!] were sufficiently evoked !! You could also consider adding some soaked, chopped mu-erh, wood-ear fungus, for their texture/crunch next time, sometimes vary with bamboo shoots? gautam

Here is one that will horrify the experienced and traditionally-trained members but was born on a closet-emptying day! Not going to give exact quantities, use your own tastes and judgment! Spring roll skins, large size Big mixing bowl bean threads, 1-2 of the little skeins, soaked, snipped to manageable length grated carrot grated zucchini [i like it, you may omit] Napa cabbage leaves, if you want or have sliced, or thinly shredded scallions, use a light hand [save roots, if any, to make scallion oil] dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked, squeezed and julienned [save water for soup] "baked" tofu, [tofu-kan?] brown cakes, julienned, your choice several flavored seitan slices marketed now, including with shiitake, your choice But keep the veggies and bean thread high in proportion to the goodies-- the bean thread will absorb all the released water--- just a thought. fried gluten in a small green can, in a sweet oily liquid, I like it, you may not! I hred the gluten, and mix the liquid with vegetarian oyster sauce. This becomes the seasoning, with some white or black pepper, whatever you choose. Or you may save the liquid for a fried rice and use just the oyster sauce or just Aminos. Use soy, wine - I don't know, the experts here will guide you better. The above is what ignorant me does! Mix all nicely with hands and let sit a bit. Roll according to the method. You can fry. You may also choose to microwave under a cover. You get a cross between a wonton and a Vietnamese fresh roll, but nice with Sriracha, or vinegar/soy, very few fat calories. g

Mbjesq, mcdowell, mb, Re: your observation that the truly great or best Indian food is to be had on the street from street vendors is true in some cases for some snack-type foods in some cities. If you just extend your definition a bit, the shops abutting the street and open to it, yet offering some place to sit, sometimes are the "stars". And, as Mcdowell discovered, the UNPRETENTIOUS restaurants frequented by Indians, AND that also have built up a solid reputation, however dodgy they might look from the outside, actually serve the absolute best food. We have in Episure, a moderator of this forum, one of the true experts in India for all of the above and he will not thank me at all for revealing this. But there is no diplomatic way of saying that someone is very knowledgeable in this area, but should also be helped by as many others as possible to accomplish a task, not being omniscient! However, seeing how much genuine joy Mcdowell got from his foray into the wilds of old Delhi, and several members of eGullet similarly have had immensely rewarding vacations in India thanks to an informal network of friends, it may be useful if such genuine authorities as he is, would, when they find some time from their own very demanding schedules, initiate a PINNED thingie that could be built up purely at their convenience. There are several knowledgeable members here who could contribute their expertise (including those eGulleteers who now have gained some experience of India themselves) for the major cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc. Over time, a database would become available to eGulleteers, and friends like Mcdowell would never have to eat boring hotel meals in New Delhi. This would be a service to Indian tourism as well, and help in an indirect way those one-legged orphans and the ones forgotten by all. gautam

To Susan in Florida: If you are still reading this thread and still interested in experimenting with tomatoes as perennials, a few more ideas: Upthread, spoke about the smaller size of cherry, Mexican Midget, that already has naturalized in the South. Sungold and Sunsugar certainly are worth a try. Moving up to larger-sized cherries [may also be used as slicing tomatoes if you are mentally adaptable] Large Red Cherry [Tomato Growers Supply, TGS, others] Royal Red Cherry [Victory Seeds, V] Russian Red, bred in New Zealand! an upright hardy sort [V] Tommy Toe, Austr. [TGS] For larger, slicing tomatoes, these would be my initial choices to experiment with; the first 3 have proven themselves under Southern conditions for decades. Good taste, too. Traveler 76, an improved type of the famous Traveler (NOT Arkansas Traveler) released by U. Arkansas [V] Pinkshipper (sic), USDA [V] Louisiana Gulf State [V] Nepal [V, TGS] Climbing Tripl-Crop [TGS]: have a personal blind spot for this one; 15 feet vines can be trailed along fence, shifted east aspect summer, south winter. Large meaty, pectin-rich tomato, mild flavor. May be disease prone in wet weather, but have never tried it under tropical conditions! gautam

To Susan in Florida, If you are looking for a tomato that will be a permanent fixture, you should know that there is a class of tomatoes that have naturalized in the South and especially in the Florida wetlands. Some people even try to sell some special form or the other with extravagant claims. However, all are some variants of the type represented by the cultivar Mexico Midget. The plant is no midget, but not especially unruly like some of the currant tomatoes that are actually of the species L. pimpinnifolium. I can send you a few fresh seeds, about 5, of MM, as a start. [more if my harvests are good]. Nice and tasty, fuss free. You can also join Tomatoville a website for tomato lovers, and get the dehybridized Sungold or Sunsugar, the open-pollinated Thai Pink etc. All these are of the type cerasiformae, i.e. cherry tomatoes. Some cherry tomatoes can get quite large as in Large Red Cherry or in Camp Joy, the latter well worth experimenting with. If you could indicate what role you would like these tomatoes of yours to fill, that would help with further choices. Larger beefsteak types might be more difficult, but not necessarily an insurmountable problem. Tomato Growers Supply in Florida is a reliable source of true-to-name seed. Sadistick, There is a gentleman named Tom Wagner who is the premier breeder and expert on green-fleshed tomatoes in this country if not the world. You can send him a question at the website mentioned above. gautam

Rashid, It also matters what your ehtnic background is, i.e. what were the foods you were raised on or are apt especially to crave. An Indian definitely would lug along along a 6 quart pressure cooker and a chapati rolling pin. With the cooker, a really wide variety of whole and split legumes can be cooked in exciting ways, with and without vegetables and meat. As there is a South African Connection there will be an Indian tradesperson somewhere not toofar. The cooker is an excellent device, at least to Indians who are very comfortable with it, as a one pot element to cook excellent braises and curries from the fowl, goat and beef you will find. Stews and immensely satisfying soups and broths can be prepared very quickly and easily. Tough, gelatinous, bony cuts will yield super results. ALL this, ultimately, depends on personal preferences and comfort levels with food choices and equipment. If cooking over wood or dried dung, cover the bottom of the cooker with a slip of liquid clay after yo wash it out. Let dry. Then the soot will stay on the clay which will wash off easily. Wood and dried cowdung fires impart excellent flavors to food. Cattle there consume fodder higly enriched in lignins and fiber, unlike the sharp ammoniacal smell of US cattle fed absurd, non-ruminant diets. Observe the fresh dung and you will see healthy peristaltic waves of a healthy, functioning rumen reflected in the coils of the cowdung. When burnt, there is a pungent, sweetish aroma, and wheat bread can be roasted right on the embers with excellent results. Try roasting tomatoes on such embers and making salsa, after peeling the skin, and see for yourself. Try to see the world there through your students eyes, as someone has said. They are just as wonderful humans as people from NYC, with their own sophistication to offer, perhaps in different ways!!!

Viva, Not that it matters, and I am certainly not one to discriminate against a tomato for being an F1 hybrid [see my posts upthread]. Early Girl is an F1Hybrid and one heck of a performer under so many climates and such trying conditions over so many years. g

I would like to comment on Steve's observation about mediocrity that might be creeping in because "even reputable growers are selling .....earlier and later [in the season." I understand what he intends to say but wish to point out some very significant exceptions: HOOP HOUSES, LOW & HIGH TUNNELS. At the Cornell conferences on organic agriculture and protected agriculture, one gets the chance to meet upstate vegetable growers, certified organic, who grow a range of produce employing various types of plastic shelters to extend the growing season. Re: tomatoes, I had the pleasure of meeting one such team, that also cooperates with Cornell on varietal trials of heirloom tomatoes under hoophouse conditions. They are Honey Hill Farm at Livonia, NY, and they sell at Rochester; honeyhillfarm@frontier.net. Needless to add that my contact with them is purely non-commercial. The seedlings are started out in the hoophouse quite early, April if possible. As the season advances, the plastic sides are furled up to let light and air bathe the plants. The very top of the plastic hoophouse keeps some of the rain out, allowing what is termed Controlled Deficit Irrigation, to regulate exuberant vegetative growth and ensure high sugar fruit on the trellised plants. All of this makes for a superb high-solids high flavor tomato ripe by June, well before it would ripen in the field from a planting out date in late May. Moreover, for indeterminate varieties, those that will keep on flowering and fruiting for months, a hoophouse allows the sides to be unfurled back down as the weather turns chill, extending the growing season appreciably into the fall. Most of the excellent US heirlooms, Brandywine Sudduth strain, Marianna's Peace, Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red, Neves Azorean Red, Aunt Gertie's Gold etc. all are both indeterminate, and late-mid-season in ripening, 85-90 days under upstate night conditions i.e. the very end of summer. So the use of hoophouses to extend the growing seasons is both clever and legitimate. Other than such methods [protected cultivation], that actually improve fruit quality, there is no way to bring fruit to market "earlier and later" to paraphrase Steve, at least not locally grown fruit. As I understand it, GM does not allow non-local produce to sold, i.e. that from warmer climes. gautam

Steve, Just getting away from the "heirloom" part for a moment and focussing on "very tasty tomatoes", let's consider one example from Japan. A section in Japan prizes high Brix/sweetness, and two very popular cultivars, both F1 hybrids, [open pollinated are hybrids too but in a different sense!] Momotaro and its red conterpart, Odoriko reign. These are sold at varying prices that reflect their Brix levels that are posted on the fruit. The very highest, I believe 9-10, are sold at the usual unbelievable prices, reflecting the effort required to reach those [above normal] levels. Normally, the large beefsteak type grown in our garden conditions average no more than 4-5% sugar. Cherry and currant tomatoes can reach 9%, the wild green species to 15% [see R. Chetelat 1998] However, under excellent culture, including inducing physiological drought [also employed in Israel by irrigation with brackish watering close to ripening; see Susan's post] large-fruited tomatoes can be grown to have excellent taste. Some of these methods, as in viticulture for high quality wine, reduce yield. Organic gardeners who take a great deal of trouble with their soil etc. induce growth effects about which we are just beginning to understand, including far larger uptake of organic species of nitrogen by the plant than previously suspected [and I mean nitrogen for direct nutritive cycles, not just for polyamine pathways]. As you may imagine, none of this is conducive to superlative yields, hence tidy profits. When the latter become the driving force, fresh weight of fruit per unit area cultivated becomes the main concern, not the Dry mass per unit area. The latter would be more likely to correspond to high flavor and good taste. In addition to so-called 'heirlooms', certain hybrids and Open Pollinated varieties are well worth tying to growyourself or askingyour farmer for a taste: Big Beef F1 Momotaro & Odoriko, F1 Franchi Sementi Large Red Italian Pear, and Tomande, its F1 counterpart Some great Canadian varieties [all available from Upper Canada Seeds, no connection of course, postpaid to US] short, not unruly like US heirlooms Harbinger Moira Montreal Tasty Bush Beefsteak [yes, Canadian bred] Belmonte some great French varieties Happy Gardening and Tomato addiction. g

Daniel, Do you remember an incident quite a few years ago when a rabbi [certainly Orthodox and perhaps even Haredim] was found at a strip club, and he replied that he had gone there to make sure that none of his students were present!! gautam

From someone who knows and loves Goa: http://thecookscottage.typepad.com/curry/h...hell/index.html http://thecookscottage.typepad.com/curry/2...bbro_curry.html Tessa Menezes' "The Essential Goa Cookbook ". http://thecookscottage.typepad.com/curry/2...prawn_curr.html http://thecookscottage.typepad.com/curry/2...to_bogmalo.html

Prosopis cineraria, the khejri of Rajasthan, is another leguminous tree that yields significant amounts of edible gum. Important in the 'desert districts' of Marwar, i.e. Churu, Pali and Sikar, one cannot say if quantities are exported, as is the case with gum arabic. g

In the days Yale dining halls cooked their own food [ a year or so ago I returned hoping to taste some old favorites and received a nasty shock: food service handed over to a contractor, gone are some of the endearing and absurd items and traditions, e.g. the frenched green beans and pimentos on the steam tables? I accidentally discovered their inimitable flavor when I recovered an ancient packet lost in the freezer for more than a year: Great Age! Anyhow, returning to the topic of egg salad, in my opinion, Yale served some of the best, on the hard rolls that are so characteristic of New Haven but difficult to find as well made elsewhere. Almost directly across Phelps Gate, across the Green and Church Street, in a Municipal building, I forget if it was the courthouse or some such, but entering from Church Street there was a tiny lunch counter tucked under a staircase, serving some of the finest egg salad, again on that hard roll, with or without seed. A few years later, after 1982, two lunch trucks began to appear, one outside the Yale Health Plan, the second just below Science Hill. Both served excellent egg salad, but the second one did something ambrosial to its offering. That truck seems to have disappeared, beset by a number of food vendors never before allowed on campus in the 70s and 80s. BTW, Yale's chicken salad and clam chowder in a marmite topped by a pastry crust were also fabulous. g P.S. With all these New Haven salads, they got the size of the egg particles 'right' for my taste, likewise that of wahtever else they were putting in, and also the temperature. That is not to say that each venue had the same type; not so. The particle sizes varied from more comminuted at one vendor to larger at another, celery in some, none in others, black pepper likewise, amount of mayo, even presence of sour cream [i suspect, in one]. Temperatures also varied, being much cooler from the lunch trucks. But whatever each was doing, clicked together at that place, bread, filling, temperature, lettuce [shredded, pieces etc.]. That they were distinctly not uniform but individually excellent added to the delight of seeking each out.