Yesterday in Sevilla, I saw Christopher ColumbusŽ purported tomb and learned that locally, ‘las Indias’ means the Indies, i.e. the Americas. Only ‘la India’ qualifies as the name of the country. ‘Indio’ means Native American, while ‘Hindú’ is the word for desi, even if you aren’t. That man was confused, confused, confused.
(I also learned that the cityŽs Plaza de España was used in Star Wars Episode 2, but that will excite only a few of you. A scary few to be sure 😉 )
Today I checked out La Alhambra, the Moorish fort built by Berbers from Morocco when they ruled AndalucÃa. It is a totally wild mashup of Spanish colonial and Islamic styles. Think Spanish tile roofs, square, unadorned towers and boring crenelations on the outside, arches, Arabic carvings and geometric patterns on the inside. Think Spanish coats of arms surrounded by verses praising Allah. Think Dehli’s Lal Qila meets Taco Bell. If I didnŽt know it was done that way on purpose, I’d think the Arabic brush strokes were steganography snuck in by marbleworkers held hostage.
Most major innovation happens at intersections. The 2nd gen process that some deride as ‘confusion’ is actually tremendous cultural innovation. And itŽs preciously short-lived, too– as the wheel of assimilation inexorably grinds away, this Cambrian Explosion too shall pass.
and,
Nothing is entirely original. The aesthetic I instinctively recognize as Indian is Mughal, i.e. Islamic by way of Turkish and Irani influence on Mongols from what is now Uzbekistan. The traditions saffronists claim are ‘native’ to India– those, too, came from some intersection, some borrowing, some adaptation somewhere.
P.S. Nobody looks at a brown man in Spain and guesses American– not even fellow Americans. I had the funniest conversation just now with a white woman who spoke fluent Spanish, and then all over again in Amrikan English. So the converse is true too, sometimes.
Related post: O Henry
Ahh.. visited the Alhambra in May this year… it was aweosme.. hopefully you’re enjoying Sevilla and saw some flamenco dances..it’s good to go to hole in the wall places.. they are less expensive, and cater less to the toursit folks…pick up some nice tiles too :)… oh yeah, manish, drink a glass of sangria for the bean, will ya? gracias…
Dude, Let me be the first to say it. Quit blogging on your vacation! 🙂 Over New Years my friends and I had the most random conversation about Seville. I don’t even know how it came up and most of it is too funny/crass to mention here and would ruin the angelic reputation I have created for myself on SM. The gist of it was that Seville has the highest concentration of beautiful women on Earth, bar none. Go out and play (preferably with some Princess Amidala-esque Star Wars fan on Plaza de España).
(Homer Simpson voice) mmm… blogging…
Uh… not in January 😉
I visited Alhambra in ’96. I have worked (interacted with) st University of Granada. In ’95, I was in Western Mediterranean for two months. Man, Southern Spain is heaven.
Listen to Abhi, forget blogging. Focus on women.
catch yourself a spanish fly 🙂 sample the local chica tapas 🙂
‘Leave the pun, take the ragazzi‘?
Don’t you mean Episode II Manish? Episode IV only shot in the US, Guatemala and Tunisia (I think).
The first thing I did when I got to Barca was visit the Nou Camp. Haven’t been to Seville, but Abhi if you’re right and the women are hotter than Barcelona it is most certainly worth a visit.
We gonna see some pics Manish?
Yes, Ep 2, thanks. All those tales are only valid over summer, I can assure you theyŽre not true of New YearŽs.
Yeah, photos when I return.
A timely post as I am currently re-reading The Confusion, the second installment of Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle trilogy. The first time around I read it as a pure science history and computing geek, salivating over repartees between late-17th-century natural philosophers and the birth pangs of the computer. Now, I approach the book from a James Burke-ian perspective in which war, financing wars and colonization and the resultant banking innovations paved the way for, or more importantly, forced discoveries in science. In fact, a lot of the civilizational steps forward, in this fictional account as well as in actual history, took place in quite a few of the places you have visited thus far.
No culture is an island. At some point, we are all touched by the hand of another way of life, willingly or not. Additionally, it is my staunch belief that we don’t give our ancestors credit for having travelled and intersected with other cultures as much as they probably did. Think of the sheer amount of time which they had to do that. For instance, look at the similarities between the ways of the Jewish and Hindu orthodoxy.
However, just because something happened at Point X does not imply that it was because it happened earlier at Point Y and was transferred/translated to X. This alternative viewpoint is suggested in The Lucifer Principle (which a friend refers to as “mental popcorn” … teehee); if you ignore the overall point about the nature of evil, the author seems to suggest that whether they have intersected or not, the similarities between two otherwise-disparate populations is because that is a common, human way forward.
Now I get back to work in my temporary windowless office and you go enjoy the Spanish sun. I sit in front of this thing because it’s my only light source!
seville is hot – literally and figuratively! Goto ‘La Carboneria’ if you want to hook up with locals while watching a flamenco performance. If you are in for a challenging hike and a very different cultural experince, Las Alpujarras isn’t too far. And Alhambra is lovely.
que linda! andalucia esta en mi corazon.
damn, your blog brought back memories for me! 🙂 it’s true, Seville is kind of a mish-mash of various influences from ties to the roman empire, islamic architecture to the modern continental european ones with a flare for clean classics. i was there in early fall in 2002 touring through the region. have you had a chance to visit cordoba or granada yet? (or for that matter….sintra in portugal?) the region is both a visual and gastronomic delight. the nightlife is pretty lively too. (if you have time & wouldn’t mind a suggestion — grab some Jerez & soak in the scenery around the Giralda during sunset. touristy, sure, but the view from there is absolutely lovely during dusk.)
anyway, hope your trip there is wonderful.
Dont forget the desi connection to the culture of Southern Spain – Spanish Gypsies are descended from Indian gypsies and flamenco has connections to Indian dance and their culture and language and superstitions have roots in Indian stuff!
I’ve been to Andalucia and can vouch for the architecture, the climate, the friendliness of the locals and the beauty of the women too.
I remember thinking Seville must be an amazing place to live — a modern European city but with a truly tropical climate — palm trees and greenery everywhere; quite a different experience to life here in London (although it’s great here during the summer). Manish, to back up what Tikki Mirchi just said, try to check out Cordoba and Grenada too — they’re obviously a little smaller than Seville but the experience is superb. And check out some “authentic” flamenco if you get a chance too (ie. just dancing with minimal acoustic accompaniment and “live” background singing), rather than the more large-scale and blatantly-commercial version some of the larger places put on for the benefit of tourists.
(By the way, in case anyone’s interested, I’m going to quietly drop the “Singh” from my handle here on SM. The name has quite sacred religious connotations for me and, as some of my posts fall somewhat short of what would be regarded as “saintly”, I feel it’s inappropriate for me to continue to use “Singh” as a) I don’t want to malign the religion by my actions, and b) I don’t want to hypocritically project myself as a very pious person — there are people far more worthy than me who genuinely deserve the honour of using the name. Hopefully everyone here on SM’s sufficiently familiar with me by now to be able to identify any future posts from me even if I just use the name “Jai”.)
Way to go, Jai. Join the crowd. Bravo!!!
Manish writes:
But also writes…
If everything truly comes from “somewhere” and nobody can lay claim to anything, then why classify certain things as “Mughal” or “Turkish” or “Irani”? Maybe the Turks borrowed it from Chinese. And maybe the Chinese borrowed it from Japanese. And maybe the Japanese borrowed it from Russians.
Maybe the MasalaDosa is not a south-indian dish after all, since it could have originated during the mercantile adventures of Cholas with the Indonesians. Maybe Idly was actually a Greek dish. And if someone claims Samosas as Indian dish, I say, put him/her in place. Is there any proof for that? Maybe Samosas originated in Ireland (before the potato famine). Prove that it ain’t so.
M. Nam
Kush, I’m still a Sikh, buddy 😉 My point was that I don’t want to accidentally project myself as someone who practices the stricter moral & religious tenets as much as a very committed and pious adherent would, beyond the context of my normal semi-Westernised daily life. Thanks for your enthusiastic response, anyway laughing
With regards to Manish not seeing any of Seville’s famed beauties…..Maybe they all ran away and hid when they saw him headed in their direction…..
* Waits for Manish to permanently ban him from SM *
“Maybe the MasalaDosa is not a south-indian dish after all, since it could have originated during the mercantile adventures of Cholas with the Indonesians. Maybe Idly was actually a Greek dish. And if someone claims Samosas as Indian dish, I say, put him/her in place. Is there any proof for that? Maybe Samosas originated in Ireland (before the potato famine). Prove that it ain’t so.”
(a quizzical “eh?!” and a)hmm…ever try malaysian or ethiopian food?
is the purist notion of origin more important than the blending of cultures to you? does it really even matter? change is an inevitable process in life and history. it’s cyclical, moreso now with the speed of globalisation. as long as there is an appreciation for it (the points of intersection, the beginnings of a revolution/change) then i’d guess humanity will prosperously progress. blasphemy, however, shall only lead one’s own deterioration.
Moornam: Your baseless meanderings masqueraded as intellectual thought of some kind is not fooling anybody here. Your inane obsession with everything Muslim has constricted and constipated your world view.
Perhaps the Moor in your name came from the Moorish … whatever …
Mughal, Islamic, Turkish, Irani have been referred to as such because they are cultures that have endured in time and place, and have been historically referred to as such. However, there is no harm in recognizing that such identity is not wholly pure, but relative. Note also that a lot of these strong cultural identities sprung up and stayed that way when most people of any given tribe didn’t travel out of their enclave very much. But, some did, thank goodness, and we got the cross-pollination.
As for idlis being Greek: No, no, my friend, you have it all wrong. I would rather have them Irish, which would explain the seemingly-odd juxtaposition of my usual food craving – idli/sambar with a pint of Guinness draught. Brown in skin, but completely green of heart.
I love this world!
tikki mirchi,
Not at all. I actually agree with Manish’s (and your) statement that cultures borrow and adapt from each other.
My only issue is that we Hindus don’t apply the same yardstick to everyone else. Don’t call TajMahal as Mughal or the Madurai temple as Dravida architecture. Who knows where the Mughals borrowed it from? Maybe from the Italians? Who knows where the Tamils borrowed it from? Maybe from the Indonesians?
I’m taking the argument to its logical conclusion: Why classify anything? Just appreciate it.
M. Nam
now that i think of it, blasphemy wasn’t the correct word to use. more like ‘if one insult others/show contempt/hides behind pretentious ignorance’it shall only lead to one’s own deterioration. karma is a bitch, for sure.
Desi writes:>>Your baseless meanderings …constricted and constipated your world view.
Happy new year to you too.
M. Nam
…but i do respect your point of view, moor nam. i just needed some clarification from you for what you were trying to express in your post.
…the Taj Mahal was build by a Moghul ruler. That’s why it is classified by historians as Moghul architecture.
celebrate being different. embrace it. but don’t wallow in it.
I’m taking the argument to its logical conclusion: Why classify anything? Just appreciate it.
everyday discourse is more than logic. the world is filled with continuities and gradations, but we need to use idealized types to communicate the gist of what we’re getting at. we can repackage everything into probabilitistic distributions, but not everyone has taken probability theory.
i think the thrust of manish’s point is that nationalists and myth makers of a particular sort seem to imbue their idealized types with a hard and rigorous reality which is contradicted by history and contemporary reality. in an indian context your contention that ‘secularists’ have double standards when it comes to various traditions (being more expansive when it comes to hinduism, but accepting the hard lines drawn by islam, for example) is probably somewhat right, but the big picture is that this is not emerging out of a vacuum, but the tendency for myth makers to impute to their legends a reality which isn’t warranted.
Wow. I logged back on to see that this comment thread moved from talk of beautiful women to Mughals and Irish samosas. Somedays I feel like all SM readers just need to take a shot of something hard before leaving comments. I know I certainly do before writing a post 🙂
Abhi, I have to believe that Irish samosas (and Irish idlis) involve shots of some kind.
Bailey’s or Jameson?
i wholeheartedly agree with you, Abhi. in fact, i might just make my happy hour round a bit earlier today….and give a silent toast of the finest Jerez sherry i can find to manish for evoking memories of sunny Seville.
hehe.. forget an early happy hour tikki.. how about starting the tailgate today for the rose bowl tomorrow… thats waht i’m talking about.. thinking about seville which brings up the roses in the garden of alhambra (which is my background on this computer)…and brings it to closure with the smell of a 3-pete ;)…gooooo trojans ;)!
Abhi writes:>>this comment thread moved from talk of beautiful women to ..Irish samosas
The difference being?!!
M. Nam
chick pea, chica — let the tailgaiting fiesta begin!(i’m partial to wine, opposed to beer, so…) as long as endless streams of sangria flow, roses intoxicate the air, music and partying….i am so there! ahhh…it truly DOES remind me of the nightlife in espana. 🙂
i’m already there… i also prefer wine to beer.. my friends are starting to tailgate at 8am tomorrow..i’ll be in pasadena around 1 after picking up a friend.. can’t wait.. just look for a brown gal with a red/gold fro and a steel trojan helmet, and you’ve found me… hehe.. yeah.. sevilla was amazing.. my friend and i just sat in a cafe and people watched this summmer.. their tinto de verano was amazing! cheers!
One of my fave things about the Alhambra: Generalife. I straight up thought it was sponsored by an insurance company or something. I mean, c’mon… “General Life.” Even with the Spanish pronunication, I’m a little suspicious.
There’s a chain of coffee shops in Sevilla called ‘las Indias.’ Also, see if you can check out flamenco at Casa de la Memoria de Al-Andalus.
Actually, I dont really blame colummbus for his confusion. The “west Indies” looks remarkably familiar to that of India, speaking landwise. Even the native americans or amerindians as they are call, sometimes look very similar from the description of marco polo. And let’s not forget the gold
Abhi. If you EVER need someone to surreptitiously steer a thread back towards the first topic without any of the SM staff looking like pervs, you know where to come.
I’m sure the only person here interested in this is DD, but after hearing Santa Esmerelda I thought I’d learn a bit of flamenco. The lessons were too pricey for me to continue, but what I learnt was cool stuff…and ruined my knees permanently.
Even the native americans or amerindians as they are call, sometimes look very similar from the description of marco polo.
marco polo described native americans? 🙂
No, I admit I should have worded that better. He gives descriptions of Orientals and Indians which native americans do look similar to, the forehead, eyes, and skin tone.
Wow Razib, maybe it’s all the baklava I’m eating, but after reading your comment I am finding you irresistible.
mmm baklava….
Deepa, maybe its all the sugar I am not eating, or my Bong genes, but after I learnt that your refrigerator is stocked with baklava, I am finding you irresistible.
Did anyone get to read this wonderful essay on the subject of cultural mixing? The case for contamination – from the NYT magazine.
Read and appreciate!
I’m leaving Mumbai and go off to Spain tomorrow (mainly Barcelona). Don’t think I’ll have time to make it to Granada or Sevilla on this trip 🙁 but still, looking forward to it!
related, but just barely, to the comment about christopher columbus but not much else; people should check out 1491 by Charles Mann where he talks about what the Americas was possibly like before and during European contact. its a very cool read. i’ve been wanting to tell people about it since i read it….so i took the first SM tangent (sorry!)
ps Jai re: your comment, i see what you’re saying in a way. I used Sahej so I stay calm, i use it bc i need it!
I saw a light in the sky over SM headquarters and knew I was being summoned to talk about dance (and futher misdirect a comments thread)…
Flamenco has landed many fine dancers in physical therapy and truncated several careers that I know of… shame, it’s quite gorgeous and complicated. Just all the bloody stomping is harsh on the joints
What kind of light is it DD? Batman has the bat sign, what do we have? What rises skyward to cast a shadow on the clouds that steal by under the cover of darkness?
Something like this. Only a lot more Latin and less Goth.
Potter? POTTER?! No chance! It has to be something more like this or this.
Yeah!
Don’t ask me why I put the Decepticons in, I just want that as my logo. Or the Thundercats sign.
Yea, but people looked at a brown girl in Spain and thought she was Spanish. It’s all a matter of what language you speak and how you speak about the rest of the world … or not.
Get thyself to Caraques, on the Northern border, home of Salvador Dali. Most beautiful place I’ve seen in the world.
What, like the Star of Bethleham ?
We all know about Abhi’s messianic aspirations but this may be taking things too far…..
On the other hand, maybe Manish’s friends had arrived so that they could take him back to the mothership…..Hmm, it would explain a lot 😉
Echoing SIG, when I traveled throughout Spain nobody viewed me as Indian — I magically blended in and it was great. People in Valencia were too drunk to notice or care, what with Las Fallas in full swing. Strolling down La Rambla in Barcelona, the only folks who identified me as Indian were the shopkeepers who were 2nd or 3rd generation desis in Spain — have you heard a desi speak English with a Spanish Catalan accent? And, crossing the street outside Museo de Prado a Spaniard woman asked me for directions… in Spanish. And this happened despite my American tourist signifiers: backpack, map of Madrid, and befuddled look. 🙂
http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/the_samosa_diaspora/ according to this the samosa originated in Persia http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/002008.html wow the samosa history is talked about in this sepia post and this same link is provided.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005 The Samosa Diaspora
The Samosa DiasporaIn honor of 92nd Street Y classes like the Curry Hill expedition of Mike ColamecoÂ’s Food Adventures (itÂ’s more than KalustyanÂ’s, people!) and MakorÂ’s 3-session Cooking With Indian Spices, we thought it might be time to pay tribute to the humble samosa.
The deep-fried, fist-sized triangular pastry is traditionally filled with either spicy potatoes or ground lamb and is India’s great contribution to the world of fast food. Traditional samosas come in all sorts of variations; in the Punjab they’re smaller and more akin to Western potato puffs, while in southern India wrappers are traditionally made from Lentil flour. There’s samosa chaat—where samosas are doused in chickpea curry or yogurts and chutneys to make for a quick, messy meal on the go—and regional variations like Bengali dessert samosas filled with rosewater or Myanmar’s samosas, which substitute wonton wrappers for the thicker shells used in India.
But the samosa is also the product of a thousand years of culinary heritage. Variants of this uniquely Indian food can be found everywhere from Cape Town to Singapore to Tashkent to Tel Aviv. A samosa/samoosa/samsa/sambusek/burek world tour (with recipes) after the jump.
Food historians have established, however, that the samosa originated not in India, but in Persia. The sanbusaj, originally a Persian term for any stuffed, savory pastry or dumpling, started showing up in Persian, Arab and Turkish literature starting in the 9th century, when poet Ishaq ibn Ibrahim-al-Mausili wrote verse praising sanbusaj.
The first mention of the proper samosa was in Amir Khusrao’s 13th century memoir of Delhi’s royal court, when he mentioned “samosa prepared from meat, ghee, onion and so on.” There was also the legendary explorer Ibn Battuta, who in India, wrote about the sambusak: “Minced meat cooked with almonds, pistachios, onions and spices placed inside a thin envelope of wheat and deep-fried in ghee.”
In neighboring Central Asian countries, the samosa mutated into two forms. The sambosa in Afghanistan is boiled instead of fried, while the samsa of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Xinjiang in China is a puffy bread stuffed with ground lamb, fried onions and spices. Here in New York, the samsa can be sampled cross-culturally at the Bukharan Jewish Uzbekistan Community Center in Rego Park and the Chinese Muslim Café Kashkar in Brighton Beach.
In Southeast Asia, the samosa evolved into the wonton-wrapped Burmese samosa and in an anglicized form as the Singaporean curry puff: same food, different name. At the same time, the curry puff caught on with Chinese immigrants to Singapore, who bought it back to their homeland. Now filled with the innovation of curried chicken or beef, curry puffs are a regular at Chinatown bakeries here in New York, though most bakers substitute a croissant-like pastry for the original deep-fried shell.
Indian immigrants to Africa brought the samosa over there, too. With an extra “o,” the samoosa is a popular snack food throughout South Africa and former British colonies like Kenya and Uganda.
The original sanbusaj, of course, was a Persian food. Throughout the Middle East and the Balkans, descendants of the sanbusaj still exist. The Turkish borek is a stuffed, phyllo-dough like pastry filled with savory fillings like cheese or potato. Though flat instead of triangular and baked instead of fried, the common sanbusaj ancestry is still shared with the samosa. In Israel, borekas, first cooked by Sephardic Jews, are only second to falafel in the nationÂ’s snack-food consciousness. Albanian bureks are pizza-sized phyllo pies filled with spinach or feta cheese and can be found at a number of pizzerias in the Arthur Avenue neighborhood of the Bronx (incidentally, another stop on Mike ColamecoÂ’s Food Adventures). The same boreks are popular in the former Yugoslavia, while a distant cousin of the borek still exists in Greece as the meat pie bourekakia. A bit closer to the original Indian article is the sambusek and the Egyptian sambusak, which is (yup) a deep-fried pastry filled with ground lamb and popular throughout the Arab world.
Meanwhile, the sambusek and borek left relatives of their own in North Africa. Boureks are deep-fried, cigar-shaped, ground-lamb-filled pastries from Algeria, Libya and Morocco that are commonly served at Sephardic Jewish restaurants as “Moroccan cigars,” while Libya has its own bureeks, similar to sambuseks except baked instead of fried. Finally, there’s the Tunisian brik, a deep-fried pastry filled with tuna, grated cheese and harissa sauce.
If you want to make your own samosas at home, you could do worse than our Indian Cooking Class or Mike Colameco‘s guided tour of the best Indian spice stores in the city. In the meantime, however, here are a few recipes from the extended samosa family (and if you’re a recipe collector, don’t miss Mark Bittman’s November Noontime Lecture, The Best Recipes in the World).