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p>Taco Bell recently opened its first outlet in India, selling tacos for Rs. 18 and cheesy
tortillas for Rs. 20 in Bangalore, making people think they’re eating Mexican food. Like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and others, Taco Bell had to tailor its menu to Indian tastes and preferences, as Saritha Rai writes in GlobalPost.
In chili pepper-loving India, you might think that spicy Mexican food would be an easy sell. But it isn’t quite that simple and Taco Bell has made big changes from its American cousin. “It took us over two years to perfect our three Vs for India — value, vegetarian and variety,” said Bajpai. [Link]
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Yeah, but what about the fourth V: vindaloo. A chili pepper-loving country needs its burrito vindaloo.
Following in the footsteps of McDonald’s, beef is off the menu in this Hindu-dominated, cow-worshipping country. Taco Bell offers chicken instead. [Link]
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Upon reading this, I decided to write a letter to the president of Arby’s.
Dear Mr. Smith,
I heard that Arby’s might be interested in opening a franchise in India and thought I’d tell you a little bit about the country to help you make decisions about your menu, decor, employment, etc. India is a Hindu-loving, cow-dominated, chili pepper-worshipping country. No, wait … that isn’t quite right. It’s a chili pepper-loving, Hindu-dominated, cow-worshipping country. That means, of course, that you won’t be able to sell any roast beef sandwiches there — not a single one — but don’t worry, you’ll be able to sell billions of roast chili sandwiches.
Considering that it’s a Hindu-dominated, cow-worshipping country, it’s very important that you put a big sign outside your front door that says: “Cows eat free.” Make sure your entrance is wide enough for customers to bring their cows with them, and your employees are waiting with garlands and incense. It’s also wise to put pictures of cows on all your signs, with no reference whatsoever to roasting them. Cow-shaped chili-pepper shakers would also be a nice touch, as would a cow-shaped manager.
Another thing: If you happen to get any employment applications from Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, please check their identity carefully. India’s growing economy has attracted people from all over the world, many of whom do not speak the local language and, even worse, have never kissed the feet of a cow.
Finally, you may want to consider changing your name slightly. Arby’s is a fine name, but if you want to score points with Indians (and a certain blogger I know), please consider the name Abhi’s.
Re: Article 48
Thanks Jyotsana, I didn’t know it was in the constitution. It’ll be really interesting to see what line was walked when formulating that.
Thom, the US and California are not officially xtian states, yet CA has banned killing cats and dogs for food Several US states have banned horse slaughter, and the Federal govt has banned killing of marine mammals Recently a Japanese restaurant in the US was busted for serving whale meat Originally many of these marine mammals were endangered species, but mostly not so anymone Still due to cultural reasons, seal meat , dolphin meat and whale meat is banned
As for protein for the poor, it is ecologically cheaper to be a vegetarian and eat peanuts for protein
@46, Thom, muslims are not marginalised, in residual India, they riot at the drop of a hat and are doing low level ethnic cleansing of hindus in Kashmir valley, in muslim ghettos in kerala, Marad, and districts bordering bangladesh
@38 Thom, in muslim states and in muslim ghettos such as mallapuram, Hindus who cook or eat in public during Ramzan are attacked, because a Hindu eating food offends their islamic sensitivities
Melvin man you crack me up! Good post. Not sure why some commenters don’t get the sarcastic humor…
Ma’s skin??? what does this mean?
“Cow should not be eaten because she is Ma. She gives us life. We must respect Ma.”
How about ~PapaDogs(Papadeux) serving GoMatas Steak?. GoMootram/ColdCowsCola served with HotDogs would be cool. SkirtSteak/Fajita and ButtRoast should be served with Choli-Butt-oora and Your-gutt. HumAss(hummus) taste good with Shees KaBoobs. Which is tastier Chick-pee or Potato Leek/Leak soup? Huggan Das serving Ass-par-a-gas. Busy-Belly-Bath juice is good substitute for pani-poor-i juice. Beer-yoni, Linga-uini , cream of Butt-ata, is all good. Brat-worst bussing school Cafi-Teri-ass.
We have been eating cows, before Indian constitution was a dream on British minds. I don’t care what laws are, when I am hungry for some steak. Pork is kosher with beer. Gods may enjoy life forever, but I got only few years in this earth with my fellow stupids. I will eat tasty meat, even if it belonged god’s thighs! Spirits are for drinking, they are holy, only when you don’t add water. Let people worship more, at least I get meat cheaper. Can you make fish holy in Shintoism in Japan?, the fish is very expensive to afford in Kerala because of those stupids and young generation sushi-loving stupids all across the world.
Sushi loving stupids. LOL. No one wants to tolerate the needs of other groups if their own are not met.
It’s unfair the government ignores “minority” groups of India and focuses on protecting Hindu beliefs only. What makes them special that entire states can mandate laws against cow slaughter and thus consumption?
I mean obviously you don’t want to run a butcher shop right next to a Hindu temple, you have to be respectful of everyone, but to disallow beef completely is just asking for trouble.
“If you didn’t eat cows they would take over the world and soon they would make you do their laundry” – Get Fuzzy 🙂
Is that why they subsidize the Hajj for Muslims and pilgrimages to Jerusalem for Christians while discussing creating reservations for religious minorities? They’ve been “ignoring” them? Strange how this neglect works.
They subsidize the Hajj for Muslims and pilgrimages to Jerusalem for Christians
Man, your God roams through the dirty streets in India. Their God(s) is in goddamn desert hell, miles away. Why not send some of the cows to French Riviera or Malibu, so that you can get subsidies for visiting them or go kill some of the misbehaving Franks. I don’t care what you do to satisfy your spirits. My wholy spirit come from the palm and coconut trees of Kerala. Leave some cows in Kerala, enough for me to eat with my spirits in the God’s own land. Take them stupid CITU toddy tapper union folks along with you, I promise to pay the expenses as VAT, while paying for the VAT69.
You definitely don’t want to be treated like a dog in China, Korea, Nagaland and a few other places.
From: Dogs on the space menu
@58, Kerala before the british was ruled by the Zamorin of Calicut, the Maharaja of Cochin and the Maharaja of Trivandrum, all 3 were Hindu kings and like all Hindu and Sikh kings, cow killing was a capital offence Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab even abolished death penalty for murderers, but he kept death penalty for cow killing alone
@63. Hisory conveniently can be started from the right period. Yeah right!, my forefathers were chewing on dal, potatoe & chilli and licking prasadam, while drinking some of those goddamn tasty hooch! It is like my future generations analyzing Beyonce never could show her bottom to the world, while George Bush was the president of US. I have one question for those devoted stupids, do you pray for the future of your offsprings while having an ejaculation? There were gods who were only pleased with arrack, whatever happened to them? Adi, you were mean. I get it on with hip-o-gyrates than hypocrites. Gods are getting holier and boring. My future generations may ban sex, as that would be very unproductive pagan ritual, when they reproduce perfect god loving babies in worship places by modern puthrakameshti yaga. Hey, my genes are passed to the future.
BTW, faking orgasm is cheating and ungodly. That should really be banned.
@64 keralite, so what is the right period for ancient beef-eating in kerala As far back as the time of Elara, A Chola king, , 200BC, cow killing was a capital offence in Tamil lands and at that time Kerala was speaking tamil
@66. Yes. You can start right on invaders making beef eating compulsory in Kerala. Ha.. Ha.. Gautama budha’s last meal was believed to be pork chops. Ribs are great( that may be all the evil spirits tastes) but hunan pork sucks. Our forefathers did not invent bow and arrows to kill non believers alone. Dont have cows man! I can eat ’em as long as, they are not making me do their laundry! Good one @59!. In 200 BC, they were arguing whether left or right is the God’s side. I am glad that is settled. I am also glad no gods took chicken as their vehicle. Man, I would have gone crazy, if everyone knew about Matsyavatar. Crabs is still god. People like me are afraid of that god. I take pity on people who eat those with crabs. Varuna was an asura, you may have no idea how tasty the products from sea are. Water buffaloes were the vehicle of Yama, they taste so yummy. Where did it cows got it wrong? they taste good too. You can include snakes as god, I dont like em as much.
@66Thanks for the dig. Now, I feel good about my future generation, they can have sex when it is going to be outlawed.
You guys are REALLY missing the point here. Taco Bell is a BUSINESS, they are not a government agency that gives a damn about what your religious beliefs are. They just want to make MONEY. If they put beef items on the menu, not only will those items have low sales but they will lose other customers! 80% of India is Hindu and about 60% of those Hindus would never dine at a place where they serve beef. We have adjusted to this factor because living abroad, we don’t have much choice, but people in India dont think like that. And what about employment, if many people are opposed to touching the beef who will make the tacos? They will have to fish out Sikh, Muslim, and Christian employers in a population of over 80% Hindus.
Speaking of Muslims, I highly doubt that they are a reason to expand the non-veg menu in India’s Taco Bell because im assuming it is not Halal. If anything, having vegetarian items on the menu will give Muslims who dont eat non-veg outside their community to try this wanna-be mexican food and feel “cool” or “american”. Although I’m sure that most of them would prefer their amma’s keema and naan “tacos” over this junk any day.
Neglect works in different ways. A parent can feed their children three meals a day but fail to adequately meet their mental and emotional needs at the same time. Banning beef is favoring Hindus and neglecting other religious groups.
Like Keralite says, the Hindu faith is everywhere…if I were to say that some of the statues and religious images on Hindu temples was offensive to Muslims and Christians…I doubt the government would give a flying fruit to rectify the situation, but for Hindus, they would walk on water to please them.
Well whatever, I’m not trying to start a religious debate, I just think it’s unfair for a “secular” state to have these biases against minority religious groups and completely ban beef.
To go along with the original topic…Many parts of India were exposed to Americanized/ethnic foods. I remember eating hamburgers and pizza as a kid..and Blore was selling tacos long before Taco bell 🙂 It may all taste nasty, but India is not as isolated (food wise) as we think.
@69, and is that why 3 lakh kashmiri pandits are refugees , whereas there is endless wailing about the Gujurat muslims
I think there is a difference between extremist Muslims threatening Kashmiri Hindus to leave, and the government itself creating this ban of beef in favor of Hindu beliefs.
What if the government decided on a nationwide ban of alcohol because it’s against the Islam faith? That will never happen because Hindus/Christians/Sikhs would readily protest saying that law infringes on their rights, and that India is a secular state…blah blah blah.
My point is that the Indian govn’t is overstepping its boundaries completely with these bans
@ Ahoy: Remember this question from your SATs?
Pick the analogy that fits best.
Hindus : Cows :: ________
A. Muslims : Alcohol B. Americans : Bald Eagles C. East Asians : Dogs D. Australians : Kangaroos
Answer: I don’t know the answer to the above question (I took the ACTs and analogies didn’t feature as prominently) however it is clearly not the first one (A).
The others might be more appropriate (C kind of freaked me out when I first heard about it; I grew up w/ Lassie, Clifford and Snoopy). One of India’s chief personalities, Krishna, was a cowboy (gopaal) beating bad guys and stealing girls’ (gopis) hearts well before John Wayne or the Marlboro man were cool. One of the members of the Divine Tres Amigos (Shiva) also has a bull as vahana (Nandi, the Ãœber bull). No American I know would fry up a Bald Eagle. I’m sure some Australians have sampled a kangaroo burger, but it is still a cultural icon and not a regular source of food.
Besides, do you really want to promote more meat-eating (that too, red meat) in a world where 18% to 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to the livestock industry. If anything, we need to encourage less meat, regardless of faith or lack thereof. Refrigeration is also appalling in tropical India; we have enough headaches w/ E. Coli and Salmonella here in the States, thank you.
Soy/tofu burgers for us all!
LOL oh cmon, the cow is a cultural icon? If anything, it’s the elephant!!! maybe monkeys, snakes, Sachin I think most people see cows as a dirty nuisance…they block the roads, they eat disgusting garbage, and well they aren’t such pleasant creatures. I’m not Hindu, but I think the cow seems like a representation of the belief that all living creatures are holy and should be treated as such, so if they ban beef, why not just all living creatures as well?
Oh that’s right, because some Hindus eat chicken, fish, pork, and lamb… and it would be an inconvenience to them! lol.
Beef isn’t the issue, neither is religion. The Indian government interferes too much in the lives of the people..and while it may be banning beef now, maybe it will be banning pork later on, or saying every business will have to be closed on Easter. It’s BS- the gov’t needs to focus on more important issues than trying to uphold religious dogmas. I don’t even live in India, but its still upsetting to hear there are rules like this.
I don’t think people should be eating that much beef either. When my dad grew up, he personally fed the family cows grass and took care of them , but now they are wondering the streets eating whatever filth they find on the roads. That being said, soy and tofu aren’t perfect meat substitutes either. yeck.
@Yogafire #60
I guess you kind of missed out on the subsidy for the Hindus. How about this one?
http://mea.gov.in/parliament/ls/2001/03/mar21-3657.htm
Looks like the Manasarovar trip is subsidized too. Pretty nice huh?
I guess I will go on an Indian government sponsored trek to Manasarovar at the next opportunity.
And btw, could you provide a link that points to the Jerusalem trip subsidy from the government of India. I heard the nightlife and the beaches are rather fine in Israel.
Oh, and don’t bother about the link to the subsidized Mecca trip. There’s not much to do in the desert besides pray and that I don’t care for.
@ Anonamous #74: Like you and anyone else can get subsidies for Mansarovar (other than paying hefty taxes to China for the same), can I, as a non-Muslim, also plan a pilgrimage to Hajj? Will the Indian govt subsidize me for it? Will Saudi let me in?
@ Ahoy: I’d say “cow” is much more representative to my American friends than elephants of monkeys, which make them think more about Africa and South-East Asia. “Cow” is the most Indian animal symbol out there for the non-Indians. As far as banning goes, I’m all for banning pork along with beef. Most Hindus in India who don’t eat beef also don’t eat pork. About “religious dogmas”, we really really need to be careful about what’s considered a cultural “good” versus religious dogma. As an example, at my univ in the US, the Indian students association, to be more politically correct first got renamed South Asian students association. That’s great! I am all for it. Then some people were offended that they were participating in a “Diwali night” cultural show. So it got rebranded to Unity night. And finally, some were offended about the prayer and prasadam at Garba-raas, so that was also removed. Which I thought was taking it a tad bit far.
By upholding cultural goods, like the banning of beef, should NOT be seen as religious dogma. The latter should be along the lines of upholding child-marriage, or not banning Sati, which would be religious dogma.
@ unoriginal #75
Oooh, you poor victims. My sympathies, although the victim card you predictably pulled is getting rather tired these days. I was just pointing out that Yogafire missed one more subsidy in the list.
the Indian constitution has lot of weird laws. including ban on gays (there you go..christians and muslims..rejoice !!!!!).
cow slaughter is not prohibited…it is upon the government to stop it… and let me tell you nobody stops it…you can buy beef and pork at any non-hindu meat shop quite freely…
but you can’t buy alcohol legally in Nagaland..it has been banned by the state government..go figure…