Here at the Mutiny, we’re reduced to excerpting former guest bloggers on slow news days 
Because, y’know, they’re good. Spake Saheli on Snarkmarket about those who dislike Indian food:
It just reminds me too much of schoolchildren pointing and going, “eww, smelly Indian food.” It’s one thing if you don’t like the taste of cumin–you aren’t going to like Indian food. It’s another thing if you insist that it’s foul and anyone who likes it has issues. It’s not the idea that “Wow I really didn’t like this,” that I object to. It’s the implication that, therefore, neither will you, dear reader…
I hated fried bitter melon when I was a child, for instance, and now it’s one of my favorite foods. But I’d be insane to just dump a bowlful on your plate, you’d probably gag. I ate one at time, very slowly, over the course of many years until I liked it. And it’s a bad idea to force things on small children, b/c their sense of smell isn’t that well developed and is much more geared towards rejecting things. (Makes sense–keeps them from eating random stuff they don’t yet have the knowledge to reject.) [Link]
One of the bloggers adds that he dislikes Indo-Caribbean tamarind balls:
Tamarind balls were a particular sticking point. Our rejection of our parents’ delicacies was always taken as a full-on betrayal of our culturesMy Guyanese parents, aunts, and uncles all insisted they were an unparalleled taste treat; elder siblings and cousins sympathized with my disappointment. Our rejection of our parents’ delicacies was always taken as a full-on betrayal of our cultures, and met with sad diatribes about how Americanized we’d become.Whenever we disdained one of her many Guyanese or British comfort foods, my mom would launch into wonderful stories about her childhood, how she loved tamarind balls, how she used to cry when her mother told her she couldn’t have any more of the sticky, spicy, sweet, sour snacks. And here we were, fêted with tamarind balls to our hearts’ content, and we refuse?! What could be wrong with us?… [Link]
This truffle kerfuffle was sparked by a Slate story on lokum, a.k.a. Turkish Delight, the bribe in Narnia (thanks, Abhi):
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Lokum |
And so, with anticipation, I took a bite of the Turkish Delight. And a second later, spat it into my hand. It tasted like soap rolled in plaster dust, or like a lump of Renuzit air freshener: The texture was both waxy and filling-looseningly chewy. This … this? … was the sweetmeat that led Edmund to betray his siblings and doomed Aslan to death on a stone slab? …… mustached men in white coats and caps were slinging thick, gummy ropes in the air like lassos, then slapping them down on a counter. With candy-cutting scimitars they slashed the long strands into sushi-sized pieces, then rolled them in powdered sugar, ground pistachios, or coconut. At five in the morning, a caramelly tasting hazelnut piece rolled in pistachio bits was surprisingly delicious. I thought for a moment–“Oh! It’s just the rose kind that’s revolting, maybe this is actually good…” What was it that robbed the treat of its luster once it was removed from its native habitat…? [Link]
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p>Is the author a candy Cain?
It apparently never occurs to Lisa Schillinger that perhaps the box of Turkish Delight she was given was a bad box, or perhaps Turkish Delight doesn’t preserve well, or perhaps she just doesn’t have the taste for it. Instead she blithely assumes that it’s all really foul, and that this is objective… [Link]
I haven’t eaten lokum recently, but I just had some mochi tonight. Saheli’s ideal reviewer of candy is my ideal reviewer of literature (I’m looking at you, Ms. Kakutani):
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Mochi |
My ideal reviewer of anything, movies or food, is Ebert-like in his or her devotion to artistic unity. First say, “is this kind of thing my cup of tea? Do I have the chops to review it?” and then, having answered that question, judge the execution. [Link]So if you’re going to review candy, give me confidence that you have an open and experienced palate. It’s no shame if you don’t, just review something else. [Link]
She doesn’t buy the fundamental, near-magical-realism conceit of the protagonist, and without that buy-in the rest of the novel is colored… I’m left wondering whether this review is more a criticism of the genre and Rushdie’s fundamental style than the individual tome. [Link]
My recently-back-from-India bosses left my gori self a box of “seasame balls” (sic) that I discovered on my desk this morning. (“ingredients: seasame, jaggery”) I had one and almost broke my teeth, and wanted to spit it out due to the taste anyway. Then I saw their e-mail saying it was a sweet from Kerala. Will I offend them if I use them as small cannonballs to pelt at my boyfriend instead?
I’m offended you didn’t like my sweets.
I really liked the dried mango paste (“mango bar”?) you could get at most groceries in Trivandrum. Yummy.
imagine losing your ethnicity card due to chitlins, pickled pig’s feet or hogmaws (pig stomach lining). I stopped eating pork for personal reasons and my parents still don’t understand.
shame some of those sweets are nasty, they look so good
Manish,
Let it go! We all know Rushdie is no longer the writer he once was. It is neither magic nor realism!
Start enjoying Nailpaul instead.
Read his latest?
How Freudian 😉
if Lokum is Turkish Delight, what are those white nougaty candies with little red and yellow fruit bits that Brachs makes and calls “turkish delight”? The two don’t look even remotely close…
“Mochi sometimes gets stuck in elderly people’s throats. Because it is so sticky it can’t be dislodged via the Heimlich maneuver, a house vacuum must be used to suck it out.”
Yikes! Is that true… or just another fakeout perpetrated on Wikipedia.
Seems true:
More ad hoc medical procedures:
Response:
You mean Shalimar? His worst ! But then he has not given up writing, so there is always hope.
😉
You must not have read Grimus or Fury then 😛
Shalimar is better than many of his others, e.g. Shame. I wouldn’t rank it with The Moor’s Last Sigh, Midnight’s Children or The Ground Beneath Her Feet; maybe with The Satanic Verses. But you’re really splitting hairs in that company.
ladoos and rasgulla complete my life, and of course mallu jackfruit palaharam
mmm..rasgula! give me jalebi, kalakand, gulab jamun, kulfi – on a big tray.
Mallu payasam….yum!!
Nina..I am from Trivandrum. I had a friend whose father used to own mango orchards. He assures me that mango bars are made out of fruit that are irredeemably lost. Cant sell it retail and therefore made into gummy paste…..
I still can’t figure out if he was having me…I stopped eating the mago bars since then…:-)
they wrote a song about this…
(of course they had to change it for the American audience and make them chocolate)
who did? i must find this mp3!
on a different, extremely annoying note, i know have that awful “shiny disco balls” song stuck in my head. oy.
eofia – its from southpark chef, aka isaac hayes
great song