Don’t do it, girl
Now why would English prof Sejal Shah stain a perfectly entertaining food porn piece with this dubious advice (via SM)?
The metal Indian spice tin… had an equally colorful mix of American condiments: mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, and was passed around at the table… I told Karen her duubo, filled as it was with American “spices,” was the perfect image for a book cover. [Link]
Not unless the book in question is a cookbook. In 2006, this shit is trite, T-R-I-T-E.
If I were king of all I survey, everyone would get exactly one essay on growing up non-white using food as the central metaphor. And only in freshman English. Like frequent flier miles, your adult years would appear as endless red X’s. Trying to redeem frequent clichéer miles in commercial fiction would give you a mild electric shock.
By the way, did you know that asking a Bombay housewarewalla for a mirch ka dabba only gets you a crisper? You want a masala dabba, innit, illit.
on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006, 12:22 am in Literature › 
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>> By the way, did you know that asking a Bombay housewarewalla for a mirch ka dabba only gets you a crisper? You want a masala dabba, innit, illit.
Huh.. care to translate?
BTW - it wasnt a bad idea. the pic’s too small for me to see - but her POV was that the giant old melting point is borrowing flavors from the cheese next door - and that’s a good thing - hence the mayo and ketchup in the box etc. - or why people like i liberally use feta instead of paneer - btw the chinese dont have a paneer now, do they? how curious!
American Spices eh? Now that’s an oxy moron right there.
Now you know how tempting it is to simply credit SM instead of the specific blogger who found the link ;-)
If you check the SM copyright policy, you’ll see that specific section lasted only a week :)
Isn’t it a bad idea to keep something sour like ketchup in a metal tin?
I dunno about spices, but Americans have plenty of herbs. Sassafras, Sarsparilla, Juniper, native mints, and the like. Recall that Chile Peppers are indigineous to the Americas. One of these days when I have more time to wander about in the woods I’m going to invest in a field guide to edible native plants. There are some tasty ones out there.
right ‘li - from my lone pine gyuide by legasy, labelle-beadman and chambers - here’s an herb for the world - meadow rue -Thalictrum dasycarpum (that’s the desi angle) - apparently aboriginal peoples made a tea from the roots to help reduce fever - and had powers of a lowe potion - meadow rue seeds into the food of quarreling couples would help mend the differences - thought for the day - the world needs more desy weeds or is it weedy desy’s.