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Bizarre or Bazaar?

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By: Sophi Farid

Last Wednesday night, I visited the Indian Bazaar in Richardson. My class was told we would be eating street food though to many of us, that did not adequately prepare us for what we were about to experience. Though we were given an article and were advised to read it before the trip, I did not do so and therefore the entire trip was in, some sense (no pun intended), overwhelming.

The right hand side of the store was devoted to their restaurant, which served a collection of chaats and fried appetizer-type foods. While the chaats required spoons and napkins, the other foods were finger foods. A few students ordered traditional Indian foods like the samosas and mango lattis. However, some that were more daring accepted the challenge of trying something that Professor Ball-Phillips had suggested. As a rookie to the spice game, I avoided those suggestions and instead opted for the vegetable samosas. To my surprise, I found those, too, to be spicy and quickly went back to the counter to buy a bottle of water.

While the rest of the class continued eating, another classmate and I walked through the aisles. Directly next to the restaurant were bulk items like rice and flour. The number of brands and types of rice was impressive. An entire aisle was devoted solely to stacks of rice bags. Rounding the corner we entered the produce section where I was surprised at the many exotic fruits, some of which I had never seen or heard of before. Unfortunately, the produce was not particularly clean and while exploring the fruits, I found a moldy, beat up one and immediately put it back before making my way to the spice aisle.

Even if you had entered the grocery store with your eyes closed, your nose could have directed you to the spice aisle. It was a cloud of fragrance, an incredible combination of spices, which somehow blended together to create a delicious smell. They had powdered spices and raw spices packaged into traditional spice-rack style containers as well as plastic bags. It was a beautiful example of “ethnic…grocery stores…[creating a] contemporary American urban culture,” (Sen, 196).

As grocery stores and other “immigrant stores…promote in-group solidarity and sustain a robust ethnic economy,” (Sen, 198) it made sense that our class was often looked at with confusion each time another customer entered the store. I felt like a foreigner while I was in the Bazaar. Even as we were leaving the surrounding area, I noticed the diversity in food options and supermarkets. All different groups of people had established businesses in the surrounding areas, attempting to weave their native culture into the culture of America.

img_2522The above picture is the samosas that I ordered. The samosas were spicy enough alone, so I did not use the provided sauces. (I apologize for the image being rotated 90 degrees to the left. I attempted to crop it and rotate it but each time I select the image it rotates back to the left.)

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