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The Taj Grocery Store as a Cultural Space

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The smell of spices permeated the space from the front to the back. Walking around the front of the store, you would see things sold in bulk—bags of rice and flour the size of dog food bags that you would see in American grocery stores. Examining the packaging, a friend and I observed that some of the bags had expired two years ago. It was interesting to see recognizable items packaged differently, off-brand Oreos or Chips Ahoy for example, but with Indian packaging. While many of the foods were recognizable, lots of them were different. The fruits and vegetables were sized differently and I hadn’t even heard of some of the ones there. Wandering through the cleaning, beauty, and hygiene isles, other products were clearly intended for a native Indian audience, as they had no blond hair dye and many cleaning products with ingredients not seen or used typically by Americans who have lived here for long periods of time. As Sen writes in “From Curry Mahals to Chaat Cafes: Spatialities of the South Asian Culinary Landscape,” “…Ethnic culinary spaces in urban America cannot be read as part of a landscape that is segregated, circumscribed, and distinct from mainstream. Rather these are sites of hybridity and cultural contact where multiple worlds, networks, processes, and agents interact with each other” (Sen 196). What he indicates in his essay is that these sites of cultural contact are not necessarily replicas of what one would see in the country of origin. Rather, these sites, and the Taj Grocer in that vein, are influenced by their native origin, the culture of the country in which they exist, and the assimilation of the people who shop at these stores. These sites of culture are bastions of Indian tradition in the US, concerned with maintaining a niche way-of-life. However, even these sites are not impenetrable from outside influence.

The restaurant itself in the back was also interesting. The menu was in Hindi, so much of it I did not understand. While this added to the authenticity of the restaurant and the store, it certainly makes it less accessible to people looking to get a taste of Indian culture without a guide. Looking around, it was clear that our class included the only out of demographic people visiting and eating at the store, but that didn’t necessarily mean that we felt unwelcome. The food itself all seemed relatively mediocre. In line with Indian tradition, the food was vegetarian, and the kitchen itself has never had meat in it. While the food itself was acceptable. It paled in comparison to previous Indian food I’ve had before. I split a sampler with a friend, and it was interesting to try many different things, but overall, the flavor profile seemed dulled in comparison to the rich and overpowering smells of spices that pervaded the space as a whole.

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