Jack Brandt
Our outing to the Taj Chaat House was an experience that I had never seen before. Never besides when I would go out to the farms around my house in California have I seen so many bags of grain. Seriously half of the grocery store was dog food sized bags of grain, mostly rice. My experience was one of another world. Again my Montana bred mind had not experienced anything besides the most americanized Mexican food ever in my hometown, this was something so foreign that even the Samosa was confusing to me. The flavors confused my tongue so much that it hurt. Anyway what that samosa was it was a spicy potato clump surrounded by pie crust. Then the whole thing was fried. In Sen, Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India, it states that it came from 10th century Arab cookbooks usually filled with meat and other ingredients. That would’ve been better because meat is always better than vegetables. (155) But I’m not biased towards hating vegetables, I just don’t eat them and would like them to die.
We went to a chaat house which according to Sen online pg.204 is a “Fast food type restaurant that is usually just a counter in a preexisting restaurant or grocery store”. Our Chaat house was inside of a grocery store. The benefits of just building inside of an already built up place is that it has a lot lower risk, while also having lower costs upfront which in turn lets the food be at a cheaper price point.
Sen online pg. 208 “Soon Vik’s expanded again. The 2006 layout of the cafe no longer resembled a chaat house in India nor the original chat counter of 1992”. This very clearly shows the differences in American vs Indian culture. The chaat houses of India were a place to grab a quick bite and take it away and enjoy it. But here in America were lazy. Yes we can get takeout but a lot of the times we just want to eat out and stay out. We demand that we have places to enjoy the food that we just paid for and that we require seating. This is one of the most blaring differences in our cultures as the chaat houses in India haven’t taken the look of the American ones. They still don’t have seating. But as we always do, Americans must take everything and make it our own.
Sen online pg. 198 says “The importance of food in immigrant culture makes restaurants, grocery stores, and kitchens important sites where ethnicity is practiced and reproduced on a daily basis”. This lets the people who immigrated to the United States of America always stay connected to their homes. Also it lets the people of America get a taste of the outside world. Imagine what life would be without Mexican food, sushi, and Italian food. This allows our beautiful country become the melting pot that we always like to say it is. 