The first thing I’ve always noticed is how she feels to my touch. Even if left out all day, there is some warmth left at her core that rises up through my fingertips. A person’s true beauty is on the inside and despite the fact that I always take time to admire the texture and taste of her outer shell, every crease and fold and hard bit, it is what’s inside that I think about with the greatest anticipation. In there, a secret garden she hides. And the way she smells…mmmm mmm mmmm. It can make you hop right out of bed in the morning. Is there any better way to break-fast? Even in college I could always count on her at the end of the night when nothing else would fill me up, and the partying just wasn’t fun anymore. I’m not the only one that lusts after her though. True beauty is easily recognized and doggedly pursued. The folks at The 92nd Street Y (thanks to the anonymous tipster) not only recognized her, but delved into her past to uncover the things even I didn’t know:
…we thought it might be time to pay tribute to the humble samosa.
The deep-fried, fist-sized triangular pastry is traditionally filled with either spicy potatoes or ground lamb and is India’s great contribution to the world of fast food. Traditional samosas come in all sorts of variations; in the Punjab they’re smaller and more akin to Western potato puffs, while in southern India wrappers are traditionally made from Lentil flour. There’s samosa chaat—where samosas are doused in chickpea curry or yogurts and chutneys to make for a quick, messy meal on the go—and regional variations like Bengali dessert samosas filled with rosewater or Myanmar’s samosas, which substitute wonton wrappers for the thicker shells used in India.
But the samosa is also the product of a thousand years of culinary heritage. Variants of this uniquely Indian food can be found everywhere from Cape Town to Singapore to Tashkent to Tel Aviv. A samosa/samoosa/samsa/sambusek/burek world tour (with recipes) after the jump.
Food historians have established, however, that the samosa originated not in India, but in Persia. The sanbusaj, originally a Persian term for any stuffed, savory pastry or dumpling, started showing up in Persian, Arab and Turkish literature starting in the 9th century, when poet Ishaq ibn Ibrahim-al-Mausili wrote verse praising sanbusaj.
Wow. I am truly humbled to follow in the footsteps of the poet Ibrahim-al-Mausili. I am a blue-collar samosa eater. I don’t need the finest green and brown chutneys. Just give me a little bit of ketchup and you’ll shut me right up. That’s right, I like to go slumming. I also refuse to see any movie at a theater longer than two hours unless there is an intermission with warm samosas in the lobby. I LOVED Lord of the Rings, but it was so long that every time Gollum said “my precious,” I kept thinking about samosas. My mom makes them the best. Cashews and tofu sometimes.
The first mention of the proper samosa was in Amir Khusrao’s 13th century memoir of Delhi’s royal court, when he mentioned “samosa prepared from meat, ghee, onion and so on.” There was also the legendary explorer Ibn Battuta, who in India, wrote about the sambusak: “Minced meat cooked with almonds, pistachios, onions and spices placed inside a thin envelope of wheat and deep-fried in ghee.”Indian immigrants to Africa brought the samosa over there, too. With an extra “o,” the samoosa is a popular snack food throughout South Africa and former British colonies like Kenya and Uganda.
There is no better way to become popular with a new group of friends than by taking a bag of hot samosas with you to a party. Munch-munch, give. In college, my Asian roommates even idealized Indian women by calling them “samosas.” I know. It was so wrong and I am ashamed for actually encouraging them instead of correcting them, but some part of me thought it was a compliment.
There is so much more I can say about my precious samosa but I’m hungry now. I must search for something to fill me. My female friends all think I am picky when it comes to finding love. I just tell them that I have high standards.
