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Deputy Editor:
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Design Editor:
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THE statement
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement
COVER BY SHANE ACHENBACH
B Y TA N YA M A D H A N I
My Cultural Currency: Spice of Life
F
un fact: I lived in Texas for about four years. My first week at
Voigt Elementary School, I was dared by a gang of elementary
school girls to eat an entire bag of Hot Cheetos in one sitting.
“In front of us,” their ringleader said with a self-satisfied smirk, as if
she’d really gotten me now. She was a blonde girl whose hair, I remember,
always looked like her mother couldn’t be bothered to comb through it.
I gulped and looked at the bag in my hands again. My eyes bore into
the “hot” section of the snack bag’s label. I glanced back and forth
between the ringleader and my Cheetos; I had the lowest tolerance for
spicy food in my family and I knew I would lose.
But I also wanted to make friends, and taking up this challenge
seemed like the perfect way to do it. After years of being awkward and
shy, this school felt like the blank slate I was looking for.
All of this reflection is in hindsight, though. None of these thoughts
were going through my 6-year-old head — all I cared about was whether
my daredevil personality impressed the Cool Kids™.
“So, are you?” the ringleader asked again. I hastily opened the bag and
stuffed a handful of Cheetos in my mouth. I expected my eyes to water,
nose to start running and ears to turn red. The last thing I expected was
to feel utterly underwhelmed.
I think I finished the bag in less than 30 seconds.
That was the day I realized that American food was seriously bland
and, if I’m being honest here, that I went to school with a bunch of
wimps. Listen to me: Hot Cheetos aren’t spicy.
It’s important to me that whoever’s reading this column knows that.
I grew up with
home-cooked
meals
everyday.
I’m talking fresh-
ly made rice, rotis
and shaag every
single day of the
week, three times
a day, made by
my
superhuman
mother. She was
also notorious for
putting an extra
(unnecessary)
chili in any item.
She would chop
up
small,
but
deadly, green chil-
ies into plain (plain!) rice and beans, and serve it to us with a flourish,
ignoring my brother’s and my watering eyes.
Her efforts, though, have built up a certain amount of spice immunity
within every member of my family. I recently ordered a No Thai dish at
the second-to-last spiciest option, “yoga flame,” trying to ease my way
through the levels, and felt absolutely nothing.
And although it feels a bit mean-spirited sometimes — like my slam
on the ringleader’s unkempt hair earlier in the column — my family and
I can’t help but find someone’s inability to handle spice comical.
My family and I frequent a small, Indian street food restaurant in
Canton called “Neehee’s.” Its overly cramped space — with garish
orange walls and ridiculously long queues — serves the most delicious,
authentic Indian food I’ve ever tasted here.
Meaning it’s spicy.
One day, a customer in front of me, someone not of Indian origin and
someone who definitely did not grow up accustomed to my mother’s pal-
ette, ordered each of their dishes by ending with the phrase “no spice
please.”
My father turned to me, shocked, and said in Hindi, “My god, what is
he going to eat?”
That was the day I realized
that American food was
seriously bland and, if I’m
being honest here, I went
to school with a bunch of
wimps.