3B

Magazine Editor:

Karl Williams

Deputy Editor:

Nabeel Chollampat

Design Editor:

Shane Achenbach

Photo Editor:

Zoey Holmstrom

Creative Director:

Emilie Farrugia

Editor in Chief:

Shoham Geva

Managing Editor:

 Laura Schinagle

Copy Editors:

Emily Campbell

Alexis Nowicki

Jose Rosales

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.