Thursday, August 12, 2021

On noodles, pasta, and ... சேவை

A few years ago, when visiting with the parents, father said he felt like eating சேவை.  I offered to help mother in the kitchen, recalling the hours that it took mother to prepare that.

"Oh, you can get instant சேவை from the store" father said.

I looked at mother. 

"There is no way I will ever eat that" she declared.  "You can buy it yourself, and make it yourself" she added, as if she was disgusted with the very thought of having to handle that inferior product.

சேவை (Sevai,) as Wikipedia notes (is there anything at all that is not in Wikipedia?) "is a type of rice vermicelli popular in Southern India, particularly Tamil Nadu"  The Wiki entry goes on to describe the labor that goes into making it the traditional way, which is why I offered to help in the kitchen.  Especially the final step of squeezing the cooked rice dough--which can quickly become rock hard--through the special apparatus in order to produce the fine strands of சேவை.

Ah, those were the days, my friend!

As kids who wanted to be real men (haha) my brother and I did not sit down and turn the handle clockwise to squeeze the "sevai idli" through, but stood over it and muscled through as if it were a competition ;)

Wikipedia notes that sevai's sibling, the idiyappam, is an idea that is at least two thousand years old.
Did the idiyappam come first and then the sevai?  Or, the other way around?
Did the idea originate in the old Dravidian culture?  Did they get the idea from the Chinese?  Or, was it the Chinese who copied from the Dravidians?  How and when did it leap from Asia to Europe?

If சேவை were to be sold in the grocery store here in the US, in which aisle would be it stocked?

Of course it won't be sold in the regular grocery store, and will be found in the Indian grocery store.  Because it is "ethnic."

What does "ethnic" mean in a country in which only 58% of the population is white?  Whose tastes should grocery stores cater to?  Is the "ethnic" aisle model obsolete?

Damn, I want to have சேவை and மோர் குழம்பு now!

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