Colonel Kababz in the American food landscape
Manufactured by Kaiser Foodline, Garland, Texas, part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex
For dinner last night I tried the Tandoori Chicken Wings from the Colonel Kababz line. I could also have tried their Mediterranean Kababs, their Tandoori Tikka, their Chicken Haleem, their Tandoori Quesadillas, their Falafel or a dozen other options.
Manufactured by Economic Food Solution in South Kalamassery, Kochi, India and marketed by Grace Supply Inc in Missouri City, Texas, part of the Houston metropolitan area
Cheerfully ignoring regional differences (quite justified I believe) I accompanied them with Malabar Porotta, a bread in what I have encountered as the paratha family. Googling porotta (some confusion about English-language spelling) I found both how this bread is made and its role as a street food in South India and Southeast Asia.
Both came from the huge frozen food section of Big (formerly Gandhi) Bazaar three miles from my house in South Austin. It is a big supermarket and it has survived and flourished in an area that would never be thought of as having a large population of people from the Indian subcontinent.
Time is short this morning so I am firmly resisting the urge to explore these companies further. I do wish, though, that amid all the discussions going on in social media about “ethnic” restaurants and how they fit into the American culinary scene, we could have a few more explorations of how food retail is changing with “ethnic” supermarkets (and they are supermarkets not small mom and pop groceries) not just in immigrant enclaves but in mainstream America. And how these supermarkets could not proceed without a flourishing and expanding food processing and distribution system.
Wouldn’t that be refreshing?
- Variety, Discrimination, and Mexican Breads
- US Foreign Policy, the Flaky Flatbread Called Parotta, and Where Does Asafoetida Fit?
Rachel, I tried to “be the first to like this” but WordPress would not let me in. In any case, I DO like it. And it has set me determined to explore the extent of “ethnic” choices in my very Yankee Maine-based supermarkets. Will report on results later.
So glad that you do, Nancy. If this trend of–what do I call it?–“ethnic” processing, distribution and retail continues, I think it will produce much bigger changes than the chef- or family-owned restaurant. Just looking at everyone from well-to-do housewives to construction workers going into Big Bazar for foodstuffs or a quick lunch take out is impressive.
Springfield VA has a great ethnic supermarket, LA Mart, which I go to every time I visit my son. It’s run by Koreans, as are most others I’ve heard of. YES! Please do explore its supply chain.
When did you leave Mexico? Do you plan to visit Hawaii soon, I hope? I’m now at a retirement community in Kaneohe, Pohai Nani. Phone 808-779-8808. Please let me know when you’re coming.
How lovely to hear from you, Pearl. We left Mexico six years ago and are now about to leave Texas for Kentucky. I’ll email you. No plans to visit Hawaii, sadly.
Please pay Attention at Minute 2:45 in the Video. Yes a “tandoori”, but that kind of oven was created by the Zapotec People before 1492 the year of the First arrival of people from Europa, Africa and Asia. That oven is used by the Zapotec women to cook Tortillas ans Totopos. Totopos are the original ancestors of Nachos. .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdVPm71Zp2Q
Funny you should mention this, Carlos. I’ve spent a lot of time chatting with friends from that area about the directions of influence.
Great work, Rachel. Funny you should be mulling over the definition of “ethnic.” I am working on this for my new book on China and Chinese minorities.
Here is a definition, from a Nigerian scholar. an ethnic group is defined as having a common ancestry, a shared historical past, and a cultural focus on symbolic elements defined as the epitome of their peoplehood.
such symbolic elements are kinship patterns, religious affiliation, language and nationality.
The group’s ethnic identity is a function of its unique historical, linguistic, ancestral, cultural and social experiences.
This is the difference between ethnicity and nationality, which is defined as belonging to a territory that may or may not have common affiliations. Region is a bigger geographical designation than nationality.
Since my work right now is on the Silk Road, I am minded of the historical mixing and borrowing that went on for centuries between Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern and even European cultures, because of the trade of the caravan routes of the Silk Road. This was called “borrowing” or intermingling.
There was no talk of appropriation. It seems to me from my two decades of research into the Mongol Empire, that the opening of the roads across the world benefited the cultures along the many branches of the Silk Road as bees pollinate flowers, mingling not only ways of cooking, but the ingredients, spices and customs of cuisine.
You can see this most clearly in the music of the Silk Road recently recorded by the cellist Yo-yo Ma, who celebrates the intermingling with musicians from all over the Silk Road and beyond. Or in Ghandaran art which mingled Chinese Buddhist art, Indian Buddhist art and also Greek art, with the concept of the body and of the folds of the clothing. You can see it in Tang porcelains, that borrow the colors of the Middle East, and the subject matter of camels, musical instruments, saddles. The caravanserai was the melting pot. The oasis towns boasted their own traditions but were settlements where multiple languages were spoken and many forms of trade, some very sophisticated credit systems that financed the caravan merchants, many denominations of money, manuscripts in many languages, medicines from many cultures.
This gives some background and understanding to a similar melding and mixing in America. See the essay posted on my website. dianewolff.com
Thanks Diane. I think what counts as ethnic or as appropriation is highly culture specific. People in a particular area (mainland US, say) are apt to project their local situation on to the globe.
There’s a shocking (to me) new selection of stuff like this at my local, decidedly mainstream, non-ethnic supermarket (I mean, they *stopped* carrying Kosher for Passover stuff right after we moved here, though they still have the traditional “Asian” shelf with some pretty good choices). I don’t remember if it’s the same brand; I’ll have to look again next time I go.
Thanks Jonathan. No Kosher for Passover but Asian. Changing demographics I guess. Supermarkets are highly sensitive to their local shoppers. (BTW, I love tidbits like this.)