"What is it?" I asked.
"It's paan. You know, paaaaaan."
I had no idea what they were talking about, but I've decided that I'm going to try all foods here at least once. When in Rome...err, I mean India. I opened the cellophane package to find something that looked like this:
"Do I peel off this aluminum part?"
"No, just pop it in your mouth and eat it all at once!"
So, I popped this leafy sweet into my mouth and my immediate thought was, "I just ate India. They have concocted a food that is India. I didn't think it was possible, but there's some Indian Willy Wonka that has been hard at work."
It tasted like incense, mixed with granulated sugar (the most common sugar here, not like the refined sugar found in the States), mixed with cherries, plus leaves (leaves?!) and some kind of spice mixed in for good measure because what would an Indian sweet be without spice. What an experience. It was actually refreshing and kind of like an Indian after-dinner mint.
Later, I googled this Indian sweet to find out exactly what it was that I ate. Here's an interesting, and slightly disturbing blog post that I came across regarding someone else's first paan experience:
"I also tried paan, which is like an Indian candy or after-dinner mint It is a leaf filled with coconut and spices and sugar and stuff, which you chew on. It's tasty, but then I looked it up and found... apparently it's carcinogenic! The Betel leaf it's wrapped in is a stimulant and causes oral and esophageal cancer. Indians I talk to tell me, no, it's the tobacco that is often wrapped inside by people that causes cancer, but this sweet paan is something kids eat all the time. They are wrong! The tobacco does it too, but Betel leaf is itself bad. Which reminds me of when I tried betelnut in Taiwan -- people chew the nut with tobacco as an addictive stimulant there -- I was assured that it was ok because they left out the tobacco but now I'm not so sure."
[noammohr.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html]
If you're interested, you can find out more about paan here.
-C
P.S. My stomach is doing much better these days (if you haven't guessed by my adventures with foreign foods). Thanks for pr.ying for me!
4 comments:
Looks like you finally got your chocolate. :-)
Got your picture on my wall at work along with a new picture of the girlfriend. I look at them often during my day.
Later C.
Michael
Creepers, Mike...
Well, as long as paan doesn't kill you... that's okay? I think...
Women's group misses you a lot. Like, a LOT. Not just me but other girls too. LOT LOT LOT. We always pray for you.
no mishti/mithai? (i think it's mishti in Hindi). that was the Bengali sweet i often ate, but they had them in Delhi too. really popular in west bengal. a ball of dough kind of soaked in sugar water is the best way to describe it.
the betel leaf chewing and tobacco usage is almost universal... i was just reading a book talking about the anti-smoking movement in the US in the 80s and how the tobacco giants moved overseas when they started losing ground here. we are seeing (as with many areas of culture) the US scenario of 50 years ago being played out currently in asian and african countries.
Oh, yes. Bahood, bahood mishti. Even mishti served with icecream, or so I'm told.
I had no idea about the popularity of the betel leaf. Thanks for sharing these facts. Sad, but true.
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