Samosas and Pasta, Carne Asada and Hot Cheetos: The Bay Area’s Culinary Mash-Ups

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KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2022

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The sizzler, a popular dish in Mumbai, is an over-the-top melange of pasta, paneer, grilled onions and peppers, samosas, cabbage and shredded Mexican cheese – all piled on a sizzling hot platter. It was inspired, so the story goes, by a visit to a Sizzler chain restaurant in California in the 1960s, and it has returned to California in some South Bay restaurants. But as any child of immigrants knows, cultural food mashups don’t have to be flashy. For KQED reporter Adhiti Bandlamudi, whose article tracked down the history of the Sizzler, it was grilled paneer tacos. For San Francisco Chronicle food critic Soliel Ho, it was Ho’s grandmother’s jasmine rice with maggi seasoning, topped with turkey cold cuts. Ho calls it “assimilation food”: “food that’s made to close the gap between homes: a critical need when one lives in exile.” As part of our ongoing segment on Bay Area food cultures, we’ll talk about all kinds of food mashups, from that Indian Sizzler to hot cheetos in a burrito to putting a splash of fish sauce in the mac and cheese. Guests: Luke Tsai, food editor, KQED Soleil Ho, restaurant critic, San Francisco Chronicle Adhiti Bandlamudi, Silicon Valley Reporter, KQED Alan Chazaro, food reporter, KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:28.2	What happens when food traditions bounce back and forth across a border?
1:32.4	Take the sizzler, created by an Indian restaurant tour after a visit to California.
1:34.9	It became a popular dish in Mumbai.
1:40.5	It's a crazy melange of pasta, grilled onions, panier, samosas, cabbage, shredded cheese,
1:43.0	all piled on a sizzling hot platter.
1:45.0	And now it's being served here in the Bay Area at some Indian restaurants, having made its way back across the Pacific.
1:50.1	Or what about what the food writer Soley Ho calls assimilation foods, those delicious concoctions
1:55.2	that immigrant families make from a mix of home country technique and American supermarket
	...

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