I can say, from a little research, that none of these are related to the Indian Plum, also known as the osoberry, which in furtherance of all this confusion hails not from India but the Pacific coast of the North American continent. Pushing the botanical chaos even further, the ‘Indian Jujube’ does sometimes appear in plum guise, specifically in the wrinkled, preserved form of Xi Muoi, Vietnamese sour plums, which show up as both a Warhead-style sucker (taking the sucker-er through extreme stages of sweet, sour and salty, similar to those strange Chinese olives), and the basis for a refreshing tonic drink. I bought the plums pictured above in Denver over a year ago, and still haven’t figured out an adequate culinary use for them, beyond plunking one or two into a pitcher of lemonade or passing them off as candy to unsuspecting guests. The Indian Jujube, again appearing in its miniature, not-as-appley form, continues on the road toward utter mystification by appearing as one of the principal ingredients in this Chinese drink, a veritable party of exotic botanicals that falls within the inscrutable dessert category of ‘sweet soups.”
A jujube is both a candy - the American equivalent to German gummies and Turkish lokum - and a fruit, a red date which has a large variety of medicinal and culinary uses, mostly in Southeast Asian cultures. Part of the buckthorn family, it’s also closely related to Ziziphus mauritiana, the tree which produces the slightly stockier fruit known as the Bere (or the Ber, the Chinee Apple, Indian plum or Masau). Most popularly, it’s referred to as an ‘Indian Jujube,’ although the decidedly Indian Patel Brothers grocery at which I purchased this apple-like fruit also used ‘bere’ on its display. It’s hard enough to separate one cultivar from another when dealing with familiar fruits; this becomes downright impossible when you range out into foreign exotics, so I’ll leave it up to someone else to taxonomically classify all these different variants. The one I ate looked something like this, although with the green skin cast of a Granny Smith apple, with flesh that was similar but a bit softer in texture.
I can say, from a little research, that none of these are related to the Indian Plum, also known as the osoberry, which in furtherance of all this confusion hails not from India but the Pacific coast of the North American continent. Pushing the botanical chaos even further, the ‘Indian Jujube’ does sometimes appear in plum guise, specifically in the wrinkled, preserved form of Xi Muoi, Vietnamese sour plums, which show up as both a Warhead-style sucker (taking the sucker-er through extreme stages of sweet, sour and salty, similar to those strange Chinese olives), and the basis for a refreshing tonic drink. I bought the plums pictured above in Denver over a year ago, and still haven’t figured out an adequate culinary use for them, beyond plunking one or two into a pitcher of lemonade or passing them off as candy to unsuspecting guests. The Indian Jujube, again appearing in its miniature, not-as-appley form, continues on the road toward utter mystification by appearing as one of the principal ingredients in this Chinese drink, a veritable party of exotic botanicals that falls within the inscrutable dessert category of ‘sweet soups.”
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Few foods are as perfect for fusion as sandwiches, which whether in Dagwood monumental style or miniature snack size allow for a variety of differing ingredients to share one bready meeting place. Over the span of one week I consumed four fusion-oriented sandwiches, prepared with varying degrees of success: 1 - Paneer Achari Tikki / Polenta / Orange Tomatoes / Cilantro / Tamarind & Date Chutney: A leftover serving of these delectable cheese kebabs paved the way for a vaguely Indian-themed sandwich, using the ubiquitous tamarind date chutney (familiar as part of the omnipresent trio of condiments offered at Indian restaurants), also available in bottle form. A previous attempt at haphazardly pairing lamb shami kebab with polenta having proven successful, I embarked on the larger scale effort of mixing mild corn pap with Subcontinental flavors, fresh herbs and cherry tomatoes. The result was possibly the most successful of these four sandwiches, and also the only photograph taken under ideal circumstances. Fair warning that the backdrop will only grow more rumpled, and the staging more haphazard, as we continue.
Three snack snapshots from a recent visit to this Jackson Heights supermarket: My best guess here is that the rabbit and child combo is intended to communicate the healthful properties of these veggie-spiked dried papads, but something has clearly gone wrong. The rabbit is terrifying and the child looks morose. I have in the past purchased the green-chili variety of this brand, which fry up nicely and are free from any bug-eyed bunny monsters on the packaging.
Chinatown seafood markets are probably the most visible alternative fish source in New York City, their often-alien, still-wriggling wares splayed out in overflowing streetside cases. Other ethnic variations on the seafood store do pop up here and there in the post-Fulton Fish Market era: old-school neighborhood Italian places scattered around the fringes of the Outer Boroughs, octopus-hawking Greek suppliers in Astoria, tidy little Japanese spots stocked with pre-made sushi containers. Nestled amid the Subcontinental bustle of Jackson Heights, Haat Bazaar is the first Indian shop I’ve seen that deals in fresh fish, several varieties displayed in plastic containers laid out on the floor. Ice was not a feature of this lively establishment, which hosts an adjoining Bengali restaurant and a healthy stock of dry goods in addition to the slippery piles of eels, grouper and flatfish, not to mention an occasional intrusion from the adjacent fruit section.
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The coded language of snacks, sandwiches and seasonings, in NYC and beyond.
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