Jalebi is from Afghanistan/Persia
and Biryani is from Central Asia
Samosa is from Egypt
A short history of the samosa
With a chutney of your choice.
Here’s a shocker: our very own
samosa was never ours. You read that right. The neatly folded, tightly packed savoury goodness that we thought belonged to South Asian soil actually travelled here all the way from Central Asia centuries ago. But thanks to its amazing social networking skills, it cleverly adapted to the local’s tastes and happily settled among its culinary brethren and became one of them.
This is one food that has travelled far and wide, and like any popular traveller has left its footprints along the way. From Egypt to Libya and from Central Asia to India, the stuffed triangle with different names has garnered immense popularity. Originally named
samsa, after the pyramids in Central Asia, historical accounts also refer to it as
sanbusak,
sanbusaq or even
sanbusaj, all deriving from the Persian word,
sanbosag. In South Asia, it was introduced by the Middle Eastern chefs during the Delhi Sultanate rule, although some accounts credit traders for bringing the fare to this part of the world. Nevertheless, from its humble beginnings—in older days, people would cook the mince-filled triangles over campfire and eat them as snacks during travel—
samosa has come a long way. And after having earned the blessings of the Indian royalty, the snack soon became food fit for the king.
Today,
samosa is a popular snack in many parts of the world. Perhaps its biggest secret to popularity and survival over the centuries is its different varieties of fillings catering to carious tastes across the globe. In Kazakhstan, for example, a
somsa is typically baked and has a thicker, crumblier crust. Fillings generally range from minced lamb and onions, meat, and even pumpkin. The
Hyderabadi luqmi, on the other hand, is strictly meat-filled and far crustier than the regular
samosa consumed elsewhere in India and Pakistan. In the Middle East, the semicircular
sambusak is stuffed with feta cheese, onions, minced chicken and meat, spinach, and in case of Jewish cuisine, mashed chickpeas.
Perfect snack
But for us,
samosa is the gorgeous, deep fried, twisted pack of spicy goodness that oozes with chicken, meat or potato. Few family gatherings or
iftar parties are complete without this signature snack. And what does one do when guests arrive at a short notice? You guessed right. There are few snacks that couple as perfectly with tea as
samosa, and the
chai-samosa team is probably the reason behind thousands of brain-storming sessions and heated discussions. Even those tiny, bite-size ones have 28 calories each.Be it an evening chat with friends at the street corner khoka, or a sophisticated business meeting in an air-conditioned room, the call for a
samosaremains a constant. What can be better than biting into a hot, karahi-fried, chutney-coated snack, inhaling in its herb-essenced scent, munching on spicy, meat/vegetable filling, crunching on a coriander seed, tasting that teasing taste of ginger-garlic … you get the picture.
