Have you seen the movie ‘American Pie’?

This is called an empanada.

But why not just enjoy fruits as fruits? Why do you have to do fancy stuff to them?

why, ak, that’s brilliant! Thanks, I’ll be making this for my next party.

I hate Indian sweets. They’re too syrupy. They’re just variations of sugar. Why not a healthier fruit stuffed into a triangular/conical pastry with other savories and baked. Some creative Indian could figure how to make this more brown and less than an alternative-geometry pie. Hmmmm….How about have a matrix for the fruit to be made of a soft/boiled sweet potato that’s very soft. Let it cool, add fruits. Perhaps something to neutralize the sourness of some fruits, but the boiled potatoes can do this (neutralize the tartness). Wrap this up in the conical pastry sheet. And bake. Sift bakers sugar on top of this.

yum. one of my favourite snack foods from india are banana chips doused with asofetida.

and since we are discussing fusion food – i highly recommend gulab jamuns in a syrup spiked with malibu rum – they’re “off the hook.”

Good catch.

But why excuse my anglicization of Chennai and my shortening of Yazhpaanam? Until what point is it excusable to refer to Chennai as Madras?

My late grandfather, who was a peasant and petty merchant educated mainly in Thamizh, was pretty comfortable refering to his place as Thinnevelli as were/are other relatives and family friends sprinkled across Nagercoil and Palayamkottai.

More power to you. But why use the British accent (pronunciation) on Tirunelveli and call it Tinnevelly? Now that is grating coming from a Tamizh

I love my eggs cooked sunny side up. I love that Indians can pick up any accent they want–American, British, Russian–faux or real. I personally can speak 6 different kinds of Tamil (Madras, Tinnevelly, Jaffna, etc) and I’ve stopped counting how many different accents my English has–they cannot all be real, so all but one must be fake. Question is, which is my authentic one?

But that being said, I do believe that Indian food is one of the best foods in the world, thanks to our nice soil, climate conditions, many different cooking technique, spices, and cultures that we have absorbed.

Careful now, that may be an example of a cringe-worthy statement in some people’s books, including mine. It gives the impression that Indians are among the few selected peoples the world over that have mastered the art of feasting while all others are harvesting produce from Mars (the planet) and having it processed by Mars (the company) for mere sustenance.