Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

  • Hacker News
  • Loved the acknowledgement and irony of the maids. I used to have a Kalamansi tree and it smells amazing.
  • Also known as Bamiya or Bamia (okra stew) among the Malay-Arab community in Singapore.
  • Iraqi Jews had other stories of food migration.

    For example there is the curious fact where due to Iraqi Jews the falafel in Israel has Amba as a condiment, originally an Indian mango chutney

  • > how an Iraqi stew sailed to Singapore

    Spoiler: it was a stewaway.

  • > For example, the paradox of Grandfather’s axe where the handle and the blade have long been replaced

    For a pop-culture reference, probably known mostly in the UK, see "Trigger's Broom".

    The character Trigger is a street sweeper and is given an award by the council for using the same broom for 20 years. Later he reveals the trick to good broom maintenance is to replace parts when they start to go, and says it has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles.

  • I love these kinds of tales of cultural fusion, because they're so much the norm in human history, and yet we've got this weird idea of fixed identities, categories, and cultures - trace any food, any dance, any music or art back far enough and you're walking continents, and frequently not the ones you think.
  • It’s interesting to note what ‘cultural staples and customs’ are actually a recent invention (in the grand scheme of things) or likewise popularized through corporations that advertised so hard that they embedded themselves into the very cultural fabric.

    Cf. hamburgers being maybe 100 years old; tomato sauce being only put on pasta in the late 18th century; ‘standard Italian’ not being codified until the unification of Italy in the late 19th century (one reason why Italian-Americans perhaps say capisch instead of capisci? Some southern accents dropping the -i! [really, they’re languages——languages are just dialects with an army]), the food that we call kimchi today only popularly containing peppers starting in the 19th century; and the whole thing with car companies in the United States tearing up tram tracks and lobbying for jaywalking to be considered a crime!

Explore Birbla archives