Street Food

Sometimes the link between smell, taste and memory amaze me. There would be nights in Cypress, in South Hadley, where I would wake confused. The taste of chaat masala, of red chili pepper still on my mind, on my tongue.
Missing the abundance of street food in Karachi had almost become a fact of life. Then I came back.

Here guys on little carts sell all kinds of delicacies: Assorted fruit, spiced and cut; sweet potatoes, roasted on coal and then sprinkled with salt and red chili powder; lemonade, squeezed fresh and spiced with rocksalt and chaat masala; chickpeas roasted in a wok filled with salt and pepper; and of course corn.

There are basically two ways to eat corn off a street vendor. The first is to eat the corn on the cob, roasted and sprinkled with lemon juice and red chili pepper.

The second, and my personal favorite is to buy little bags of the kernels which are roasted in a mixture of salt and pepper until crisp. Then the "bhuttawalla" (guy who sells street corn) squeezes lemon, salt, and red chili powder on it. Finally, he opens a small bag made of old newspaper, pours an adequate amount of "makai" (the corn kernels) into the bag, and hand it to you.