A Canadian newcomer walks into a store...

By Meera Sharma

Image credit: Kabir Cheema on Unsplash

We made many new friends in our early years in Canada. They were all from different cultures and it was fun seeing the ways in which our ways were similar – or not.

For instance, Pia said her mother-in-law expected her to remove her husband’s shoes and powder his feet when he came home from work. They were originally from Italy.

I remember going, “Yuck! Even in India mothers-in-law don’t expect that these days!”

After visiting another friend I came home and said to my husband that I used to think only our cuisine used such strong flavours but Karen used much more garlic in her cooking than I ever did! Her family was from Yugoslavia.

We also exchanged dishes and shared recipes. One day, Pia asked me if I could handle spice. I laughed and informed her that no one, but no one, ate spicier food than Indians.

She loved hot sauce, she said excitedly, when I promised to bring her samosas and chutney the next time we met.

I picked up samosas from a nearby takeout place, but decided to make my own special chutney to go with them.

As she had said she liked hot, I threw in an extra few green chillies.

Pia was eager to try it and dipped her samosa into the chutney and took a big bite. And immediately lunged for water, choking and sputtering. Her face looked like it was on fire and she was gasping, her eyes watering, arms flailing.

It would have been comical if I hadn’t been frozen with fear. What had I done to her? I plied her with milk to cool her tongue, apologizing profusely.

“You guys eat this?” she asked, when she could finally speak. “How?”

“But you said you like hot sauce,” I said, apologizing again.

“I do, but that’s nowhere near this fiery! Here, try my hot sauce,” she said, pulling out a bottle of a commercially available hot sauce.

Some would call it hot, I suppose, but I found it more sharp and vinegary than anything.

Any doubts I may have had about whether our new friendship would survive my chutney were soon laid to rest, however, when Pia picked up another samosa and gleefully announced, “Form now on, we are the Spice Girls!”