Daily US Times: A tweet from a UK-based academic and historian calling an Indian dish “boring” has sparked an amusing food war on Twitter.
“Idli are the most boring things in the world,” Edward Anderson, who teaches at Northumbria University in Newcastle, tweeted.
The Indian dish is a steamed rice cake and is usually eaten with a lentil-based vegetable stew called sambar. It is regarded as comfort food and gut friendly staple breakfast, popular with South Indians living in India and abroad. Food writer Vir Sanghvi described Idli the best known South Indian dish in India and perhaps, the world.
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris – who has a Jamaican-born father and Indian-born mother and – has fondly recalled that her mother was keen to instil in her a “love for good idli” during her holidays in the south Indian city of Chennai, formerly known as Madras.
Senator Kamala Harris, who is reaching out to Indian-American voters, is not the only politician who’s wooing voters with idli talk.
In the southern state of Tamil Nadu’s Salem city, politicians of India’s ruling party BJP are serving cheap “‘Modi idlis” – named after Indian PM Narendra Modi- to the during the coronavirus pandemic. This move is seen as an open challenge to Tamil Nadu’s local ruling AIADMK party which offers “amma idlis” – named after the late chief minister, J Jayalalithaa, who was fondly called amma or mother.
Dr Anderson posted his opinion in response to a question from an Indian food delivery service asking people what is the one dish “you can never understand why people like so much”.
The historian found out that his tweet was highly triggering for idli lovers, especially south Indians who exploded on Twitter.
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