Hacker News Reader

Comment by AStonesThrow | Hacker News Reader

TIL that Walkers in England is different than Walker’s Shortbread, the latter being the makers of really tasty goods in attractive keepsake tins. I was going to pick one up as a commemoration of King Charles III.

Also, papadums are spelled differently by Indian restaurants around here, because it is, after all, in transliteration.

This was inevitable as mass-produced snack food is influenced and derived from foreign cuisine. Papadums served in a restaurant are about 6” diameter, puffy, thin and delicate. Caraway seeds and other bumps are often noticeable. Always need a good chutney to dip into.

The Indian groceries also sell shelves full of savory crispy snacks that run the gamut. I hope that Walkers can hold their niche amongst cricket fans.

View on HN

There's a lotta different varieties... There are the poppadoms, the small bites which are the subject of the article.

Then there are paapads, which are basically the thin, less bubbly, often nearly plate-sized North Indian variety, often dosed with a smattering of spice. These are fire toasted and are the ones you commonly get at your local Indian for appetizer.

Then there's the South Indian appalam/pappadam which is smaller, made of rice, and often bubbly. Those usually are not spiced and are fried, often to eat with rice meals and not alone.

In some parts of South India like Bengaluru and Calicut, you can even get pappadams made out of jackfruit. These are usually made into conical shapes and are eaten as snacks.

Again, in transliteration, those names are all different ways of spelling the same word, borrowed even from Sri Lankan Tamil, even. It is unclear whether they are descriptive of a variety, or they are just varying because a different chef in a different region wrote in Latin characters in a different way.

பப்படம் → पापड़

The English Wikipedia covers the name's variants. And the jackfruit variety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papadam#Etymology

It is not my favorite appetizer, but the restaurants all seem to prepare them about the same. This is in the American Southwest with restaurants advertising cuisine of North India (vegetarian), Punjab, New Delhi, Pakistan, etc.

They are probably the most delicate crisp I've ever eaten. They crumble when I breathe on them or if they touch a drop of chutney. I wouldn't purchase them in a grocery store, for fear they would already be in crumbly pieces.

> Again, in transliteration, those names are all different ways of spelling the same word, borrowed even from Sri Lankan Tamil, even. It is unclear whether they are descriptive of a variety, or they are just varying because a different chef in a different region wrote in Latin characters in a different way.

This is what I was arguing against. All of the above examples I quoted are different products with just the same root word. The only similarity might be the base ingredients and the shape.

> It is not my favorite appetizer, but the restaurants all seem to prepare them about the same. This is in the American Southwest with restaurants advertising cuisine of North India (vegetarian), Punjab, New Delhi, Pakistan, etc.

That's because all of those restaurants are still North Indian cuisine. A South Indian restaurant will have the other kind. And honestly, they aren't supposed to be eaten as appetizers, but rather along with the meal. The pappadom with chutney and sambar combo was something I only learnt of when I went to the UK the first time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com