Here is how we make garam masala seasoning in my house: we buy the dozen or so spices separately from a variety of different shops in Bangalore.
The black, white and long peppers from MK Ahmed; the cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg and star anise from the wholesale spice purveyors near Russell Market; and the black cumin or shahi jeera from my friend Syed Ibrahim, who brings it all the way from its source in Iran or Tajikistan. We roast these spices separately, cool them and then hand-mix them using a secret family recipe whose proportions I cannot divulge. After this painstaking process that tests one's patience, we grind the mixed spices in small batches to retain freshness.
Now, Alan D Wilson, the chief executive of McCormick Foods, based in the US, wants to change all that. McCormick has just bought a 26 per cent stake in Eastern Condiments, based in Kerala, for US$36 million (Dh132.2m) and plans to tap the Indian spice industry, valued at $5 billion. I have a word of advice for Mr Wilson: don't even bother.
You see, I am Mr Wilson's ideal customer: as a working mother who puts in long hours, I am part of the great Indian middle class that supposedly values the convenience that pre-packaged food brings. When I lived in New York, I routinely bought pre-packaged Indian dishes from Kalustyan's, the kind that you can pick off the rack in Harrods, Tesco and Sainsburys. Once I moved to India five years ago, my behaviour has changed 180 degrees.
McCormick has done well in the West, I'll grant it that. The use of spices in the US has doubled in the past 20 years, in no small part because of companies such as McCormick, which sanitise, grind and package spice mixes in an attractive and accessible manner. McCormick wasn't affected by the recession because more people began cooking at home and needed to, shall we say, spice things up.
The US market for spices, currently valued at $1.5bn, is expected to grow significantly in the coming years, thanks to the US's broadening spice profile. McCormick Canada recently launched six new "recipe mixes," including lemon ginger beef stir-fry, Tuscan chicken, Cajun chicken, hickory BBQ ribs, lemon thyme pork and balsamic chicken, all of which you can dust over a piece of meat or chicken, pop into the oven and get an entirely different flavour.
Europe too, particularly the UK and Germany, are great markets for McCormick's products, thanks to a growing acceptance of Thai, Chinese, Indian, Mexican and other ethnic cuisines.
In this context, McCormick's growth strategy in Asia and the Middle East makes logical, if not culinary, sense. China is currently McCormick's largest Asian market and the company brands its products locally to include soy sauce among other products. India comes next. Indians are predisposed towards including spices and have been doing so for aeons. It is what brought the Arabs, Dutch, Portuguese and British to our shores. That said, there are a few things that McCormick's sales guys need to factor in if they want to make a dent in the Indian market.
Indians, and all Asians, are suspicious of pre-packaged foods and spices. We may buy them when we are young and live in the West but once we return home, we go back to behaviour that is part of our roots.
Spices are a matter of pride for the Indian woman. She rarely divulges recipes, even to her own daughter-in-law unless the hapless bride has passed a series of Harry Potterish tests. For McCormick to come in and say its spices are better than the household version would be a fallacy.
Indians, even lower middle-class ones, have the luxury of help. In my house, my cook, Geeta, makes all my spice mixes. Why would I buy McCormick's recipe mixes when I have someone make it at home?
Enough of the naysaying. Now, on to the tips. There is one place where McCormick's ought to display and sell its products if it wants guaranteed sales: India's international airports. As a vegetarian, I obsess about my food when I travel abroad, particularly to vegetarian-unfriendly locations such as rural China, Chile, Argentina and South Korea. If I could buy a dozen packets of premixed Indian vegetarian food at the duty-free before I board my international flight, I would.
Another strategy McCormick's should adopt is to customise its spice mixes according to region. Just like Chinese regional cuisine, India too has a dizzying array of techniques and traditions that vary according to region. Unlike China though, we use a heck of a lot more spices, most of them mixed, which is good news for spice companies. Maharashtra has a goda masala that is virtually unknown in the south. The same garam masala is made differently in various parts of north India. The same applies to rasam powder, which is ubiquitous in south India; except with regional variations. The rasam powder of Karnataka where I now live has a pinch of sugar - anathema to the housewives of neighbouring Tamil Nadu. McCormick has to unlearn the standardisation of processes that made it such a success in the US and customise to the nth degree for the Indian subcontinent.
In local news interviews, Mr Wilson said the reason McCormick was not affected by the recession was because "industry" accounted for only 40 per cent of their sales. In India, McCormick should adopt the opposite strategy: it should rely on industries for sales. Large companies such as Infosys, Wipro and DLH all have corporate canteens that cook for large numbers of employees. It is unlikely that their cooks obsess about spice mixes the way an Indian housewife does. McCormick should depend on company canteens to make up their sales numbers.
Shoba Narayan is a journalist based in Bangalore and the author of Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
If you go
The flights
Etihad flies direct from Abu Dhabi to San Francisco from Dh5,760 return including taxes.
The car
Etihad Guest members get a 10 per cent worldwide discount when booking with Hertz, as well as earning miles on their rentals. A week's car hire costs from Dh1,500 including taxes.
The hotels
Along the route, Motel 6 (www.motel6.com) offers good value and comfort, with rooms from $55 (Dh202) per night including taxes. In Portland, the Jupiter Hotel (https://jupiterhotel.com/) has rooms from $165 (Dh606) per night including taxes. The Society Hotel https://thesocietyhotel.com/ has rooms from $130 (Dh478) per night including taxes.
More info
To keep up with constant developments in Portland, visit www.travelportland.com. Good guidebooks include the Lonely Planet guides to Northern California and Washington, Oregon & the Pacific Northwest.
ARSENAL IN 1977
Feb 05 Arsenal 0-0 Sunderland
Feb 12 Manchester City 1-0 Arsenal
Feb 15 Middlesbrough 3-0 Arsenal
Feb 19 Arsenal 2-3 West Ham
Feb 26 Middlesbrough 4-1 Arsenal (FA Cup)
Mar 01 Everton 2-1 Arsenal
Mar 05 Arsenal 1-4 ipswich
March 08 Arsenal 1-2 West Brom
Mar 12 QPR 2-1 Arsenal
Mar 23 Stoke 1-1 Arsenal
Apr 02 Arsenal 3-0 Leicester
From Europe to the Middle East, economic success brings wealth - and lifestyle diseases
A rise in obesity figures and the need for more public spending is a familiar trend in the developing world as western lifestyles are adopted.
One in five deaths around the world is now caused by bad diet, with obesity the fastest growing global risk. A high body mass index is also the top cause of metabolic diseases relating to death and disability in Kuwait, Qatar and Oman – and second on the list in Bahrain.
In Britain, heart disease, lung cancer and Alzheimer’s remain among the leading causes of death, and people there are spending more time suffering from health problems.
The UK is expected to spend $421.4 billion on healthcare by 2040, up from $239.3 billion in 2014.
And development assistance for health is talking about the financial aid given to governments to support social, environmental development of developing countries.
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Neil Thomson – THE BIO
Family: I am happily married to my wife Liz and we have two children together.
Favourite music: Rock music. I started at a young age due to my father’s influence. He played in an Indian rock band The Flintstones who were once asked by Apple Records to fly over to England to perform there.
Favourite book: I constantly find myself reading The Bible.
Favourite film: The Greatest Showman.
Favourite holiday destination: I love visiting Melbourne as I have family there and it’s a wonderful place. New York at Christmas is also magical.
Favourite food: I went to boarding school so I like any cuisine really.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
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- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Tips for taking the metro
- set out well ahead of time
- make sure you have at least Dh15 on you Nol card, as there could be big queues for top-up machines
- enter the right cabin. The train may be too busy to move between carriages once you're on
- don't carry too much luggage and tuck it under a seat to make room for fellow passengers
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In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
Guide to intelligent investing
Investing success often hinges on discipline and perspective. As markets fluctuate, remember these guiding principles:
- Stay invested: Time in the market, not timing the market, is critical to long-term gains.
- Rational thinking: Breathe and avoid emotional decision-making; let logic and planning guide your actions.
- Strategic patience: Understand why you’re investing and allow time for your strategies to unfold.
