The road journal · the pastry
Before it became a golden bite, the samosa crossed Persia, Central Asia, India, the Indian Ocean and the ports of Southeast Asia.
Contents
Where the road begins
The samosa's roots lie in the Persian and Arab world, where a meat-filled pastry called sanbosag or sambusak fed travelling merchants.
10th-century Baghdad cookbooks already describe fried sambusak. Once a banquet dish, it spread along trade routes; in Central Asia it became the oven-baked samsa.
One dish, six names
Each border changed the name, never the idea.
Six names, one idea: a spiced filling sealed in pastry.
The samosa reached India with Central Asian traders and dynasties.
Potatoes, brought by Portuguese sailors, gave birth to the vegetarian samosa now common across northern India.
By sea
From India, the samosa set sail east and west.
It reached East Africa, Mauritius and Réunion, then France.
Indian communities made it an everyday snack, next to the local karipap.
Fried in front of passers-by, eaten whole or in samusa thoke salad.
The filling travels, the pastry protects it.味わう道
Folding pastry into triangles seals the filling in several layers, so nothing leaks while frying and it travels well.
If oil bubbles escape from a corner, an edge wasn't sealed well enough.
One cousin among many
Nems in Vietnam, karipap in Malaysia, pastel in Indonesia: the samosa found plenty of crispy cousins.
What's inside
Every cuisine filled it with what it had.
Eat it hot. In India with mint and tamarind chutneys; in France as a starter; in Southeast Asia on the go.
At the Asian Road counter
“Beef flavoured with spices, wrapped in thin, crispy pastry.”
At 9 rue Laurent Fauchier in central Aix-en-Provence, our beef samosa sits on the Crispy Road next to the nems.
Everything is on the page our beef samosa in Aix-en-Provence.
FAQ
Further reading
The samosa is just one stop. The rest of the journey is in the journal.
Keep on the road
