| Three years ago, while
visiting my daughter Sat Prakash in
Amritsar, Punjab State, India, I bought some almond oil in one of the
local
shops. The stuff smelled really good, sort of like almond extract but
much
sweeter, and this was surprising to me because for many years I had
bought
Hain or Spectrum brand almond oil in the U.S. and it never smelled like
anything
close to an almond. Even the high priced massage oils didn't have any
almond
smell. What's the deal, olive oil smells like olives! Sesame oil smells
like
sesame seeds! This was perplexing, I even started to wonder if the shop
owners
were adding some artificial almond smell to their almond oil, or
something,
to sell it to stupid tourists.
So
on my next trip to India I took it upon myself to find out the "Truth"
of what was going on here....my own little JFK, Martin and Malcolm
conspiracy story. I started asking questionsand the first two people I
asked (one American and one local Punjabi) said that an artificial
scent was added and that
the shells were removed by some awful chemical method. At this point I
almost threw in the towel. But then, I thought, these two guys did seem
to have some pretty wild ideas in other areas, so, I thought I'd
ask my Punjabi friend Hardeep Singh if he knew where the oil
was made. (Ya see,
maybe it was how I posed the question. I emphasized "where" instead of
"how".
Check it out. An answer to "where" has to be black and white. But if
you
ask "how", you might end up wondering who made the "birds and plastic"
in the beginning. Not objective at all. Belief systems may come into
play).
Well, my friend Hardeep knew where and the how never came up. So
we took a ten minute walk and came to a very small storefront
with
a big room in back where the actual process took place.The pictures
below
tell the story. Many questions were answered. My mind was more than
satisfied.
One
thing though....the question still remains, "what happens to the God
given scent/flavoring, and perhaps even the vital essence, that
"should" be in our domestic almond oil? I mean, is it possible to
remove the scent and not remove other qualities? I don't think so! I do
know that there is a market for almond extract, Almondine and
Marzipan.
By
the way, I pay about $10 a liter (450 rupees) for this good Punjabi
Almond oil, so
no
great import opportunity here. I wish you could smell it. Maybe one day
when the
internet
can do "scratch and sniff".
|
|
These
guys seemed amused with all the attention. The language barrier
made it even more so.
Until
almonds are purchased locally,
which
would bring down the price,
it
is not profitable to bring this oil
back
to the states. It would make sense to press the oil here, however.
Anybody
got a buffalo just sittin
around,
not paying rent?
|
(that's me in the white) |
