Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…It would be Delhi. It would be Delhi because, one, I’m a connoisseur or devourer as it were, or a glutton, when it comes to street food. I think that there is no street food better in the world than in Delhi, especially if you go to the older quarters in a market called Chandni Chowk, where you literally have rows and rows and rows and rows of shops that will give you just the best — both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. Also, because I think we’ve managed to combine that street food culture with a reasonably international food scene, as well as a regionally diverse food scene. Mumbai would come close. It would have to be between those two cities. I wanted to say Bangalore because it’s one of my very favorite cities, but in terms of my own food experience, I think it’s also that we are in the North. We eat more, and we care about food more. We’re also more unfit for that reason, but it’s true. Again, you’re drawing me into essentialisms that I disavowed myself from, but culturally, the Punjabi or the North Indian is obsessed with food. The notion of hospitality, of how you treat your guests, is very tied into food. You never let anyone go hungry from your home. It doesn’t matter whether that person is a stranger. It’s just steeped in the North Indian culture. I pick Delhi. I would pick Delhi because I think it does everything. It does the posh, it does the accessible, affordable, it does the street food, it does regionally diverse. Maybe I’m just more familiar with it because, other than New York, this is the city I’ve lived in all my life. I would pick Chennai, actually, for the vegetables, and put Bangalore near the bottom. I think Bangalore has a high average, but relatively low peaks. There’s nothing there that’s so special. Kolkata, you can’t dismiss either. Yes, you can’t dismiss any of these cities. I guess I’m grading them in terms of the sheer variety of options. I just think that the variety of options — the next time you’re in Delhi, maybe I can prove my point.…

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