Whether you prefer to think of this country as a melting pot or a salad bowl, the consequences for food writers are the same. As new arrivals introduce their native cuisines to the local mix, restaurant critics are obliged to learn about the dishes that define them.
For example, in the wake of Jacksonville gaining its first Indian restaurant in 1985 (Shalimar, located in a compact strip mall on Arlington Road), non-Indian staff writers at The Florida Times-Union scampered to familiarize themselves with chai, samosas and tandoori chicken.
“Diners are served complimentary dishes of vivid red-orange relish called chutney that comes with a wafer-thin lentil bread called papadam,” one reviewer explained in his 1991 assessment of Bombay Tandoor…