💬 The canteen samosa from school, I'll never find another like it

Our school canteen sold samosas for 5 rupees each from a steel tray. 2 for 9 if you asked nicely. Nothing special about them. Potato, a bit of peas, a thick skin that went soft at the corners. I'm 29 now and I've eaten samosas in Abids, Secunderabad, even at a 5 star wedding buffet. None of them come close. I don't know what the canteen lady did, and I never asked. The break was 20 minutes. We ran from class, 6 of us, and put coins on the counter at once. My friend Faisal always counted ours out loud and was always 1 coin short. We never fixed it. The lady gave us the samosa on a sheet torn from an old exercise book, with green chutney. The ink from the page would come off on the samosa. We ate it anyway. Nobody got sick. I went back to that school in 2022 for a cousin's function. The canteen is now a stationery shop. The counter is the same. I stood there like a fool, and a boy asked if I needed a pen. I bought a pen. It's a blue one, 10 rupees, and it writes badly. I use it for shopping lists. I asked him where the canteen went. He said, what canteen, sir? He was about 12. I tried making them at home with a recipe from the internet. My mother helped with the dough. They came out fine. Crispy, a little salty, 6 of them gone in 10 minutes. My mother said they were good. She's never lied to me about food before, so I believe her. But they weren't the school ones, and I knew it after the first bite.

I tried recreating my school's vada pav at home last year using what I remembered of the taste and it was nowhere close, which almost made me feel worse than not trying at all.

Ours was a puff with a thin potato filling, and I've never found one that matches it anywhere. I went back to the school in 2019 hoping the same lady still ran the counter. She'd retired. The new one used a different recipe, and the puff came out dry and a bit oily. I bought 3 anyway and ate them on the steps outside. Wrong taste, right steps.

The Maggi from our school canteen. 10 rupees a plate, always a bit overcooked, too much masala. Tasted better than any Maggi I've made since. I've tried. Same packet, same water, never the same. I think it was the steel plate and being so hungry after PT period. The canteen uncle gave extra to the boys who helped him carry crates. I helped him a lot.