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Two wooden boxes containing Indian spices and
foodstuffs arrived from India. One was for David
Tudor, the other for me. Each of us found, on
opening his box, that the contents were all mixed
up. The lids of plastic containers of spices had
somehow come off. Plastic bags for dried beans
and palm sugar had ripped open. The tin lids of
cans of chili powder had come off. All of these
things were mixed together and with the excelsior
which had been put in the box to keep the containers
in position. I put my box in a corner and simply
tried to forget about it. David Tudor, on
the other hand, set to work. Assembling
bowls of various sizes, sieves of about eleven
various-sized screens, a pair of tweezers,
and a small knife, he began a process which
lasted three days, at the end of which time
each spice was separated from each other, each
kind of bean from each other, and the palm sugar
lumps had been scraped free of spice and
excavations in them had removed embedded beans.
He then called me up to say,
“Whenever you want to get at that box of spices you
have, let me know. I’ll help you.”
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