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Two wooden boxes containing Oriental 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 containers of spices had
somehow come off. Plastic bags of 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 with each other 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 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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