After a recent meal in the Little India section of Jersey City, Katie and I indulged in some pan (also written as paan), which I’d vaguely remembered reading about on Boing Boing a while back.
We ordered them from a Photomat-sized booth across the street from the restaurant that was decorated with Christmas lights and had bodega-like items for sale. The only question the man behind the counter asked was whether we wanted our pan regular or “tropical.” We figured we’d go with the former as we might not be ready to handle tropical just yet. Because the opening of the booth was high, I couldn’t see what he was doing, other than dispensing mystery pastes out of plastic squeeze bottles and sprinkling other ingredients atop vivid green heart-shaped plant leaves. I didn’t know it at the time but apparently the pan variety we had was betel nut, which is betel leaf filled with a betel nut paste and something like 11 secret herbs and spices.
Our pan man then folded the leaf over the ingredients and presented one to each of us tightly wrapped in a square of foil placed in a white Zip-Loc bag the size of a playing card. On the front of the bags, in a jaunty green script, was printed a slogan:
We Do Cater Pan Laxmi Masala
and Fresh Sugar-Can Juice for Any Occassion
Yes, those are sics: sugar can juice and Occassion. Just because my inner copy editor (I call him Alan) wondered whether these errors were indicative of the effects this mysterious object might have on my various bodily systems, including spelling, didn’t mean I shouldn’t give it a try.
You’re meant to tuck the pan in your mouth, suck on it and spit out the juices, just a pinch between the cheek and gum, as those old smokeless tobacco ads used to drawl, but the thing was the size of a butterfly cocoon. I crammed it into my mouth as close to my jawbone as I could muster and imagined I looked like a hillbilly and/or Major League Baseball player. If I’m grasping the pan concept correctly, while it’s in there, it’s meant to invigorate and aid in digestion. In other words, it’s a lot like a digestif. Although with most digestifs, once you’ve taken a taste, you don’t keep spitting it out, unless you’re at some sort of fancy brandy tasting event, and even there, you’re likely not spitting on the ground.
You see, whatever was in that pan gave a Chuck Norris-caliber roundhouse kick to my salivary glands and I was spitting all over the place, in a vivid red hue. I had popped the leafy cocoon in my mouth just as I exited the PATH train at the World Trade Center, estimating the underground walk from there to the A train would span enough distance for my pan to offer maximum effectiveness. It wasn’t long enough; I spit in every trash can on my way and at the base of every pillar. I tried to be discreet and reserved my furtive expectorations for when other pedestrians weren’t walking towards me from the opposite direction. By the time I reached the Chambers Street station, my pan still hadn’t given up, so I directed my ptooey onto the subway tracks. I was hoping there’d be a pack of rats milling around down there that I could take aim at, but the patchouli stink may have been keeping them at bay. As the A train approached, I toyed with the idea of taking an end seat and merely spitting out the door at each stop, but I think that would be frowned upon, even in New York.
Results? My pan made me feel wide-eyed and wired, in an up-late-on-No-Doz sort of way. The taste was hard to describe, but like that of incense, with an oily mouthfeel that lingered on my mouth lining a full day afterwards, even after I brushed my teeth later that night. I’d try it again. Maybe I’ll go “tropical” next time.