Habshi Halwa

Arts & Culture Culture, Arts, Literature & Linguistics
1

how racist of a nation can we be that we call a sweet Habhsi halwa, just because its dark brown in color.

What other examples of racism we have in our society, that we take for granted?

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Re: Habshi Halwa

Brownie?

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Re: Habshi Halwa

Points?

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Re: Habshi Halwa

Kinda sad that we're talking about sweets associated with black race when another black teen got shot by US police.

5

Hareem, brownie is because brown is a color, just like we have zarda, because rice is zard (yellow) in color.

And till when are we going to justify the illness of our society, by pointing fingers at others? In you country, a boy got shot by the guards of a VIP. What do you think of that?

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Re: Habshi Halwa

is it not yours?

Interesting...but anyway, what harm can a piece of sweet do to a society made up of so many different colours? If anyone, The Makraanis should take offence to it.

7

Good way of justifying racism Hareem. What harm can come to society where people get killed because their last name is Hussain or Abbas. If anything, let shias worry about that

Well let's see what others have to say about it.

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Re: Habshi Halwa

Also, Habash is the name for Africa and naming a sweet after the skin colour of Africans doesn't have to be seen as an insulting thing.

But on the other hand, I find naming white cake as Angel White Cake and dark chocolate cake as Devil's Food Cake highly racist.

9

The term habshi in our country is not used for people from habsha. It's used for black skinned people. And that halwa is not called habshi halwa because it's from habsha.

Aap ko pataa hai ke aap behes baraaye behes kar rahee hain

10

Hai hum US walay. Koi thread nahi bakhshi jati... Hum US walay jayeen to kahan jayeen

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Re: Habshi Halwa


dukh bhari yeh daastaaN? :D

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Re: Habshi Halwa

Op, you're talking about sweets receiving titles based on skin color. People switch the equation around to use sweets to describe their skin color. For instance dark-skinned people using foods like mocha, chocolate, toffee, honey and caramel to describe their skin tones. So, basically the reverse of what you're saying.

Though....err.....I haven't come across any poet or aashiq or female fondly liken complexion to habshi halwa. Desis are great lovers of chai...but it's never a compliment when one says "rang chai jaisa ho gaya hai." While the non-desi counterparts will see the comparison of skin to tea or chai as a positive thing. Ot maybe that's an attempt to "sweeten" or put a more positive spin on darker skin.

Btw...not justifying the title habshi halwa.

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Re: Habshi Halwa

You know brownie's lighter colored rival right? Blondie.

At least in the confectionary world if not the human world....brownie is more popular and beloved than blondie.

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Re: Habshi Halwa

Do you have any scholarly evidence for your stance or you are speculating?
I can give positive twist to this and say long time ago there was this guy who visited Hubsha and liked this sweet dish and introduced it in IndoPak and named it Habshi Halwa.
Afterall biryani , qorma , various kinds of kababs etc are so popular in IndoPak they all are adopted from different parts of the world.
I did a little googling and found this positive twist to the reason behind name of this halwa:

The word Habshi has it's origins in Arabic/Persian and it has been incorporated into several other languages. It basically describes a black person , quite literally the one who comes from "Habash" (Ethiopia) , it was one of the words used at the time to refer to the African slaves who were brought to work in the Indian subcontinent and possibly a large number of them came from Ethiopia but the word came to be used for all Africans in general. So, either the "Habshis" introduced the peculiar halwa in the middle east which was later introduced in the subcontinent , or it was directly brought to the subcontinent by them. Because interestingly even the word Halwa (sweetmeat) is of Arabic origin which again finds place in many languages.

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Re: Habshi Halwa


yeh fatwa thaa janaab e aali! :) TLK bhai is our resident Mufti-e-'Azam...i'm his assistant...MuftiyoN se evidence nahiiN maangaa karte! :D :p

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Re: Habshi Halwa

I used to be his real assistant, still I have the right to "khainchow his taang". :)

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Re: Habshi Halwa


hahahaha...vo aapkaa daur thaa aur yeh hamaaraa daur hai...welcome to the 'club' :)

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Re: Habshi Halwa

Op, halwa is also made in the Middle East, and various parts of Africa and Europe. In Somalian cuisine, there is a very dark halwa...they call it halwo...darker than habshi halwa. And the texture of habshi halwa is similar to thr moldable textures of Middle eastern halwa. So, unless we are absolutely certain about the origins of habshi halwa and how it got its name....there is some room to speculate that maybe the title was not given with racist intentions.

If the title was given in a mocking way, then that's unfortunate. But nevertheless...habshi halwa is yummy!!! A bit too sweet, but good stuff.

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Re: Habshi Halwa

You know exactly what I am talking about. :k:

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Re: Habshi Halwa

RV, I distinctly recalled you called someone else Op yesterday. How many OP's on this forum?