Samosas have now boldly gone where no mini-quiche, egg roll, or jalapeno popper has gone before: space. Appetizers are out there living more exciting lives than any of us right now. I’m proud of this samosa—I really am—but damn, it’s hard not to feel a little jealous right now. When this pandemic is over, I’m going to stop making excuses and start taking more risks in my life. That’s what this hero samosa would want me to do.
The high-flying operation was the work of Niraj Gadher, who runs the Chai Walla restaurant in Bath, England. He had once made a joke about sending a samosa into space, something he never actually planned on doing, because, honestly, who has the time? But now we all have nothing but time, and Gadher began to realize that perhaps a video of a samosa in space was exactly what the world needed.
“I said as a joke once that I would send a samosa into space, and then I thought during this bleak times [sic] we could all use a reason to laugh,” said Gadher in conversation with SomersetLive. “The feedback is that it’s bought a lot of laughter from people and that’s what we wanted really, to spread joy.”
Gadher posted a short documentary of the samosa’s adventures to YouTube, showing that accomplishing such an extraordinary feat was no easy process. The first attempt at launch went horribly awry, with Gadher accidentally letting go of the balloons before the samosa was properly strapped in. The second attempt was stymied by a shortage of helium. On the third attempt, the samosa finally took flight, with a GoPro camera in tow to capture every minute of its stratospheric adventure.
The next day, an attached GPS tracker alerted Gadher that the samosa had returned to Earth’s surface and landed in Caix in Northern France. Sadly, by the time someone was sent to recover the weather balloon the samosa was gone, most likely eaten by local wildlife. But the GoPro footage survived, so may we never forget the samosa that made the ultimate sacrifice so the world could smile, if only for a short while.