Two Kilos of Dal Cost About $3 in Nagpur. On Lexington Avenue They Cost About $14.
A kilo of chana and a kilo of tur are about $3 in Nagpur. The same amount is about $7 from a Houston sack and about $14 from the small bags on Lexington Avenue.
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Chana dal in Nagpur, the split chickpea, is ₹114 a kilo. Tur dal, split pigeon pea, is ₹175 for a better grade. Satara Pratinidhi, a Maharashtra paper, published those retail prices on October 26, from its Nagpur correspondent. A month and a half earlier the same count had chana at ₹92 and tur at ₹162.
The rupee closed Thursday at ₹95.26 to the dollar. That makes the chana about $1.20 a kilo and the tur about $1.84. A kilo of each, the basket used here so the cities can be compared, comes to ₹289, about $3.03. Before the rise the pair was about $2.67. The extra on that pair is ₹35, about 37 cents.
Last October, in that same note, tur was ₹130 and chana was ₹70. At today's exchange those old prices are about $1.36 and about $0.73 a kilo. The year moved the dal more than the past month and a half did. Neither climb is the one you meet at a counter in Houston, Manhattan, or Brampton.
Keemat's website, which lists the shop at 5601 Hillcroft Street and three other Houston-area stores, has a 4-pound bag of its own chana dal at $5.99 and Laxmi plain toor at $6.99 for 4 pounds. Those were the listings on October 29. A kilo of that chana is about $3.30, a kilo of the toor about $3.85, and a kilo of each about $7.15. The bags ring up at $12.98, and you walk out with 4 pounds of each, more than the single kilo in the Nagpur sum.
New Foods of India, at 121 Lexington Avenue, is down to the 2-pound bag. Chana is $5.99 and toor is $6.99, so the register says $12.98 and you still have less than a kilo of either. At that rate a full kilo of each is about $14.30. The 4-pound bags are on the site and out of stock. Two pounds is a dinner. It is an expensive way to fill the shelf.
Indian Punjabi Bazaar, at 115 Father Tobin Road in Brampton, lists a 7-pound chana dal at 8.70 Canadian dollars and dry toor, 2 pounds, at 4.89. The Canadian dollar was worth about 71.6 U.S. cents on Thursday. The chana comes out near $1.96 a kilo, the closest of these three to Nagpur's $1.20, because the bag is large. The dry toor is about $3.86 a kilo. A kilo of each is about $5.82. Oily toor, the grains with oil rubbed on so they keep, is a different listing. This basket is the dry dal.
Stock the week from the 4-pound or the 7-pound bag. Buy the Lexington bags when that dinner is the errand. The chickpea pot is Chana Masala. Everyday Dal Tadka is the tempering, written for moong or masoor. The same fat and spices go on tur. The mithai is a separate receipt: Why Diwali Sweets Cost More This Year.