It will take you all of 5 minutes to mix together some homemade taco seasoning, and you can use it just like the packets from the store minus all of the unpronounceable ick.
A white elephant gift exchange is a game played in the United States around the holidays. Some white elephant gift exchanges involve expensive gifts, such as lavish fur coats. Part of the point of a white elephant gift exchange is to surprise participants with strange gifts.
The essay Shooting an Elephant is set in a town in southern Burma during the colonial period. The country that is today Burma (Myanmar) was, during the time of Orwell's experiences in the colony, a province of India, itself a British colony.