Spiritual Baptist/Shaker Liberation Day

Spiritual Baptist in Trinidad (taken by johnhanscom on Flickr)

Christianity has had its schisms. And beyond the obvious Catholic/Orthodox break, the Avignon Papacy, and the Protestant reformation, we can really break all Christians down into two groups: the somber, reverent Christian, and those who like to make some noise. It was only a matter of time before the somber ones would complain about the noise, and ask them to turn down all the racket.

This is what happened in 1917 in Trinidad and Tobago, with the Spiritual Baptists (who were pejoratively called "Shakers" since they would shake while overtaken by the Holy Spirit). Spiritual Baptism is a syncretic religion which was started in Trinidad, and which combines Christianity with elements of African religions. In 1917, the government passed the Shouters Prohibition Ordinance (read the complete text here, it's not too long), claiming that the reason was because they simply made too much noise and disturbed the peace. Certainly though, another big reason was that the religion had its roots in African traditions, and at the time everything from Africa was looked down upon. The movement was also growing in numbers, and other religious groups didn't like having their numbers siphoned off.

But even still, this prohibition is fairly surprising since Trindiad and Tobago is an incredibly diverse nation. The Spanish, French and later the English all left their imperial stamp on native populations. Black Africans were brought in as slaves and later Indians were brought in to work as indentured servants. As such, Christians make up only about 47% of the population, Hindus 22%, and Muslims about 6%.

After years of struggling for their religious freedom, the prohibition was finally repealed in 1951. Like most Caribbean nations, Trinidad and Tobago has a very high emigration rate, and so the religion has spread out wherever Trinidadians have, throughout the Caribbean, the Americas, and Europe. In 1996, the government of Trinidad and Tobago granted the Spiritual Baptists their own public holiday, in memorial of their struggles for freedom. And I say, today is simply a good day to celebrate freedom of religion for all faiths and creeds, especially if you're going to celebrate with some authentic Trinidadian street food.

Our doubles sandwich

It is a little bit discouraging to know that whenever you're having a meal, chances are someone else is eating better than you are. And chances are that someone is in the Caribbean. From Jamaican Jerk Chicken, to barbecue pork and mofongo in Puerto Rico, this region of the world has a monopoly on fantastic food. Trinidad and Tobago is no exception, so we decided to prepare one of their most famous street foods: the East Indian-inspired doubles sandwich, which consists of two slices of bara (a fried bread), and a curried chickpea filling, often dressed with cucumbers, mango chutney, and hot sauce.

Open sandwich

We more or less followed this recipe from Epicurious.com, only I had to go meet some people so we didn't really have time to let the dough rise. So it didn't turn out exactly like it should have. We also didn't have any mango chutney, but they were nevertheless very good. If you like curry or Indian food, I highly recommend giving this recipe a try. The filling is quick to make and requires few ingredients. You'll just need to leave yourself a little bit more time for the dough to rise than I did. We're going to try experimenting with a way to bake the bread instead of frying it, just so we can be a little bit healthier.

Very tasty, and a little messy

For more information about Spiritual Baptists, check out this article from the National Library of Trinidad and Tobago.

Day of the Young Combatant

To fight is youth

Is there any group more vilified these days than youth? Though we used to say "the children are our future", it seems nowadays all we hear about is how morally corrupt, untrustworthy, and lazy the youth of today are (and I have a feeling this goes deeper than because they skate around the mall in heelys). News reports and talk shows constantly ask what can be done about today's immoral youth. Rarely is it mentioned that in going to war in Afghanistan, we attacked a country where 43% of the population is under the age of 14, or that 40% of the population of Iraq is under the age of 15 (let alone that a decade of US-backed UN sanctions before this had led to the deaths of half a million Iraqi youth and children). Or even closer to home, no one talks about how the United States has the highest poverty rate for minors in the industrialized world at 21.9%.

So when I found out that in both Chile and Taiwan days which celebrated youth would be held, I got excited. Finally, there were some countries that wanted to celebrate everything good and praiseworthy about youth. I decided to take the Chilean route, since I figured it would be easier to make completos than stinky tofu. Imagine my partial dismay then, when reading into it more I discovered that Chile's Day of the Youth Combatant was not only not an official holiday, but also a day celebrated with acts of vandalism, civil disorder, and anarchy which in turn disrupts the infrastructure of all major Chilean cities (and to be sure, at least some of them are going to be sporting heelys).

Well let's get a little bit of history first before being too judgmental. From 1973 to 1990 Chile was a military dictatorship ruled by Augusto Pinochet. Two young combatants and revolutionaries of this time, Rafael and Eduardo Vergara Toledo, were assassinated by the government on March 29, 1985. Since the end of the Pinochet regime and a return to sanity, the day has been commemorated with increasingly violent protests, pillaging, and acts of vandalism.

Sorry Chilean Youth, but the earthquake vandalized this building first

Maybe I am getting old, but I find the spirit of the day more agreeable than the actions. It is hard for me to condone mob violence meant for a man who's been out of power for twenty years. But then again, it's not my country, and I'm not the one who lost a compatriot. Of course, we'll have to see how "celebrations" go this year, since thousands of Chileans are still suffering as a result of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake last February. An article in the Santiago-based newspaper La Tercera published this article (which is in Spanish, but you can always use Google Translate) today titled Los verdaderos jóvenes combatientes son los miles de voluntarios que han ayudado a reconstruir (The true youth combatants are the thousands of volunteers that have helped with reconstruction). The article quotes several local leaders asking that the commemorations for the day be civil and peaceful.  The vice-president of a national youth organization has said, "The nation requires unity at this time, and so we call on those who want to commemorate this date, to do so remembering those Chileans who are still suffering." Let's all hope the day plays out peacefully.

Ensalada Chilena and a Completo

On to the topic of hot dogs then: they're great. If you don't like them, perhaps it's because your mom always bought the cheap ones and boiled them. But if you've had the real deal, it's heavenly. I'm a fan of Chicago-style hot dogs myself, where they virtually build a salad on the thing, although Gray's Papaya in Manhattan is probably the best all around dog I've ever had. Chile is also known for their style of hot dog, called a completo (meaning "complete"). The key to dressing a completo is in the following ingredients: avocado, diced tomatoes, and mayonnaise (and if you want to be truly South American, there should be more mayonnaise than meat). Sauerkraut, Ketchup, Mayonnaise, and ají chili sauce are all optional.

The final product topped with sauerkraut and hot sauce

We had the whole thing with a side of Ensalada Chilena, but I've really got to rave about the completos. A chili dog is good, but really quite a heavy meal. Something about the avocado and mayonnaise makes this a much lighter, refreshing affair. It might be just the thing for a springtime afternoon, and I'm sure it would go down just as well at a summer barbecue.

Palm Sunday (Romanian Orthodox-style)

Despite growing up and spending my whole life Christian, it wasn't until I lived in Argentina that I realized Easter was supposed to be a week long celebration. I had heard of Palm Sunday and Good Friday, but really had no idea what they were. Maybe my church just didn't emphasize the idea of Holy Week enough, or my parents just weren't the celebrating kind. Perhaps I didn't pay enough attention in Sunday School. What seems all the more likely though is that South Americans tend to take religious holidays and ceremonies way more seriously than their North American counterparts. Whatever the reason, I decided this year that we should take the week a little bit more seriously, seeing how for most of the Christian world, it's the most important holiday on the calender.

Christ Entering Jerusalem Icon

Since my religious background didn't really provide me with many Holy Week traditions, I decided to co-opt some from Orthodox Christianity. Since getting to visit Sarajevo, Belgrade, and various cities in Romania, I've been very impressed with their cathedrals--especially the artwork. As an American more accustomed with Catholicism and Protestant traditions, there is something that seems genuinely foreign and yet familiar about it all. Separating the altar and the nave of most Orthodox churches is an iconostasis, which contains a series of icons commemorating Christ, the Theotokos (also known as the Virgin Mary), Old Testament patriarchs, the twelve apostles, and various feast days (including several from Holy Week). A typical Orthodox home will also have an icon corner set apart to display similar images. So I first got into the spirit of things by printing out several icons from the internet and making my own little icon corner. (And just in case anyone thinks this is idolatry of some sort, it's not. In my church, no one seems to have a problem with having pictures of Jesus or other religious figures around the house. But most of these are modern, and for some reason I connect more with those in a more Byzantine style).

Though Palm Sunday is typically the first day of Holy Week for most Western Christians, in the Eastern traditions it will start on Saturday, where they remember Christ raising Lazarus from the dead. So we actually started our celebration last night. I read John 11 outline and then we listened to a short thematic hymn, called a troparion, on the topic of Lazarus and Palm Sunday.  

For more information on Orthodox Christianity, try Orthodox Wiki.

Since there are several countries where Orthodox Christians are the main group, it was kind of tricky to decide what to have for dinner, since it could run anywhere between Russia and Greece. I decided to cook some traditional Romanian food (though not necessarily traditional food for Palm Sunday). I've been to Romania twice, once to visit the town where my grandfather was born near Lugoj and then again on a week-long tour of Transylvania. But when I was in Lugoj, I just ate at a pizzeria (but it was super cheap) and when I was in Transylvania we mostly just ate Hungarian food. So I had to do some Internet sleuthing to come up with our menu for the evening, which ultimately ended up being Mămăligă cu smântână (Polenta with sour cream), Fasole cu cârnaţi (baked beans and sausage), green beans, and orange slices.

Mămăligă cu smântână şi Fasole cu cârnaţi

I got the recipe for mămăligă from this website and attempted the traditional recipe, because I wanted the hard, more bread-like polenta. It turned okay, but maybe a little mushy on the bottom cause I didn't get enough of the moisture out (probably because I let it cool in a casserole dish). On its own it tasted fine, but was really quite good with a bit of sour cream. All the same, my wife said she probably would have been just as happy with corn bread. But, in case you were wondering, on its own mămăligă is high in fiber, low in cholesterol, and incredibly filling. So it's probably a healthier alternative.

As far as I could tell Fasole cu cârnaţi (baked beans in sausage) is basically like American beanie-weenies, though I'm sure the Romanians would use an awesome sausage instead of a chopped up hot dog. Since we can't get very good sausage here, I just used some of the leftover turkey kielbasa from the other day. Which in the end, still basically tasted like beanie-weenies, but with the mămăligă on the side, it was certainly the finest meal of beanie-weenies I've ever had.

We listened to some music by The Brotherhood of the Bigor Monastery of St. John the Baptist on grooveshark.com while we ate, then closed the meal reading from Zechariah 9:9 and Matthew 21:1-11.

We wish everyone a blessed Palm Sunday. Poftă bună!

What we are celebrating

They say that St. Patrick's Day is the one day of the year when everyone can be Irish. And though I have no Irish ancestry (though my wife has a little) I decided to get really into this year. I found a recipe for an excellent Irish lamb stew online, and spent the night immersing myself in everything I love about Irish culture--reading segments from Joyce's Dubliners, learning a few phrases in Gaelic, and watching one of my all-time favorite sitcoms, Father Ted.

It was very nice to have a big celebration to look forward to, especially since after the Thanksgiving and Christmas season, our holiday calender is fairly sparse. All of our birthdays fall within November and January. For the rest of the year, we really don't have much else to look forward to. The thought occurred me that if I could have such an enjoyable St. Patrick's Day, what was standing in my way of celebrating the holidays of other nations I have nothing to do with? With only 365 days a calender year, on any given day there's got to be someone, somewhere with a reason to celebrate.

Besides our bleak holiday calender, another issue we've faced every day is coming up with a menu for family dinner every week. We have some dishes we have in pretty standard rotation, but there are many others from around the world that we'd like to try, but could never really find the time for. So one day as we were planning our grocery list, I suggested to my wife that we see what holidays are being celebrated around the world during the week, and base our meals on that. We started with a good week, Mar 21-25, where a lot was going. 

Sunday was when Mexico celebrates the birth of Benito Juarez, one of their most revered presidents. So we just made our standard taco recipe (which admittedly, is far from authentic), got on to grooveshark.com and listened to some mariachi music, read up a little bit on who Benito Juarez is and some Mexican history, and then broke out our deck of Spanish playing cards for a game of Conquian, a rummy-style game from Mexico. There was a quote from Juarez I really liked, "Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz" (or in English, Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace).

Monday was Emancipation Day in Puerto Rico. So we made up some sofrito for one of our favorites: arroz con pollo with beans. Yeah, the sofrito wasn't perfect (since we can't get aji dulce here), but it still came out very tasty.

On Tuesday we got to celebrate my family's Hungarian roots for Polish-Hungarian Friendship day, which that I'm aware is not a big deal in either country. We probably took celebrating much more seriously than anyone in Europe. We decided it would be best to have dishes from both countries, so I made up some Bigos, a Polish stew heavy on cabbage, sauerkraut, and sausage. Now, I doubt many Poles would make it with turkey bacon (since we live in the Middle East and can't get any pork products) and turkey kielbasa (which tastes about the same only much lower in fat), but I think we still did the dish justice (and it was a fantastic way to eat sauerkraut). On the side I made gránátos kocka, one of Hungary's many noodle dishes, where bits of potato and paprika are mixed in. The top to my paprika container fell off as I was cooking, and way more fell in than I wanted, but the dish still turned out good. Together, the two dishes got along very well in my stomach.

On Wednesday I got to make one of my favorite Argentinean dishes, ñoquis, which are a potato-based pasta in order to celebrate the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, a memorial for the day when a military coup began one of the darkest periods in Argentina's history, known as the Dirty War. 

Then finally on Thursday we made kebabs and a delicious Greek salad for Greece's Independence Day. (Who were they celebrating their independence from, you ask? Why, the Ottoman empire!)

By the end of the week we had experienced one delicious meal after another, and learned a little bit about the culture and history of several countries around the world. And we've decided to keep it up, hence this blog. And I want to start this off with a very clear manifesto: We live in a world where negatively abounds, where politicians and news anchors increasingly use fear-mongering to maintain the status quo. In a world that seems ever darker, we choose to find a reason to celebrate. We live in a world where despite globalization and neoliberal economic policies, our cultures seem more separated than ever, and fear and apathy keep us from learning what others have to offer. In a world that seems ever segregated and paranoid, we choose to celebrate other cultures and points of view. And especially since this is all about food, in a world where bland chain restaurants dot city streets, and where people will only eat what's familiar, we choose to be open-minded. We choose to try something new.

We hope that we can do justice to this lofty goal and chronicle our attempts, be they successful or otherwise in this blog, by providing pictures, recipes, stories, and history. We hope we do the cultures and ideas we present justice. And finally, we hope that if you're reading this blog, that you'll contribute. If I totally misrepresent information, please comment. If you have a much better recipe, please share it. 

Greek Independence Day

Blessing of the Greek Banner

With it being the end of the week, something about our celebration this day ended up a little bit neglected (but then again, you try celebrating a different holiday every day in the week and see how it goes). I was able to scan over Wikipedia's article on the Greek War of Independence, which was pretty interesting. When I was in schools, at least, we spent a lot of time talking about Ancient Greece and all its contributions, but after that it never came up again.

The menu for tonight was kebabs and Greek salad. My wife came up with a marinade for the chicken made up of lime juice, minced garlic, garlic powder, and vegetable oil. Lamentably, we don't own a proper grill, but it still turned out fine George Foreman-style. We ate the kebabs with Lebanese bread (basically pita bread) filled with hummus and French fries. 

For the Greek salad, I mostly just went off of Wikipedia's article (apparently the real thing is a bit different from how they'd make it in the States) to see what it should contain, and made it from 2 sliced cucumbers, 1 diced green bell pepper, a handful of baby tomatoes, and feta cheese, seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano. I added red onion slices to mine (since my wife doesn't like onions) and  she added olives to hers (since I'm not a huge fan). It was a very good salad and simple to make. I asked my wife several times throughout the night if she liked the salad as much as I did. She made fun of me for it after about the third time. So in the end, I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an alternative to a green salad.

ευτυχισμένη ημέρα της ανεξαρτησίας!

Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice

I lived in Northern Argentina for two years as a missionary. I learned to love the food and I got to meet a lot of people. On at least one occasion I met someone who had been taken and tortured during the Dirty War, the period of state-sponsored violence in the country lasting roughly from 1976 to 1983. They would speak with such frankness about some of the horrible things that had happened to them. Truly, it's a different country now. Not perfect, no, not by a long shot, but certainly better.

March 24 marks the day when the military junta took power, and as such is a day of remembrance. Though many reparations have been made, there are still many people who don't know what happened to their children and grandchildren during this period of terror. Part of the government's strategy was to kidnap pregnant woman who would give birth in clandestine torture centers. After the baby was born the woman would be murdered, and the child would be adopted by another family. (This is the topic of the Oscar-winning film La Historia Oficial, which besides having some incredibly depressing scenes like the one below, also contains one of the most disturbing and intense scenes of domestic violence imaginable). They call this people los desaparecidos, or simply "the disappeared." Today, the group the Grandmothers of the Plaza del Mayo are still working to get the government to release the names of those who were murdered, as well as help reunite children with their real family (as in the incredibly powerful recent case of Francisco Madariaga Quintela).

I decided to make one of my favorite Argentinean dishes, Ñoquis, which is potato pasta, with the recipe I was taught while living in Jujuy. If you want to make them like I did (which served the two of us and then some), first you'll need to boil 2 1/2 good sized potatoes and mash them in the food processor after they're soft. Then move it all to a bowl, adding an egg and flour to make the dough. Now you don't want too much flour, just enough so that it's not sticky. A pinch of salt and pepper to flavor is recommended. From there I rolled the dough out into snakes on a cutting board covered in flour. Once the snakes are a good size, you want to cut them into little pasta-sized pieces. If you want to be fancy (and I usually do) you'll want to roll them off a fork to put a little crease in them, then set them aside on a cloth until you're ready to cook them. Get a big pot of water boiling, then place the ñoquis in. When they float up to the top, remove them with a slotted spoon. They're ready.

Ñoquis are usually eaten with a tomato sauce and chicken. Nevertheless, my wife had found a good recipe for a sauce with ground beef, so we went with that instead. I'd recommend that you use whatever you like. As we ate the meal, I put on some songs by the Argentine rock legend (and one of my all time favorites), Charly García. During the Dirty War, he wrote a song titled ¿Qué se puede hacer salvo ver peliculas? (What can you do besides watch movies?), a reference to how the most subversive thing the junta would let you do was go to a movie. After the war he wrote a song he's much better known for titled Los Dinosaurios (The Dinosaurs). Check it out on grooveshark.com. The lyrics include the following:

Los amigos del barrio pueden desaparecer,
Los cantores del radio pueden desaparecer,
Los que están en los diarios pueden desaparecer,
La persona que amas puede desaparecer.

Los que están en el aire pueden desaparecer en el aire,
Los que están en la calle pueden desaparecer en la calle.

Los amigos del barrio pueden desaparecer,
Pero los dinosaurios van a desaparacer.

Or in English:

Your friends in the neighborhood may disappear,
The singers on the radio may disappear,
Those in the newspaper may disappear,
The person you love may disappear.

Those who are in the air might disappear in the air,
Those who are in the streets might disappear in the street.

Your friends in the neighborhood may disappear,
But the dinosaurs are going to disappear.

And with that, García is able to poetically and beautifully tell of the struggles of the people, the hope for better times, as well as give the finger to the government.

I'll close with the refrain from Argentina's National Anthem: ¡Libertad! ¡Libertad! ¡Libertad! (Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!) 

Polish-Hungarian Friendship Day

Dry Erase Board in Polish and Hungarian

Poles and Hungarians are apparently really good friends. Each of them even has a saying about how great their friendship is. In Hungarian the saying goes:

Lengyel, magyar két jó barát, együtt harcol s issza borát

In Polish:

Polak, Węgier, dwa bratanki, i do szabli, i do szklanki

The basic idea of both in English is "The Pole and Hungarian are friends at all times, they fight side by side and then share each other's wine."

I lived in Hungary for two years as a teacher, and to be honest, I don't remember this day being a big deal (at the very least, it wasn't a school holiday. I would have remembered one of those). All the same, they do have a definite historical friendship, easily going back to the 16th century when the Hungarian István Báthory was king of Poland, and later when several Polish-born kings like Vladislav III were king of Hungary. When Hungary fought an unsuccessful revolution, Poland was there on their side. Polish-born József Bem is a national hero of both countries as they found for independence against the Habsburgs in 1848. In 1956 a violent workers revolt was put down in Poznań, Poland. After concessions were made (in what's now referred to as Polish October), Hungarians thought they might be able to do the same and on October 23rd students started a protest in front of the statue of Bem in Budapest. The protest quickly turned into a full revolt as government and state-run media offices were stormed, and the gigantic statue of Stalin was torn down, dragged through the streets, and thrown into the Danube. At first, it seemed like the Hungarians had succeeded in kicking the Soviets out of their country (of course, the Soviets came back with plenty of tanks but little mercy). Poles gave blood in droves to the wounded Hungarians, and sent as many supplies as possible.

But despite all this, I'm pretty sure we took this day a lot more seriously than most Poles and Hungarians did. The holiday did allow us to enjoy something of a concept dinner, as I thought it would be fun to have one Hungarian dish and one Polish. Originally I was just going to be lazy and buy some Polish kielbasa (though made out of Turkey, since it's way healthier) and eat it with sauerkraut. But then I found a recipe for Bigos on Wikipedia that sounded way more fun (and by recipe I mean some loose guidelines). I boiled around 2 cups worth of cabbage for about half an hour till it got soft, then I mixed that up with an equal amount of sauerkraut and a can of diced tomatoes. I fried some onions with some ground beef and turkey bacon (no we're not obsessed, it's just the only kind we can get here) and added that to the pot. Finally I diced up an apple, and added the sliced kielbasa, as well as a handful of peppercorns and a bay leaf. Then I let it all simmer on low for about an hour.

A steaming pot of Bigos

For the Hungarian dish I was going to make káposztás kocka, which is pasta tossed with fried cabbage, but we already had a lot of cabbage going on. So I decided instead to make gránátos kocka, which again is pasta, only with bits of fried potato instead. I boiled the potato in its skin for about half an hour (though I probably should have done it longer), then let it cool for a minute, and cut it into cubes. I fried the cubes with more diced onion and then added a little paprika. Well, tried to anyway. The top came off of the shaker and a ton of paprika fell into the pan. I had to scoop most of it out. As a result, the dish ended up with far more paprika that was ever necessary. 

Final Product

The gránátos kocka, like I said had just a little too much paprika, but the Bigos was very good. Truly, it is the best way I've found to eat cabbage. We enjoyed our dinner while reminiscing about the trip we took to Kraków together as well as the things we missed about living in Hungary. While in Kraków, I bought a book of children's stories in Polish (which of course, I couldn't read). But back then we didn't have Google Translate, and I figured it might be time to finally figure out what it says. I translated one about the dragon of Wawel, which I would publish here, but since I don't have the copyright I figure it's probably better if you just get the gist of the story from this Wikipedia link.

In the end, whether your Polish, Hungarian like me, or none of the above, today was a good day to celebrate friendship.

Puerto Rican Emancipation Day

Lechonera Los Pinos in Cayey

I was fortunate enough to visit Puerto Rico last year to attend a conference had a great experience. Since it was such a short trip, what probably stands out the most was the food. I wish I could have had more (I didn't even get to try their famous mofongo), but it was all so heavy. After eating lunch, I only had room for half a piece of bread at most for dinner. I had an amazing meal at this Lechonera. The pork was absolutely amazing, and with a dish of rice and beans on the side with a little bit of hot sauce it was complete. Sadly, there is no way I could ever come close to replicating the kind of food they have at Lechonera Los Pinos, and not just because I can't buy pork products here. No, we would have to settle for an equally majestic, though much simpler dish: arroz con pollo (chicken with rice).

The base of all Puerto Rican food is sofrito. This guy on YouTube explains pretty well how to make it. Sadly, I can't get ají dulce here that I'm aware of, so it has to do without. It's still very good. Basically from there I marinate the chicken with it and then cook it all in a pan with a bullion cube and a little bit of water. I've done it before where I cook the rice directly with it and also where I cook it separately and it turns out fine either way. This time, I had added way to much sofrito, so I put the rice in with it so it would soak up some of the juices. I added a diced pepper and tomato in with the rice as well. Ultimately, the whole thing turned out really quite well. Very tasty despite all my goof-ups.

Today is the day Puerto Rico commemorates when the slaves were freed there in 1873. According to the always reliable Wikipedia, there had been a revolt against the Spanish a few years earlier in 1868, known as el Grito de Lares. Though it was a short revolution that the Spanish easily put down, they started putting forth an effort to improve everyone's lives so that they wouldn't revolt again. Puerto Rico's struggle for autonomy finally looked like it was going to see fruits in 1898 when Spain finally granted them their independence. This was short lived though, as the United States invaded Puerto Rico within a month, as part of their campaign in the Spanish-American War. And so began America and Puerto Rico's weird on-and-off again, do-you-want-to-be-a-state-or-independent relationship.

Birth of Benito Juárez

This day was the first in our experiment to try and celebrate different holidays from around the world. We tried to be extra decorative (I blew up red and green balloons, and put a picture of Juárez up on the wall). Most Americans probably imagine that Cinco de Mayo is the biggest holiday for Mexicans, but sadly it's not. Outside of Puebla and the United States, no one really cares about it. No today, we would be celebrating an actual bona fide Mexican holiday: The Birth of Benito Juárez. 

For our meal, we didn't do anything out of the ordinary, only our very inauthentic recipe for tacos. For the homemade tortillas we mix a 1 cup of hot water, 1/3 cup of oil, 3 cups of flour, and a tsp or so of salt. Knead the dough and roll it out on wax paper, then fry it up. Then we just fill it with ground beefs mixed with taco seasoning, refried beans, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, salsa, and sour cream. We used to put shredded cheddar cheese in it too, but since we found out our son is allergic to dairy we never seem to have the stuff in the house.

Benito Juárez

The thing is, we've made this exact same meal several times throughout the past couple of months. But this time it was special. We talked a lot about Mexican history and Benito Juárez himself, who, as I understand it, is looked upon the same way Americans revere Abraham Lincoln. He was the country's only full-bloodied Amerindian president. He served at a time when several different countries were vying for control of Mexico. The US had recently taken most of Mexico's Northern territory in the Mexican-American War, and Napoleon III of France had put an Emperor on Mexico's throne. He dealt with these challenges as well as anyone probably could, and Mexico came out the better for it (well, for the time being). I really like the following quote he gave. I think it could really apply for our times as well:

Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz.

Or in English, "Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace."

But this was a day not just to celebrate a man, but the entire nation of Mexico. Despite living most of my life in a country that borders it, I've never had the opportunity to go yet. I've read Octavio Paz and studied their many muralists, but I haven't had the fortune to visit yet. I hope I will soon. It seems like a great country. It many ways, especially as you read its history, it's also an unfortunate country, but one that I hope starts to get better. We ended the night with my pack of Spanish-playing cards playing Conquian, a rummy-style game from Mexico. I took a little bit of work, but we eventually got it down.