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. 

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.