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. 

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!)