Meal 57: Estonia
Vikings, Russians, Swedes, Poles, Russians, Germans, Soviets… pretty much, if you were an empire within a few hundred kilometers of Estonia, you probably had dominion over this small country at some point. But things are now going well for the Estonians, who emerged from the USSR with a bang, and now enjoy a strong economy, EU membership, strong civil liberties, and Internet access so pervasive they have online voting. (Thankfully this made finding recipes a lot easier than expected!) Estonia’s ...
Meal 52: Ecuador
Ecuador is kind of on the small side — a bit larger than the UK, a bit smaller than Nevada — but its borders contain three distinct zones: seaside, Andes, and Amazon. Hence, there’s quite a lot of variety in the foods available. (There’s also Galápagos way out in the Pacific, but we’re not eating any of their rare wildlife.) Some of the major themes are shared with its Andean neighbors: abundant potatoes, warming foods, and the ubiquitous Inca Kola, ...
Meal 43: DPR Korea
Nothing about making a North Korean meal is easy. First of all, it’s even hard to find someone from North Korea to talk to: estimates say that only 14,000 people have managed to escape the totalitarian state in the 59 years since the end of the Korean War, and there’s virtually zero Internet access within the country. Secondly, except for a particular noodle dish, most (South) Koreans aren’t really aware of which of the foods they eat originated across the DMZ. ...
Meal 29: Cambodia
Having grown up in the Bay Area, I had more than my fair share of many southeast Asian cuisines, including Thai, Vietnamese, even Burmese. But I’d never really encountered Cambodian until this meal. The core ingredients are pretty similar to those of its neighbors, especially the triptych of galangal, kaffir lime leaf and lemongrass. Yet as the Wikipedia page observes, the country is full of wetlands and floodplains, a geography which is reflected in a culinary style where solid and ...
Meal 26: Bulgaria
Since we took a break last weekend, I thought I’d be smart and get a head start on Bulgarian shopping and get some exercise in the meanwhile. So I hopped on my bike and rode nearly nine miles to Brighton Beach, only to discover that while it’s the place to go for Russian, Ukrainian, and even Georgian food, they just don’t have Bulgarian there. When I asked for lukanka, a type of dry-cured sausage, the kind lady at a deli said, ...
Week 21: Bolivia
Laura and I went to Bolivia for part of our honeymoon. It is telling of our unremarkable culinary experience that I can’t find any representative photos of the food there, but we did take our favorite photo ever at the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat: The one food that we do remember distinctly is pique macho, which is essentially meat and hot dogs on top of french fries. But that would require frying. Again. Much as I ...
Week 11: Azerbaijan
“Do you have narsharab?” I asked the older gentleman, whose dusty and rambling Middle Eastern grocery shop seems to wither a bit in the shadow of the much busier, more popular, and crowded neighbor across Atlantic Avenue, Sahadi’s. “Where are you from?” he responded. “That’s not the English name for what you’re looking for. Do you speak Persian?” I’d been emailing with Marsha, our Azeri guest for tonight’s meal, who said that narsharab was a must. But somehow I didn’t ...