International Night A Father and Daughter Cook Their Way Around the World

545 Pages·2014·14.69 MB·English

by  Mark Kurlansky

To Marian—there’s nobody with whom we would rather have dinner
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Family Ritual
Talia’s Introduction
On Recipes
On Cooking with Children
On Drinks
On Fats and Oils
On Sugar and Spice
Equipment
A Slightly Nutty Way to Open a Coconut
On Salt Cod
On Vegetables
On Desserts
Basic Recipes
On Cooking Temperature
Philippines Night
Provence Night
Kazakhstan Night
Sweden Night
Niger Night
China Night
Hawaii Night
Saudi Arabia Night
Mexico Night
Brazil Night
Sicily Night
Japan Night
Afghanistan Night
Morocco Night
Greece Night
Cuba Night
Naples Night
Iran Night
Egypt Night
Romania Night
Andalusia Night
Algeria Night
Brittany Night
Tanzania Night
Quebec Night
Norway Night
Cornwall Night
Hungary Night
New Orleans Night
Senegal Night
Aquitaine Night
Korea Night
Haiti Night
Newfoundland Night
India Night
French Guiana Night
Germany Night
Mongolia Night
Peru Night
Switzerland Night
Ireland Night
Argentina Night
Portugal Night
Nicaragua Night
Russia Night
Jamaica Night
Sri Lanka Night
Belgium Night
Ethiopia Night
Austria Night
Turkey Night
Emilia-Romagna Night
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index of Recipes
INTRODUCTION
THE FAMILY RITUAL
Before it was a book, International Night started as a family game. Our daughter,
Talia, who has a far better memory than mine, says that she originated it. I don’t
remember what the starting idea was because so many elements have been added
since then that it is truly a collaborative concept. Our idea was to spin the globe
once a week, and wherever Talia’s finger landed, we would cook a meal from
that place on Friday night.
Sometimes, though, between deciding on the recipes, shopping for the
ingredients, and preparing the food, we needed more time, and Saturday or
Sunday worked better. Some weeks the weekend was too packed for an
International Night. Some weeks we were traveling, and more weeks I was
traveling. But we enjoyed the game so much that we persisted, and eventually
we had fifty-two International Nights, one for every week of the year.
Talia and I cooked the meals together, and I carefully recorded the menus and
recipes for each. The dinners led to discussions about the places and their
cultures, with the dialogue always beginning with geography at the globe.
Occasionally Talia’s finger would land on a place I had never been—ten times
out of fifty-two—and then we would learn together.
Of course Talia, Marian, and I enjoyed some dishes more than others. There
was never a night in which there wasn’t at least one dish that pleased all of us.
But I suppose that is like traveling. Some nights you eat better than others. Some
nights we ate wonderfully.
I tried to accommodate certain food prejudices of Talia’s, and unlike what is
commonly believed by adults, all kids have their own tastes. So some kids may
love things Talia hated, and the reverse. The one consistent taste is that kids like
food that they grow themselves, harvest themselves, and make themselves.
Talia inexplicably loves marinated anchovies and fresh sardines, so we use
them whenever possible. She usually does not care for soup, but, for example,
how can you go to Quebec without potage Saint-Germain? And some soups she
loved. As I overheard a teenager in Manhattan saying to his friend, “I really like
soup if it’s a soup I really like.” Certainly not all the recipes will appeal to
everyone, but like Talia, Marian, and me, most anyone will find dishes in every
meal that they enjoy. Occasionally we offer alternative dishes if we suspect that
our choices will not be popular. And if there was a dish that we didn’t like, we
reworked it another night or found a substitute. But it is always difficult to guess
the tastes of others. All you can do is make good food.
We cooked wherever Talia’s finger landed. If it landed on a country with
widely varied regional cuisines, we tried to cook from the region on which she
landed. This has led us to two very different Canadian nights, three very
different French ones, and three Italian ones. We could have done more than one
English, Spanish, or German night, but on those countries she landed only once.
We did not do places she landed in the US because the idea was to be
international. We made an exception when she landed on New Orleans and
Hawaii because those places have such distinct cuisines that it tasted like going
to another country. If she landed somewhere we had already been, we would
spin again. For some reason she kept landing on Kazakhstan. Well, it’s large and
in central latitudes. But Russia is even larger and it was only after forty-seven
nights that she finally landed there.
It became Marian’s task before dinner to guess the country to which we were
going. Since she had a whole globe’s worth of countries and regions to choose
from, we gave hints, small facts—when possible, geographic facts—about the
country to guide her along. She guessed some countries fairly quickly, although I
think she is still working on Tanzania. You will find the hints we gave for each
country at the beginning of each night. You can use ours, or you can make up
your own if you would like to play this game with your family too.
We tried to make each International Night an occasion. Talia would enter the
dining room to announce the night, and we liked to have some music. She
announced Jamaica Night to Jimmy Cliff’s “Miss Jamaica,” and could there
have been a better accompaniment than Prokofiev’s theme from the great
Eisenstein film Alexander Nevsky when she announced Russia Night in peasant
costume? If Nevsky’s triumphant march into Pskov with a bass-voice chorus
swearing to defend Mother Russia doesn’t get you in the mood for borscht and
Stroganoff, what will?
You can also create your own customs. I tried to make this both fun and an
educational experience. Food is the best way to teach history and geography and
most everything else.
—Mark Kurlansky
TALIA’S INTRODUCTION
“Introducing International Night!” That was my line. Before the meal was
served I would march out to announce that night’s country. I would be wearing
an outfit designed by me to match a traditional style from that country and it was
made entirely out of stuff in the house. I had an advantage—my father has
traveled to most of these countries. So for Mongolia Night I could borrow a
traditional hat he had brought back from Mongolia. For Ireland Night I had a
leprechaun hat and red beard I got when I visited Ireland. But for other nights,
like Switzerland Night, I just put together some things on my own: a straw
fedora, a white shirt, my father’s suspenders, shorts, and a plastic yodeling
pickle that a friend had given me at a birthday party. For Argentina Night I wore
a long dress, a flower in my teeth, and I danced the tango. On Hawaii Night I
wore a fake hula skirt that I found in my old dress-up clothing box and a bikini
top. On Senegal Night I wrapped a cotton flower print on my head.
Then the meal would begin. As each dish was about to be served, my father
would tell me how to pronounce it and I would walk out introducing the food.
Although sometimes my father wouldn’t know how to pronounce the dish, and
we would fake it.
One place kids sometimes get a chance to experience food from different
countries is in a restaurant. But restaurants often give children a “kids’ ” menu.
Is that because children cannot enjoy sophisticated cuisine? No. They can. It’s
adults who think they can’t! Not to say that a lot of kids don’t love the (in my
opinion) bland and one-dimensional food on a kids’ menu; they love it because
they haven’t truly gotten a taste of sophisticated cuisine. It frustrates me when a
waiter places a kids’ menu in front of me. WHY CAN’T THE WORLD JUST
ACCEPT THAT CHILDREN JUST WANT TO EAT GOOD FOOD?
One of my hopes for this book is that while kids are learning about all these
different cuisines and cultures, they are getting a chance to taste these foods too.
Maybe they’ll sometimes prefer the more complicated flavors that come with a
variety of cuisines and agree with me that international dishes can add up to
some really delicious family meals.
—Talia Kurlansky