Good food for a good cause
This cookbook puts exotic recipes in context
By
Evan Rail
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
(September 30, 2004)
Every recipe has a story that should go along with it: the origin or history of the dish, or an account of the cultural context within which it was created. The cookbook A Glance in a Refugee's Cooking Pot is filled with such tales, as well as a plethora of interesting and unusual dishes from around the world.
A publication of the Czech Center for Migration (Centrum pro otazky migrace, or COM), the English-Czech cookbook is now in its second edition and includes traditional foods from Afghanistan, Angola, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ghana and elsewhere. The idea for the cookbook was born at meetings of the COM women's group: Every week, one woman would prepare a national dish from her homeland, adapted to use ingredients available in the Czech Republic. The group would eat lunch and talk "about their memories and the problems they all share ... courting, giving birth, caring for parents, women's rights, polygamy, and even dream interpretation, various rituals and traditions."
BUY THE BOOK
A Glance in a Refugee's Cooking Pot is available at the following locations:
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Editors
Vera Rubalova and Daniela Vitkova, 2001,
G+G publishers,
59 Kc ($2.30).
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MATA AURORA
Opletalova 8
Prague 1-New Town
Tel. 224 214 624
CAFE BLUE VELVET
Cerchovska 4
Prague 2-Vinohrady
Tel. 222 721 534
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The following recipe is a typical example: Chechnya's zhizhig galnysh. The ingredients may be commonplace, but the combination of a garlic-laden soup and cornmeal pancakes is not something you're likely to see every day. And then there is the story that accompanies the food like some kind of literary side dish, providing a context for understanding a little bit about the life of the recipe's author:
"We were treated to this food by Tamara, an Ingushi woman living for many years in Chechnya. She had prepared it many times for family celebrations. She had cooked it for many relatives but, as she said, she had never made it for her son-in-law. For the Ingush, who strictly observe all Muslim rules of social behavior, it is forbidden that a son-in-law meet his wife's mother. This would be considered impolite. Tamara could see her son-in-law only by chance, for instance at a family meeting. But even then the man has to leave as quickly as possible. Thanks to the fact that her family is a large one, Tamara was able to at least glimpse her son-in-law from a distance."
ZHIZHIG GALNYSH
Serves four
INGREDIENTS
• 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) meat
• 4 potatoes
• 4 onions
• fat for frying
• 1 kilogram corn flour
• 1 egg (optional)
• 1 cup plain flour
• 4-5 cloves garlic
Optional: carrots, parsley, green onions, dill, according to taste
PREPARATION
• Boil meat (chicken or any other, except pork). When cooked, allow to cool, cut into small pieces and lay aside.
• Reserve approximately 150 milliliters (about half a cup) of the stock and put into a bowl with garlic, finely chopped.
• Boil the potatoes and mash them coarsely -- but not to the level of a puree.
• Chop the onions and saute with carrots and herbs, if desired. Add onions and reserved stock with garlic to the potato mash to form a thick soup.
• Prepare pancakes by mixing flours together and slowly adding very hot water while stirring until a thick dough is created. (If you do not have corn flour, you can use the same amount of plain wheat flour with an egg instead. In this case, roll the dough flat and cut into squares.) Form small cakes, approximately 3 centimeters (just over 1 inch) in diameter. Gently drop the cakes (or squares) into a pot of boiling water and cook for 15 minutes.
• Add the cooked pancakes to the potato-garlic soup.
• To serve this dish in the typical Chechen manner, as it is served at special occasions, seat guests around the table and place the soup in the center. Place a serving of meat in a bowl, pour the soup over and season with more chopped garlic.
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Adapted from A Glance in a Refugee's Cooking Pot, Vera Rubalova and Daniela Vitkova, editors, 2001, G+G publishers, 59 Kc ($2.30).
Evan Rail can be reached at
erail@praguepost.com
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