Food from Around the World

Go check out the wonderful round up of recipes over at Bellini Valli's in recognition of World Food Day. Together with Ivy, from Kopiaste, Bellini Valli is raising awareness about world food security issues. Future plans are in the works to continue raising awareness about these food security and I know Giz is working with these ladies on these plans.

The premise of this event was to have submission of family or regional favourites that used local and seasonal ingredients. The goal of this event is to create a "conga line" of food, where a long line up of dishes can feed everyone on the street. The hope is that this conga line will continue to grow to reach neighbourhoods, communities, cities, regions, and countries.

There is a great range of dishes from a variety of cultures. Go check it out!

Sticking with the theme of food and culture, I wanted to share a bit of a hodge podge of some recent experiences I've had with food and culture. Although food is only one element of a culture, it is (with a bit of effort) accessible to those from other cultural communities. Plus, in some ways, it creates an appreciate for or a small understanding of a cultural community other than the one with which you primarily identify.

Although Canada is a multicultural country, only French and English are given official language status. This means, for example that food products are required to contain information in both French and English. For most of the country, the use of the second official language is a rarity. But for many, bilingualism is a reality of every day life. Usually, but not always, fluent bilingualism is a skill held by Francophones. Being a minority in Canada, the chance that they will use (and learn) English is greater than it is for Anglophones.

If you watch this video, you can listen to a small portion of an ice cream-making demonstration I went to a while ago. The woman giving the demonstration says everything in both English and French with ease. Granted, even for those who are bilingual, this type of fluidity between languages requires practice.



Later that day, R and I went to a local Greek Festival.

How many festivals can you buy entire roast goats at? This one, for sure. Since we weren't really into bringing a full goat home we took advantage of the gyros.



Here's my question though....If Greek salad doesn't include lettuce - why is there lettuce in the Greek salad at a Greek festival?


Last, but not least....Below are a video and pictures from my first time trying hot pot. I actually had no idea what it was when a friend invited us over for dinner. She was excited to share hot pot with us. My first thought was....hmmm...sounds illegal. Turns out - it's not. Plus, it's really good.

Wikepedia says that "hot pot, or less commonly Chinese fondue, refers to several Chinese varieties of steamboat stew. It consists of a simmering metal pot of stock at the center of the dining table. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table. Typical hot pot dishes include thinly sliced meat, leafy vegetables, mushrooms, wontons, egg dumplings, and seafood".

Here's what the setup looked like:


Our hot pot included meatballs (already in the broth), shrimp, thinly sliced beef and squid. There were also mushrooms, baby bok choy and noodles.