This Silk Road Lamb and Dried Fruit Plov is my rendition of a ubiquitous dish I encountered in various forms from the Orient to Europe. Similar rice preparations appear in countries along the Silk Road, that ancient route that brought together civilizations of the East and West for centuries, facilitating the migration of culinary traditions. …
I recently discovered an early recipe for Baked Cheese Babka, a Ukrainian Easter dessert, in an out-of-print 19th century cookbook published in western Ukraine. What intrigued me most was the fact that this Baked Cheese Babka is flourless. After researching other baked cheese babka recipes, I realized the uniqueness of this recipe. Other baked cheese babkas …
I first tasted reindeer stew at a Bavarian dinner in the lovely chalet home of Hermann Pfieffer, a German steel cable manufacturer. Hermann’s wife Sieglinde, an accomplished cook, served hirschgulasch (reindeer stew in German) and I was a little anxious about eating reindeer. I was torn between being a gracious guest and my affection for the Rudolf …
As we ate our way through my list of must-try dishes, we discovered that Peruvian cooking is a fusion of traditional indigenous practices, local ingredients and imported food practices. Each wave of newcomers to Peru added their cuisine atop that of centuries of indigenous pre-Incan and Incan cooking. Absent familiar ingredients, new immigrants adapted their recipes …
Preparing for a recent family trip to Peru, I researched Peruvian cooking and arrived in Cuzco armed with a list of must-try dishes. After a brief reading of Peru’s long history, I was captivated by this multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society going back ten millennia which melds numerous Amerindian civilizations, Spanish conquerors and settlers, imported Black …
I was thinking recently about making crèpes when I stumbled on this Spinach Nalysnyky (Crêpes) recipe from a Ukrainian food blogger at panistefa.com. The Ukrainian language recipe, written with a chatty narrative, and its accompanying photos inspired me to try it. So I translated the text and made a batch. The nalysnyky turned out great …
Spinach Nalysnyky (Crêpes)* with Veal Stroganoff Read More »
Tiny multi-lingual Switzerland is a country of culinary contrasts. In her Cooking in Switzerland, Marianne Kaltenbach writes, “Switzerland’s cuisine is as varied as its landscape.” Ingredients vary from canton to canton depending on whether in a mountainous area, the shores of a lake, or a fertile valley. In cantons where cows and sheep graze on alpine …
Over the years, I spent more time in Istanbul than any other foreign city. Some visits were for business, some for fun. Istanbul, located 657 or so miles south of Kyiv, provided an easy escape from the Soviet dreariness that I encountered when I began working in Ukraine in 1993. Usually, at the end of …
There are many reasons to visit Cuba, but its food is not one of them. Cuba is a poor country whose current diet is limited to a few staple items, and food in today’s Cuba is markedly different from the varied Cuban cuisine available in US-based Cuban restaurants run by pre-Revolutionary refugees. The variety and …
I always loved noodles, perhaps because this was the first dish I learned to cook. Well, not really cook from scratch, but I helped my grandmother drop the fresh dough into boiling water. Watching the transformation of this lump of raw dough into a delicious noodle, I was hooked for life. During my childhood, I …