I have been invited to a dinner party where everyone brings food from a nation that speaks (or maybe, has spoken) French.
Obviously French food is on the table (um… up for grabs, um…can be chosen) but that seems rather droll. I think it would be more fun to show up with a Burkina Faso dish, or one from the Seychelles or Madagascar, but I have no idea (a.) where to find recipes or (b.) where to find foods that I could create in these national directions since my wife and I live in a rather rural situation. We could drive about two and a half hours though to find some of the more unique foods to try to adapt.
We do have a couple of small Asian Markets and one relatively large Familia Mercado.
So does anybody have any ideas where to find this stuff? I was thinking of showing up with a coconut and saying it was something you would eat in the Seychelles (My wife is the cook in our family). Yes, she is helping (read; keep me from destroying the kitchen and injuring her cats) cook our portion of the meal.
Bring some Vietnamese, the original fusion cuisine. Go with some spring rolls with shrimp (not fried), or the killer bahn mi sandwiches, or make some pho. I’ve been told that tossing some chuck roast into a pressure cooker to make pho is a lot easier than cooking marrow bones for 12 hours. This is how I’m going to try to make it next time. In any case, if you are going to make pho, you may as well make it huge quantities for a bunch of people. On the other hand, rice noodles may be a bit hard to come by in rural Colorado.
Or make some bouillabaisse. I know you are pretty far from an ocean, but that shit is to die for.
What about Moroccan or other North African? Most of the ingredients shouldn’t be horribly difficult to find. This one looks pretty fabulous, and the only ingredient I can imagine having a hard time finding might be the couscous, and you could always serve it with rice instead.
Darryl - The only problem with the Vietnamese suggestion is that one of the couples coming to this dinner is (was) Vietnamese, and I sort of figured that they could be left with that form of food. As for the bouillaisse, that is a great suggestion, but my worries there is the needed seafood and since most people are somewhat familiar with it, it will be kind of obvious if I do a bad job of it. With more obscure food, I can always say, “yeah, that’s the way it’s supposed to taste. You know those Burkina Fasoites, terrible taste in food.”
Eva - Looking very good and doable and one of my neighbors has goats. Mind you, I’ve never rustled a goat before, but it has definite potential. Before you call my local sheriff, I won’t really rustle it.
Ginger - I hate to show my ignorance of the great history of Canadian cuisine, but what are those things?
Ivory - Very good idea but the only Cajun food (other than the ones in silensus’s cite) is gumbo.
Butter tarts are a pastry with a gooey centre made of butter, eggs, brown sugar and milk, raisins and walnut pieces. Nanaimo bars are an overly sweet bar with a solid chocolate layer on top of a layer of custard and bottom layer of graham cracker, coconut, walnuts, chocolate and some other things I can’t remember just now.
Poisson cru from Tahiti, which is sort of a ceviche made of raw fish, lime juice, and coconut milk. I’ve wanted to try it ever since reading about it in Michener’s Hawaii. I’ve read that good quality raw tuna makes a topnotch poisson cru.
In relation to even sven’s suggestion of Cameroonian cuisine, if you can make the trek up to Aurora, there is a restaurant there called Le Baobab that serves Senegalese food. I believe there is also an African market nearby that would have ingredients you would need. So you both be able to get ingredients and then taste what the dishes are supposed to taste like. I believe the restaurant is around the Colfax and Havana area.
This is looking very good. Actually I was lobbying for something more complex but my wife said, “Not even you can screw this up.”
She may be underestimating my ability to screw things up. But personally, I think that is the fun of this sort of party. Sure things get messed up, but that’s when food becomes fun (well, that and when someone starts throwing it).
