EntriesI'm a bitter person
Comments on Appalachia
Albanians are also angry at me
Another angry Bolivian
Dictionary of Bolivian Food
Cou Cou
August 26, 2006
I'm a bitter person
And here is another piece of feedback I got recently - I suspect from someone related to a restaurant I've given a bad review to:
"I don't know who you are or what are you trying to do with all your "reports" about restaurants. there's one thing I want to tell you, you have a problem with yourself because in most of the " reports" you describe your experiences as negatives. I think that the places are fine it is just you who is wrong and needs help. "
Comments on Appalachia
A few years ago I cooked an Appalachian dinner, and in my description of my impressions of the region I wrote how I'd imagined it to be "poor, backwards, even third-worldish." Many people from Appalachia took offense with that description, and I have since gotten a lot of hate mail about my comments. I can't, in good conscience, apologize for them as they were true. That's how I imagined Appalachia to be. That's how Appalachia has been portrayed by books, movies and TV - and indeed, that's why Appalachia is of any interest at all. It is offensive to me, as a person from the third world, how many people take offense at being called "third worldish". This "we are better than you" attitude that they have is, if nothing else, laughable.
Still, I believe in freedom of speech and here are a couple a comments I've gotten. I had more but I can't find them now.
Your opinion of Appalachia is untrue and is completely as uneducated as the people you see in your imagination. You should be ashamed that you could possibly think that everyone in this region could be that uneducated. Research the people, the culture, and the tradition to see how the people in this region really are. Where are you from? Are their not people that you are ashamed of in your area? There are here as well, but to think that this area of the country could be third-worldish is stupid and foolish of yourself. Look it up and maybe you'll write something more researched next time.
A Mad Appalachian
My stepdaughter found your Appalachian recipes while looking for new recipes for the catering service that she runs at West Virginia University Hospitals, Inc., a state of the art hospital that draws patients and medical personnel from all over the globe. I am sure that you will find it hard to believe that such a facility exists in an area that is still much like the rest of the "third world."
I do not know where you received your education, but it appears to have been sadly lacking. It is indeed unfortunate that people still cling to such views of the region. This is especially sad in a world that has become one with technology such as the internet. I do hope that you are not one of the ones who still think West Virginia is part of Virginia.
As an Appalachian scholar, I present papers at conferences all over the United States, to scholars who hail from the four corners of the globe and have visited major cities where the poor live in conditions that would make the poorest in Appalachia be thankful for what they have and where they live.
Detroit, NYC, D.C., and L.A. come to mind.
It is unfortunate that people still hang onto such stereotypes and myths We who live here are used to it, but it does not mean that such degradating remarks go down well.
You are among a throng of outsiders who have been fascinated with the region and have used their interest to further their own careers and pad their purses. A good example of this was J.F.K. He was well-aware(thanks to a little known, earlier poll) of the views of the Protestant majority. While a large number of Catholic immigrants had migrated into West Virginia more than forty years earlier, the majority of the state's residents were Protestants who could have cared less about a presidential candidate's faith. Most of the state's voters were die-hard Democrats who would have voted for anyone who shared such an interest in their problems. The rest of the nation bought it.Nonethless, he traveled to Parkersburg and laid out his strategy with his advisors. It worked. The media and most of the American public believed "If Kennedy can win in West Virginia, he can win anywhere." Now I am not saying that he did not care about the poor. Far from it. His programs speak for themselves. We lost a great man, even if he was a politician...
If you are so intrigued with Appalachia, with its complex and diverse culture, people, and landscape, you should take the time to visit us. Perhaps then you will be able to revamp your web site and apologize for your ignorance. As an activist, self-education should never stop.
If you do come to visit us, I do hope that you will extend your visit to areas beyond our famous narrow hollows and steep hills. For more than a century, journalists, activists, politicians, scholars, and novelists have only visited the places and the people who support their own jaded views... not to mention boosting the sales of their books or political careers... Colleagues of mine, historians, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and others, have generated a myriad of reasons why such perceptions continue to linger. 'tis profitable... financially,emotionally, politically...
Regards,
Carletta Bush
Ph.D., candidate/lecturer
Department of History
West Virginia University
Morgantown, West Virginia
the 35th state to be admitted into the Union
20 June 1863
August 9, 2006
Albanians are also angry at me
I have managed to offend many nationalities through my international food project. Some day I'll post all the comments from Appalachians I've gotten for comparing Appalachia to the third world - but a more recent comment was from an Albanian who was sure I'd never been to Albania (true) and had never eaten Albanian food (true as well). She says that the only authentic Albanian food comes from women who have kept the traditions for generations, which I can believe. She's been very gratious to send me some recipes, which I'm posting here. I may cook them someday.
Tave Dheu me Patligjana
This is a traditional dish made with baby aubergines, which are cut in halves and fried in oil after their mid sections are removed in order to fill them up. Then they are fried with onions, yellow peppers, garlic and tomatoes. When the mixture is ready you can add salt and spices depending on your preferences and then you can add the filling to the previously fried aubergines, which then are placed into the oven dish. If you have more mixture left you can add that on the side of the aubergines. When you have done all that you can put in the oven for 30 minutes to bake. This dish can be served with rice with meat on the side which I will tell you now.
Pilaf me mish vici.
This is cooked lamb with biled water and salt. When the lamb is cooked you use the lamb stock to cook the rice. If you want you can roast the lamb afterwards with spices and serve this with the above.
August 8, 2006
Another angry Bolivian
I got another message from a Bolivian woman angry at my comments about Bolivian food. Oh well, honesty just doesn't jive with some people.
In any case, I understand her points. It's true that I only spent a few days in Bolivia, and that I probably did not try the most traditional Bolivian dishes (honestly, I can't remember what I had back then - just that it was not memorable), and I'm sure that cooked by an experience cook some Bolivian dishes would be wonderful. But if a cuisine does take years to learn, then it's clearly not for me. What has been great about this project is discovering a whole lot of cuisines that are very accessible to a foreign cook.
In any case, here is her comment:
"I hate to disagree with you, Margarita, but Bolivian food is pretty remarkable. There is a wide range of choices of which you can pick from. It is obvious that you have never been there and therefore you don't have any idea of what you're talking about. So I suggest, that you first try it from somebody that knows how to cook well and not from yourself. It is like me trying to cook a foreign dish and judge it from my results which will obviously not be accurate to what the dish would actually taste like if I knew how to make it. Bolivian cuisine requires expertise and an amateur has no chance in making a succesful dish. It is a shame that you are using your website to undervalue something as rich as the delicous Bolivian cuisine, and the worst part is that you have no clue of what you are talking about. I can see that you have wasted time on your website and I pity you. "
August 4, 2006
Dictionary of Bolivian Food
One of my readers, a Bolivian living in Japan, was dismayed at my feelings about Bolivian food as represented on the page on the matter. She understood how difficult it was to get inspired by a cuisine when you can't understand half the ingredients and dishes you come across. So she helpfully sent me a "dictionary" of Bolivian food, describing dishes and ingredients.
I cannot help her enough, and I that I'm speaking for many people who will come across this page searching for this information.
Chajcho is a kind of thick soup, with vegetables or chuño (which is a frozen and dried potato, the color is grey to black, the process of making chuño takes few months. It is a traditional way of preserve potatoes from decomposing cause you can save it for long term.) before cooking chuño it has to be well softened and washed, so is better to put it on water the night before to prepare the dish.
Chanfaina is other kind of soup, (the meaning is mixture, mixture of the meat they use to prepare it, heart, liver and stomack) particularly this is a very special dish for people that use to eat inner parts of the cow.
Qoqo is a kind of stewed spicy chiken. (the name is in quechua)
Ranga is the name of other thick soup made with the stomack of the cow.
Saice is a kind of stewed minced and spicy meat
Locoto is a kind of small hot paprika
Charque is a dried meat, very salty.
Chanka is the name of a chiken soup
Fritanga is the name of pork stewed with spicy sause
Lagua is the tipical name (in quechua) for a creamy soup
Majadito o Majao (name in Guarani) is a kind of rice pilaf with dried meat.
Pacumutu is the traditional name for Brochetes
Huancaina is the name of the peanuts spicy sause
Pejtu is the name in Quechua for stewed mixture.
June 15, 2005
Cou Cou
From time to time I've gotten comments on my write ups about the different cuisines I have explored. Mostly they are complimentary, but sometimes people are very offended at what I've written and want to set me straight. For example, I got a lot of hate mail regarding my write up of Appalachian cuisine - apparently a newspaper columnist there organized a letter writing campaign to let me know how offended they were at my thoughts. My Assyrian menu has also generated some mail from Assyrians who tell me that I did it all wrong. They've promised to send me recipes so I can cook a real Assyrian meal, but so far I haven't gotten any.
But no individual recipe has received more comments than my recipe for coucou, a cornmeal dish eaten throghout the Caribbean. Apparently I did it all wrong. Here is the last e-mail I've gotten on the subject.
"Of course you, probably a white woman, would find the dish bland but if you were a native you would understand that cou-cou is not a stand alone dish. The national dish of Barbados is "cou-cou and flying fish" and like mash potatoes and gravy, the flavor of the cou-cou comes from the gravy of the fish. If you do not have flying fish, you could use any other steamed fish, liver, etc. anything that makes a good gravy.
If the picture on your website is the result of what you made no wonder it was bland cause it looks like poop which means you probably made it wrong.
Happy recipe hunting but next time maybe you should stick to hamburgers and french fries."
