{"id":2891,"date":"2021-11-18T02:38:12","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T18:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/?p=2891"},"modified":"2021-12-26T23:28:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-26T15:28:24","slug":"international-food-project-update-done-with-the-js","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/2021\/11\/international-food-project-update-done-with-the-js\/","title":{"rendered":"International Food Project Update: Done with the J’s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the last 21 years – yes, 21 years, you read that right – I’ve been on-and-off trying to cook international food alphabetically<\/a>. I started with Afghanistan<\/a> long ago, and I’ve now just finished cuisines that start with the letter “J”.
<\/a>
At first, my list of cuisines only included major national cuisines – but as I gathered more regional cuisine cookbooks, I added those too. With time, they’ve multiplied to the point that national cuisines are now the exception. In all, in these 21 years, I’ve visited 215 different cuisines<\/a> and cooked 690 different dishes<\/a> for this project.

When I first started, I’d do a menu for a cuisine, including an appetizer, a main and dessert, and invite friends over. Later, when I had kids, I could not manage dinner parties except in the most special occasions, so I started exploring these cuisines as every night dinners. Accommodating my children’s changing tastes and diet preferences wasn’t always easy, but we managed. Still, it’s been a very slow process. If I want to finish it – something I never thought possible -, I’m going to have to speed things up.

So as I start 2022 and tackle “K” cuisines, with just one child at home (but still a picky eater), I’m going to try something different. Whenever possible, I’m going explore national cuisines for Sunday dinners, doing full menus. Not every cuisine lends itself to an appetizer-entree-dessert format – indeed, my first K cuisine, Kenya, does not – so in those cases, I’ll just explore different dishes on different nights. Otherwise, I will leave regional and ethnic cuisines for weekday nights but limit my exploration of them to just one or two dishes. We’ll see how that works.

Meanwhile, here are the J cuisines I explored, as well as the A-I cuisines I discovered and explored (usually for just one dish) in the last year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jakartan<\/strong><\/a>: Indonesian food rocks so I was happy to explore the food of the capital. The dishes I made included chicken sate, a beef & noodle soup and a great cake for dessert<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jalisciense<\/strong><\/a>: I didn’t make Jalisco’s most famous dish, birria<\/em>, but I fell in love with their tortas ahogadas<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jamaican<\/a><\/strong>: there were so many good choices for this island cuisine, and I finally figured out how to make a good jerk pork. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Japanese<\/a><\/strong>: I didn’t try my hand at sushi, but learned I couldn’t make a vegetarian miso soup anyone liked. Other dishes, however, were great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Javanese<\/strong><\/a>: coconut beef, coconut chicken and coconut balls. If you like coconut, Javanese cuisine has lots to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jerezana<\/strong><\/a>: this Spanish city offered tasty dish after tasty dish, from braised oxtails to their own version of chicken cordon bleu<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jewish American<\/strong><\/a>: a roasted chicken was a failure, but their cheese blintzes and apple cake rocked<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jiangsu<\/strong><\/a>: I only made one dish, ribs, but we enjoyed it a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jiangxi<\/a>: we enjoyed the fish and chicken from this Chinese regional cuisine, but the steamed pork with rice powder was a disappointment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jordanian<\/a><\/strong>: This was the only “J” cuisine from a country I had visited. I think my dishes were better than anything I ate there.

And these are the regional and ethnic cuisines I briefly explored, mostly for just one dish:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chicken<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A’chik Mande \/ Garo<\/strong><\/a>: I enjoyed cooking an unusual dish of chicken with papayas from a tribal group in the Indian highlands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Banana<\/figure>\n\n\n\n



Acholi<\/strong><\/a>: While I only made one dish, peanut & banana pancakes, it was great to learn about these Luo people from northern Uganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Khachapuri\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Adjarian<\/strong><\/a>: bread with cheese and an egg, hard to believe it but it works! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Hot<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ambonese<\/strong><\/a>: unfortunately, the one dish I cooked from the Indonesian spice islands, was a failure<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


Balochi<\/strong><\/a>: I made the most famous grilled chicken dish from these southern Pakistani cuisine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bukharian Jewish<\/strong><\/a>: The single dish I made from these people from Uzbekistan was a complete mess, but it was fun to try a new cooking technique. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cornish<\/a>: I tried my hand at traditional cornish pasties and failed terribly. No wonder they’ve improved on the recipe in the last century or two! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Manja\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gagauz<\/a>: the culinary traditions of this Muslim people from Moldova may not be particularly exotic, but I did enjoy their chicken with a paprika gravy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the last 21 years – yes, 21 years, you read that right – I’ve been on-and-off trying to cook international food alphabetically. I started with Afghanistan long ago, and I’ve now just finished cuisines that start with the letter “J”. At first, my list of cuisines only included major national cuisines – but as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[454],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-project","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}