World Cuisines

Who: Mach Thi Hien and Ng Tun Tam What: Bún, Vietnamese rice vermicelli noodles Where: Phú Đô village in southwest Hanoi In Hanoi, food is typically named based on the form of rice it’s served with: cơm for simple steamed rice, phở for thick rice noodles, or bún for vermicelli-sized white rice noodles. Bún (pronounced something like “boon?

Coffee is just coffee right? Hopefully you’ve been reading this column long enough to know the answer to that question! So what is it that makes coffee from Nicaragua different than one from Kenya? Today we’re going to talk about coffee from Central and South America, and what characteristics define the coffee from this region. Coffee growing regions exist around the world in more than 50 countries from Africa to Asia.

First: If you’re imagining a full-sized American fridge, stop right there. Most apartments come only with a mini refrigerator, like the one you probably had in college. My current refrigerator isn’t tall enough to ride a roller coaster. Is it because kitchens are smaller? Is it the fact that Germans don’t refrigerate a lot of things that Americans do? Who knows why, but it means that the few items that earn a permanent place in the fridge are chosen all the more carefully.

Bryant Terry is an energetic and passionate man, self-described as an eco chef, author, and social justice activist. He first came to my attention in 2006 when he co-authored the book Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen with his friend Anna Lappe. He has since gone on to author two more vegan cookbooks, with a third one in the works. What does this spokesman for local, sustainable, and delicious food think are the top essentials for a modern, socially engaged, soulful kitchen?

Who: Hoàng Thị Thẩm and Nguyễn Đình Đạt What: Rice Where: Bac Ninh Province, Vietnam Rice is enormously important in Vietnam. Each day, Vietnam’s population receives three-quarters of its calories from rice. At least lunch and dinner are cooked with rice as the foundation, and breakfast may be rice-based too. It’s made into noodles, boiled for hours to celebrate the lunar new year, and even made into pancakes.

I didn’t always love white rice. Raised on my Southern grandmother’s cooking, I grew up thinking of rice as an “instant” food — something Grandmother Maye dumped on the plate next to my pork chop on those nights when she didn’t have time to make mashed potatoes. White rice constituted a cheap, bland filler, made interesting only once or twice a year, when Maye indulged her Cajun roots and dished it up with chicken gumbo.

Growing up in a Jamaican household, cooking flavorful meals was always a very important part of our existence. And when I say flavorful, what I really mean is hot. Curried goat, escovitch fish, jerk chicken — even some drinks were hot. My Cousin MaeMae made the meanest ginger beer, and I do sincerely mean mean. That nasty head cold of yours would pack up and leave town before you could finish a cupful!

Who knew seitan could sound so sexy? Terry Hope Romero manages to do just that and so very much more. In her latest vegan cookbook, Vegan Eats World, she dips into the dishes and flavors of Morocco, Thailand, India, Poland, Jamaica, and many more food-loving cuisines from around the world, vegan-style. Vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians, however you identify yourself, we’ve hit the jackpot with this one.

People aren’t the only ones who like to escape from their hometowns; animals do, too, but with more serious consequences than being unable to speak a language. Scientists classify any species that didn’t originate from an environment as invasive. Simply put, it’s something that doesn’t belong. The introduction of a species like this throws off the balance of the ecosystem — and destroys it.

A mistake had been made. My mother absentmindedly asked for an iced tea at the roadside barbeque joint in rural North Florida. To her chagrin, before she could chase down the waitress and clarify unsweetened tea, a beverage appeared with a glycemic index somewhere between that of a Coca Cola and straight simple syrup. At 8 years old, I was more than happy to drink the sweetened beverage, the sucrose completely masking any bitterness in the tea that my immature pallet would have rejected.

Restaurant menus can reveal a lot about a country’s cuisine, but there’s a more authentic place to find the true building blocks of local food: in home kitchens. We turned to three passionate Mexico City eaters and peeked inside their cupboards to find out which ingredients they have on hand at all times. Here’s what they had to say. Yes, we know — you have vanilla in your pantry, too, but we’re we’re talking about the good Mexican stuff.

Think back to the days of your youth in the cafeteria. Do you envision chicken nuggets, doughy pizza, and questionable hot dogs that often dominated the school lunch line? Or maybe you picture sugary treats like chocolate milk, Cosmic Brownies, and Twinkies that accompanied your main dish? For older millennials in particular, this might be a familiar scenario, but things are changing a little bit around the country. Nowadays, there’s a greater push for schools to step it up.

Whenever you seek to understand the complexities of the world, turn to food. Even in our differences, it’s our most common denominator, bringing us to the kitchen to exchange more than techniques and to the table to share more than a meal. For the United States, no meal is more symbolic of community and gratitude than Thanksgiving. It’s incredible to think of all the families and friends across the nation sitting down to a similar meal at a common table.

Like anyone who’s been lucky enough to travel to Bali, I wish I could have brought it home in my suitcase. There’s a reason that the island province of Indonesia has a reputation for attracting “seeker” types like me — the nomads, the yoginis, the meditators. Bali is a jolt to the senses, from the bewitching sound of the gamelans, to the colorful palette of its temples and native flora, to the scent of the sea in the air.

You would think that Thai chilies originated in Thailand, but you’d be wrong. Researchers at The Royal Society mapped out the origins of some of the world’s most important crops, and many of their findings are pretty surprising. Do you really know where your food comes from? For a better look at the image below, check out this interactive map at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.

Considering the standardization across fast food restaurants in the U.S., I always assumed that the consistency in their offerings extended well beyond our borders. Certainly, different countries offer occasional localized additions to their menus, but it just seemed a given that things would be, otherwise, the same. Not quite. An Australian agency investigated some popular food chains to see how their serving sizes differ across the globe, and then arranged their findings in an infographic.

I don’t travel as much as I’d like to, but in a small way I explore the world through my city’s endless array of international grocery stores. Which is how I found myself in a hole-in-the-wall Russian market the other day. Hardly anything was in English, but I asked the owner for tips and picked out a few foods to try. My favorite discovery from this little adventure? Tkemali.