Scandinavian Summer Kitchen
The other night, I had some friends over for a selection of Scandinavian inspired cuisine and they really enjoyed my cooking. I thought I’d share these summery recipes on the EuroTalk blog over the coming months as it is always good to have a few foodie ideas up your sleeve – you just never know when your friends might ring that doorbell and invite themselves for dinner. And as well as being tasty, these yummy dishes are full of lovely healthy ingredients and with their vivid colours of purples and greens, they’ll make your dinner table look great.
Summer salad with mackerel on warm rye bread
Serves 4
Discard any mackerel bones and break the fish into small pieces. Mix it with cucumber, onion, chives, capers, egg and salad leaves in a bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve on warm rye bread, garnished with sliced radishes.
Enjoy with your favourite cold drink and some good company!
Hanna
My big fat Greek mistake!
Learning a language can sometimes be fraught with problems when you try to put your new-found skill into action (like ordering the wrong thing in a restaurant), but even if you really are fluent in a language it can still backfire on you.
Some 25 years ago, when I was finally fluent in Modern Greek and often being mistaken for being a true Athenian Greek, I used to travel to all parts of Greece at a moment’s notice with my children, or with friends – no advance bookings, we’d just get the air tickets to Athens and decide which island to go to once we arrived. My knowledge of the Greek language always stood us in good stead and we seldom had problems. It also meant that we were offered much hospitality by the Greeks, who are such welcoming and lovely people to know.
One day, back here in the smoke, a friend took me to a Greek restaurant he’d found in Bayswater, and it was a terrific place. A musician played the bazouki, we danced a lot, the food was wonderful and we spent the whole evening speaking English and Greek alternately. When my friend asked for the bill, the manager came over and asked us whether we were English or Greek, because he’d heard us speaking both languages and he was puzzled as to our nationality. When he discovered we were both English but had learned to speak Greek at home with books and cassettes, but without formal lessons, he was very impressed. So impressed that he offered us anything on the menu as a gift. It was not difficult for me to choose. I absolutely love halva. That was my selection. I hadn’t remembered that the halva you get in a Greek taverna is not the halva that you’d buy in the shops. Instead, it’s made with semolina and it’s the one I don’t like!
Needless to say, when it was served to me I couldn’t find it in me to turn it away, so I ate as much as I was able to. I thanked him profusely and then said I was full up, having already eaten three courses before it, and this was accepted by the manager. No big deal, you might think. However, more than six months later I returned to that Greek restaurant and took with me a male relation who was in London on a visit, thinking it was unlikely that I’d be remembered especially as I was with someone else and there would be no Greek spoken that evening.
Imagine my chagrin when, at the end of the meal and with nothing being said about it, the halva was presented to me once more. I couldn’t believe it. I ate it manfully (or perhaps it should be womanfully) and made up my mind to not go back there any more. It was such a pity because their hospitality was second to none.
What would you have done?
Gloria
A Chinese Cultural Calamity
In June 2010, I began a six-month journey through Asia, and my first day saw me crashing into Chinese culture.
I arrived in the hutongs of Beijing (traditional closely grouped houses) where I was met with the foreign smell of uncovered meats being cooked on narrow streets, the noisy chatting of families sat on the brick steps of their homes and the overpowering forty degree heat and ninety percent humidity. It is needless to say China was a cultural shock but the exact one I was looking for.
My first venture onto Beijing’s streets was with a French roommate and we were in search of a real Chinese meal. As I wandered down the cobbled streets, only now slightly cooling as the sun set behind the skyscrapers of Beijing’s far away business district, we picked a restaurant that seemed to be thronged with locals and came with an almost essential picture menu. Having a weighty twenty hours of basic Mandarin lessons under my belt I was able to get a table for two, order a beer, and some water for the table. I felt newly alive as we sat chatting in the busy restaurant, watching locals devour their various feasts. The smell of the Mongolian lamb I had ordered, a specialty I had been told about before my trip, was enticing and the sight of it was even better. I remembered all I had learned about Chinese table manners and customs; that turning over a fish was bad luck, to always leave food at the end of your meal to avoid offending the generosity of your host and to never leave chopsticks stuck in the food as this symbolises death! After a twelve-hour flight I was ravenously hungry and as the food was laid upon the table I attempted to dive in. It was then I realised that there were only chopsticks on the table… an item I had somehow never really learned how to use… In a feeble attempt I tried to pincer pieces of succulent lamb and flick them toward my mouth. Alas this was in vain, and it was only after fifteen minutes, perhaps three mouthfuls of food and with the sound of my rumbling stomach distracting other diners, that the waitress quietly slid a fork on to my table with a beaming smile. This experience not only demonstrated the kindness shown towards me by the vast majority of locals that I would meet throughout China, but also showed me that as much as you can practise a language and learn about a culture, sometimes you just have to go somewhere to get a true idea of a country and its people. Needless to say the food disappeared in seconds and that Mongolian lamb is still perhaps the best tasting meal I have ever eaten!
If anyone else has had an experience as embarrassing, or has been touched by another culture, feel free to tell us about your experience wherever you have been in the world.
Glyn
