Colleagues and friends, here comes the debut of Cuisine & Culture, a site intended to promote and enrich diversity, one of the UN core values, by sharing our cultures through imparting our knowledge about our cuisine and its culinary and cultural background; by getting to know one another with us dining and wining together; and by cultivating our friendship through a light hearted moment together while spinning an anecdote or two about food culture.
Food is culture and culture is food. Of all things under the heaven food comes first to the human kind, which depends on it for survival, for nutrition, and for enjoyment of life. Knowing the story behind Concubine Chicken, a well replicated Chinese dish serving the most tender chicken breast marinated in the mouth-watering sauce allegedly created, through trial and error, by Concubine Yang, a woman with unrivalled beauty of her time and the most cherished concubine of Emperor Li of the Tang Dynasty about a millennium ago, undoubtedly gives an added flavour to the dish.
Cuisine & Culture intends to bring the enjoyment of food and life to your kitchen and dining room, and strives to help you eat well and eat healthy. Cuisine & Culture plans to organize “Bring Our Dishes And Let’s Share” event at which food will be sampled and culture shared. Cuisine & Culture also contemplates a dining club to bring the most avid epicure or gourmet among us on culinary culture explorations and culinary cool adventure spanning Nairobi and beyond.
Cuisine & Culture will be a monthly, featuring Recipe of the Month; Medicinal Dish and/or Tip of the Month; and Cooking/Dining Tip of the Month. Colleagues and friends, Cuisine & Culturesolicits and welcomes input from all of you, be it cultural and/or culinary. Cuisine & Culturealso looks forward to your comments and critiques. Together let’s make Cuisine & Culture a great success.
Recipe of the Month—Spicy and Sour Fish Soup
Main ingredient: One black fish i.e. perch/shad/black carp etc., ideally about 500 grams of weight.
Supplementary ingredients: Ginger slices, chopped green onion/scallion, chopped coriander.
Seasoning ingredients/condiments: Salt, white vinegar, cooking wine, olive oil, pepper powder, sugar, and cooking oil.
Preparing and Cooking Process:
Marinate the well-washed fish in cooking wine (one spoonful), white vinegar (2/3 spoonful), olive oil (one spoonful), salt (1/3 spoonful), sugar (one spoonful) for about an hour; finely chop the green onion (two pieces), coriander (half a handful) and slice the ginger (about 5 slices); pour cooking oil (3 to 4 spoonfuls) in the frying pan and wait till when the oil gets hot before spreading the chopped green onion into the oil and lay gently the fish into the pan as well. Slightly fry the fish on both sides until the skin turns lightly smoky yellow before remove it along with the onion and cooking oil into a pot. Add hot water (about 1 litre) to the pot with two pinches of salt, and cook until water boils, stay that way for about five minutes before allowing it to simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove the fish and soup into a soup bowl and spread the chopped coriander, pepper powder (one spoonful), and some more white vinegar(half a spoonful) into the bowl. And, voila, there you have one of the most delicious and nutritious soups. Enjoy!
Medicinal Dish and/or Tip of the Month—Food Healthy to Eyes
As one of the vital organs of human body, eyes need care. Overuse of eyes strains them, leading to eye fatigue first and body fatigue next followed by loss of appetite, nutrition deficiency, and degeneration of eyesight. Headache often follows eye fatigue, warning you to do something to protect your eyes. In addition to alternating work with rest and recreation in order to strike a proper balance between your work and rest, regular eye protection exercises also help. But you need more. Food rich in vitamin A and C can help to care and protect your eyes too.
Food rich in vitamin A: lean meat, fowl meat, animal viscera, fish, shrimp, dairy products, eggs, beans and peas.
The above food items also contain high level of protein which forms a main part of cells. As we know repairing tissues requires a constant supply of protein. Therefore, food rich in vitamin A and protein is very healthy to eyes.
Food rich in vitamin C: Fruits and vegetables especially green pepper, cucumber, cauliflower, cabbage, fresh date, pear, and orange.
As we learn from eye doctors, serious deficiency of vitamin C may lead to cataract since vitamin C composes part of the crystalline lens of our eyeballs.
In addition, food rich in calcium, such as spare ribs, shrimps when consumed with shells, is healthy to eyes too, since calcium functions to minimise eye strain.
Cooking/Dining Tip of the Month—Table Manners while Dining with the Chinese
Inviting guests home or to a restaurant and treating them to a nice meal is common among the Chinese people. Usually, the host serves some delicious dishes with his/her own chopsticks to guests to show hospitality. For westerners it’s quite acceptable to leave the food alone if they feel too awkward. There are other rules or taboos, though, foreigners should at least keep at the back of their mind.
Never stick chopsticks upright in the rice bowl, for that usually appears during a funeral and is deemed extremely rude to the host and the seniors present.
Make sure the spout of the teapot does not face anyone. The proper way is make it direct outward from the table.
Don’t tap on your bowl with your chopsticks. This is deemed an insult to the host and the chef as well.
Never try to turn a fish over and do away with fish bones yourself, since the separation of the fish skeleton from the lower half is usually performed by the host or a waiter. Superstitious people will fear that bad luck may ensue and a boat may capsize if you do so.
From the Editor:
Cuisine & Culture sources its materials online through a variety of sites and channels, which, for reason of simplicity, are omitted but can be provided upon request. Certain materials come in languages other than English which Cuisine &Culturerenders into English to the best of its ability. Cuisine & Culture is not in a position to verify the accuracy of the materials obtained online and provided herein. Reader’s discretion is kindly advised.
A Special Acknowledgement of Thanks from Cuisine & Culture
Cuisine & Culturewishes to express its heartfelt thanks to Kevin Wambura of the ITS team for his technical assistance and is hereby extremely pleased to retain Kevin as Technical Advisor to Cuisine & Culture.
Preview of the November Issue
Recipe of the Month—Sauteed Lamb Chops
Medicinal Dish of the Month—Stir Fried Water Spinach and Red Pepper
Medicinal Tip of the Month—Eating Radish while Drinking Hot Tea in Autumn Keeps a Doctor Away
Cooking/Dining Tip of the Month—Food Symbolism
Cuisine & Culture
Weihua Tang/Editor
UNON/DCS
Ext.1024/Rm.CW112