Eating In Translation

Eclair Bakery

Hazelnut, in gold, surrounded by equally fancified éclairs, and a raspberry tart. Happy New Year!

Eclair Bakery
305 East 53rd St. (First-Second Aves.), Manhattan
347-515-2122
www.EclairBakery-NYC.com

Space Invader and Burger

Invader is a French urban artist whose discreetly installed mosaics evoke the low-rez look of early video games. Owing to the lack of resolution, it's hard to be sure what's on the patty — perhaps lettuce, tomato, pickles, and cheese — but there's no mistaking the sesame-seeded bun.

Space Invader and Burger (Invader, 2015)
Outside the Waverly Diner, 385 Sixth Ave. (at Waverly Pl.), Manhattan

Kachin Traditional Food Fair

From the most recent food fair, a well-dressed bowl of warm tofu over rice noodles. Extra bread on the side for me, please.

Previously: At home in the high country of northern Burma, the Kachin people once had little access to cooking oil. Traditionally, Naomi Duguid writes in Burma: Rivers of Flavor, they relied on "grilling, steaming (in leaf-wrapped packages), or boiling to cook their food." These days, she adds, many Kachin live at lower altitudes, where they have "less access to wild-gathered leaves" but find that oil is more available.

Kachin cooking techniques have evolved accordingly, Duguid notes. Even so, an old-school banana-leaf bundle like the one shown at bottom, filled with steamed fish, greens, and chiles, will always find room at the table. For more food-fair highlights, see my photo collection on Flickr.

Kachin Traditional Food Fair
Parish house of St. James Episcopal Church, 8407 Broadway (St. James-Corona Aves.), Elmhurst, Queens
www.Facebook.com/events/448390215801737
(The 2019 food fair was held on November 30)

Star Deli & Bakery

Mąka żytnia do wypieku domowego chleba, rye flour for baking homemade bread, a sign fittingly hand-drawn not on white paper but on brown cardboard. Also for sale at this Polish shop: frozen (and presumably imported) mushrooms; smoked fish that appear to sing (though it's hard to make out the scribbled tune).

Previously, from the other side of the window: an extra-plump makowiec (mah-Koh-vee-ets), or poppy-seed cake, earned bonus points for a ridgeline of crushed walnut held fast by a sugary glaze.

Star Deli & Bakery
176 Nassau Ave. (Diamond-Humboldt Sts.), Greenpoint, Brooklyn
718-383-6948

Gran Desfile Peruano y Festival en Passaic

The chef is proud of his chicken, too: Smoked pork from Al Cilindro de Javi, one of several restaurants that traveled from Peru to headline this New Jersey festival. Above the charcoal, but below the hanging meat, was a grill (shown empty) on which unwrapped sweet potatoes took up flavor, not only from smoke, but also from pork drippings. Waste not.

Gran Desfile Peruano y Festival en Passaic
The annual parade, which in past years marched toward Little Lima, this year was capped off by a festival in Pulaski Park, Passaic, New Jersey
www.PeruvianParadeInc.com/desfile-peruano/gran-desfile-peruano
(The 2019 parade and festival took place on July 28)

Tania's Kitchen

Haitian trio: fried turkey, black rice, crunchy spicy pikliz.

Tania's Kitchen
Various pop-ups and catered events
347-946-1594
www.Facebook.com/TaniasKitchen
This turkey left over, not from Thanksgiving, but from the Queens Night Market, returning in spring 2020

Malay Bakery

The faint topping, so thin it might have been brushed on, is crumbly, sweet, and reminiscent of a concha. What this Cantonese bakery calls a "Mexican bun" tells a story of exile and return between Old World and New.

Why this Chinese shop took its "Malay" name is another story of migration, I imagine.

Malay Bakery
6919 New Utrecht Ave. (Bay Ridge Ave.-70th St.), Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
718-256-2626

Hungarian House Christmas Fair

Székelykáposzta (Say-keh-lee-kah-pohs-tah), pork-rich cabbage stew. Idle at noon, the ladles were busy minutes later, when services concluded at the Hungarian Reformed Church down the block.

Hungarian House Christmas Fair
Hungarian House of New York, 213 East 82nd St. (Second-Third Aves.), Manhattan
www.Facebook.com/events/784703778669241
(The 2019 fair was held on December 8)

Finnish Christmas Bazaar

You're unlikely to encounter New Nordic cuisine at church events in New York. The most recent Finnish Christmas Bazaar offered no exceptions; over the years the traditional menu has changed very little, a state of affairs that attendees seem to endorse.

Bantu Food Pop-Up

Congolese sampler: catfish on rice, plus spinach; fumbwa, sometimes called wild spinach; chikwangue (she-Kwahn-gah), a cassava "bread"; and safou, large-pitted, soft-fleshed sour fruit. Chikwangue, bobolo (curled atop it, in the photo below), and the still-thinner miondo (not available this day) all are made from pounded, fermented, steamed-in-a-leaf cassava. Unwrapped and sliced, they are distinguished by the different possible proportions available to chef and diner (cf. spaghetti, capellini, and angel hair).

Bantu Food Pop-Up
Maysles Documentary Center, 343 Malcolm X Blvd. (West 127th-West 128th Sts.), Manhattan
A collaboration between Bantu Tastes and Healthy Afrique
(The pop-up took place on December 21-22)