Eating In Translation

TCCNJ Spring Festival

(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on a past year's celebration.)

Each of these "raw meatballs" bears its maker's mark. In contemporary Turkish and Armenian homes, some versions still incorporate the traditional raw lamb or beef, but in public settings cig kofte (Cheeg Kuf-teh) are almost always vegetarian. Typically they're made with a blend of bulgur, onion, tomato, and red pepper paste, then partnered with lettuce-leaf cradles and fresh lemon. As for "meatballs," this English-language term of convenience doesn't convey the primal beauty of the dish: Cig kofte are distinctively yet unselfconsciously shaped by hand.

At this event organized by the Turkish Cultural Center of New Jersey, the manti (Mahn-tee) were also made by hand, I was told, though evidently ahead of time and offsite. Unlike many larger namesakes, the Turkish version of manti are about the size of a thumbnail and take considerable time to make in large numbers. These, filled with ground lamb, were ultimately deposited in red pepper oil, then dressed with garlic yogurt, red pepper flakes, mint, and sumac.

Also shown: two of Grandma's homemade jams, strawberry and orange; "Grandma."

TCCNJ Spring Festival
Overpeck County Park, Leonia, New Jersey
www.Facebook.com/TCCNJ/photos/gm.823141934387615/670020183110120
(This edition of the festival was held on May 16, 2015)

Fairs, festivals, and food bazaars, past and future

Many fairs, festivals, and food bazaars, rooted in culinary traditions from all over the world, have been postponed or cancelled this spring. On Sunday, May 24, I'll lead a virtual tour to look at the past, and the future, of these beloved events: https://turnstiletours.com/eating-in-translation-with-dave-cook/

Trenton Pork Roll Festivals

(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on a past year's festivals.)

To hold diced pork roll in place, what's better than maple icing?

Citizen of Burma Award food fair

(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on a past year's event.)

There are still times when someone cuts up my food for me.

Samosas often take the form of stuffed, deep-fried pastry pyramids, and at most Westernized restaurants they're presented intact. But for this samosa salad they were snipped in pieces, adding a crunchier layer to a base of chunked potatoes and shredded lettuce. An excellent dressing — made with tamarind paste, ginger, garlic, parsley, cumin, and sugar cane — was spooned on, then washed though the salad with a ladle of soup. Fish sauce and lime, I added myself. (See also the samosa chat at the former Spicy Mina, in which the pastries were swamped in yogurt, and likewise delicious.)

Those orange-handled scissors appeared at numerous tables, often to cut glutinous desserts down to size. My Flickr album captures those, as well as a small fraction of the other food on offer.

Citizen of Burma Award food fair
P.S. 12 (The James B. Colgate School), 42-00 72nd St., Woodside, Queens
(Although the organization behind the Citizen of Burma Award is still active online, it hasn't hosted a similar food fair in recent years)

Little Pie Co.

By-the-slice food-for-all: Little Pie's table at a bygone Ninth Avenue International Food Festival (normally scheduled for May, but cancelled in 2020). Also shown, from a recent visit to the shop: sour cream apple coffee cake; the window display.

Little Pie Co.
424 West 43rd St. (Ninth-Tenth Aves.), Manhattan
212-736-4780
www.LittlePieCompany.com

DanceAfrica Bazaar

(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on previous celebrations.)

In another year it would be high time for the three-day DanceAfrica Bazaar, held in concert with a decades-old annual festival of African dance and music. Much as I love Southern-style samplers and jerk chicken (both shown below), these days I wouldn't mind a little funnel-cake action, too.

Also: A young green coconut, opened on the spot with a machete, might hold a lot of liquid. If you're really thirsty, a skinny plastic drinking straw just won't do; tip your head back and chug. At this stall, the proprietor would then hack into the husk, not quite splitting it into thirds. He'd also fashion a utensil by slicing off a thin-edged piece that could scrape the flesh from the inside of the coconut; no other utensil is required.

DanceAfrica Bazaar
Vicinity of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), 30 Lafayette Ave., Fort Greene, Brooklyn
www.BAM.org/DanceAfrica

Food Festival at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral

(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on a past year's festival.)

One of the best things since before sliced bread.

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church Festival

(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on a past year's festival.)

Though he's usually not a fan of rice pudding, the fellow next to me confessed, he'd bought three cups to take home.

At many festivals organized by churches, mosques, temples, and the like, the grill and rotisserie are the province of the men, but it's the women of the congregation who prepare the most enticing items. Consider, for example, the array of sweets at the annual St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church food festival and bazaar, held each autumn in Washington Heights. On this springtime afternoon, however, after roping me in with a sample of the halva (shown below), the bake-table ladies confided that the pudding was not their doing — today's superlative batch was prepared by the chef for the archdiocese. Evidently, he believes that every grain of rice deserves its due.

Also shown: the house band.

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church Festival
On the street outside Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, 302 West 91st St. (at West End Ave.), Manhattan
www.Facebook.com/AnnunciationNYC
(A date for a 2020 festival has not been publicly announced)

Haitian Day Parade and Festival

(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on celebrations in past years.)

It's an easy-going affair: Even during the half-hour parade, Toussaint L'Ouverture Blvd. — the informal name for this stretch of Nostrand Ave., after the 18th-century Haitian revolutionary leader — was subject to friendly incursions by pedestrians, cyclists, and even some skateboarders. At the southern end of the event, between the bouncy castles and the petting zoo (llamas sure have short legs), most of the food vendors set out hearty fare that would be at home on nearby steam tables.

But at one long tented stand, I came across a curious and humble item with the incongruous name "royal" (roy-AL). This broad cassava cracker, wiped with runny peanut butter and topped with the spicy cabbage-and-carrot slaw called piklis, is a common festival food in Haiti, according to the lady who prepared mine; I'd never seen it, not even at the West Indian Day Parade.

One gentleman customer had his royal cut in two and doubled over; I stuck with the standard, open-faced, presentation. That choice also gave me a look at the small oily pools that formed on the surface of the cracker; I'm unsure whether they came from the piklis or the peanut butter, which may have been spicy itself. (Which reminds me: Does anyone know of a New York source for Compa Direct Mamba?) Good stuff, especially when ice cream is the next course.

Haitian Day Parade and Festival
The parade proceeds south on Nostrand Ave. from Empire Blvd. to the festival grounds near Foster Ave., Flatbush, Brooklyn
(In recent years the celebration has been much diminished, except for amplified music; none has been publicly announced for 2020)

Ecuafest

(Many of the fairs, festivals, and other wonderful food events that usually fill my calendar each spring have been postponed or cancelled. This post is based on celebrations in past years.)

With warm weather come outdoor festivals, and with outdoor festivals come food vendors who don't post their prices.

Usually, nothing nefarious is afoot. Often these vendors simply prefer to sell the sizzle before you're discouraged by the price of, say, the cheesesteak. Some offer extras that are included in the price (it's hard to go wrong with a ladle or two of gravy), but some extras cost extra ("You want fries with that?"). When you don't know the cuisine or speak the language, it's not always easy to know which is which. Wander over with your eyes on a snack, and you might find yourself paying for and carrying off your main meal of the day.

The "I'll have one of those" tactic works well in such cases, provided you have a good lead to follow. I arrived at about the same time as an older fellow, who had a feather in his cap (literally) and who was clearly well-known to the proprietors, since he stepped behind the display tables to negotiate his purchase. With a fiver in one hand and the vendor's smallest cardboard food caddy in the other, he twirled his finger at the toasted corn and grilled pork, then at the jumbo corn kernels and miniature Andean potatoes. Five bucks and a twirled finger later, I had some of the same.

Previously, and shown below: roast cuy (Coo-ee). This Ecuadorian guinea pig is traditionally spit-roasted, which accounts for the gaping aspect; my platter included only the hindquarters, so I didn't need to stare my meal in the face. Recently cooked, the meat had a texture like roast turkey, and much the same flavor, which is to say, not much flavor at all; the skin was pliable, chewy, and as succulent as such a thin layer can be. Given the leftover test, after a suitable spell in the fridge, the meat developed appealing gamey overtones, but the skin, though still flexible, toughened to inedibility.

Ecuafest
West 107th St. between Amsterdam and Columbus Aves., Manhattan
www.Facebook.com/ecuafest100
(In recent years the organizers seem to have limited their Manhattan celebration to a parade while holding a larger event, with food, in Queens; none has been publicly announced for 2020)