A Latin American Potluck
While most of my blog posts have had educational information along with details of my experiences, I wanted to dedicate this capstone entry to a little bit of a story because I believe that what happened this past Sunday speaks for itself as to how much people learned. Over this past semester I've had some pretty incredible meals and conversations, and while I've hardly scratched the surface of what I believe to be a broad grouping of several unique cultures, I think that this project was a springboard into a mindset of curiosity and willingness to learn from other people and experience other cultures. By no means do I consider myself to be an expert on any culture in Latin America after or because of this project, but I do think that I've been given a really unique opportunity to be curious and find a deeper appreciation for the value one can find in getting to know other people and their stories.
When I tossed around the idea for this potluck, I was met with nothing but excitement from the friends to whom I pitched this idea. The description was simple. I told people that for a class project in my Public Rhetoric class, I've been experiencing Latin American culture over the course of this semester and wanted to give people around me an opportunity to learn about what I've been doing and eat good food at the same time. The turnout was better than anything I could have imagined.
The idea and execution of this potluck brought together people from all different backgrounds. Two friends who'd been hearing about my project all semester came. My friend from Peru, with whom I shared a meal at Mango (the Peruvian restaurant) came. My roommate and one of my neighbors came, and a friend I spent time with in Nicaragua and who just got back from a semester in Rome came. Two of my friends from Nicaragua came, and my a friend who just got back from studying abroad in Argentina came, and even brought a SLU student from Venezuela whom I'd never met before. It was so cool being able to see right in front of me that the goal of the potluck being a place for different people to come together was actually working.
When I organized this potluck I wanted to make sure that we had a dish from every country that I talked about in my previous blog posts: Nicaragua, Peru, and Mexico. I also wanted to give people the chance to learn how to cook their own dish. One of the most interesting things about the fact that we had to cook our own dishes is the fact that hardly any of the ingredients we needed were available in Schnucks or any other local grocery stores (for a list of ingredients, see the Recipe blog post). We had to go to the Hispanic neighborhood of St. Louis (Cherokee Street area) to get all of our ingredients, which was a wonderful experience.
At 10:30 the morning of the potluck, one of my friends (who decided to cook pupusas) and I drove to Cherokee street. This entire potluck experience seemed full-circle because not only were we cooking dishes from countries that I talked about previously, but we were also going back to places that I wrote about in the beginning of the blog (see the post on Mexico). The chance to walk around a store with Spanish music playing and Spanish titles on all the food items in the city I've called home for four years was surreal because it was an immediate reminder of how richly diverse a city can really be. The clerk at the counter even remembered me from the last time Eduardo and I visited, and she spoke Spanish to me and my friend that morning, helping us find all the ingredients we needed and giving us advice on which ingredients to substitute once we showed her the recipes. I've been continuously surprised at how many friends I've been able to make through this project, and at how interconnected this city and life are in general.
After laying out the corn flour, corn oil, tomatoes, onions, beef, pork, chilies, peppers, garlic, pepper, salt, french fries, beans, cheese, plantains, and every other ingredient we bought from the Hispanic grocery store, we set out to work. While reading several variations of the recipes for the pozole, lomo saltado, and pupusas, my friends and I noticed that for many of the recipes that had the word "authentic" or "traditional," the preparation and cook time totaled anywhere between 5 and 22 hours. Coming from a culture and country where we expect our food between 5 and 22 minutes, I was absolutely blown away by how much time and effort can be put into a single dish, and I'd argue that it speaks wonders to the depth of a culture where the normal prep time for a single meal is several hours. For the purpose of saving time during finals week, my friends and I went with the recipes that had relatively shorter preparation times.
This whole potluck came together in such a unique way. After buying the groceries and deciding on the dishes we would cook, everyone stepped in to make their dish. One of my friends even decided to make chocolate empanadas filled with hand-made caramel. I was so surprised and grateful for how willing everyone was to put so much effort into making this potluck happen. After hours of preparation, we started making the caramel on the stove, stirring frequently. After an hour and a half of stirring, we realized that she put 1/4 cup of baking soda instead of 1/4 tbsp of baking soda into the caramel mix. After a laugh and a collective "now what?" between the three people cooking in my apartment at that time, another friend, who had just gotten back from Argentina, left and returned with authentic, Argentinian dulce de leche caramel. The fact that someone was so willing to part with one of the few things she brought back from Argentina spoke wonders to this idea of what a meal with friends could be. She was so excited to share the caramel that had become a staple of her desserts while studying abroad. This potluck wasn't just a chance to try and cook new food, it was a chance to share part of who people were, and the empanadas were absolutely delicious, especially when served right out of the oven with vanilla ice cream.
On that same note, my friend from Nicaragua made the most authentic gallo pinto I've ever tasted here in the US and brought it over just in time to start dinner. He was so excited to share a dish from his home country, and everyone was blown away by how great it tasted. We even got to share some Nicaraguan beers with him and our other friend from Nicaragua during dinner.
My neighbor was tasked with making the tajadas, which was also something that she had never done before. After a couple of failed attempts at cutting the tajadas into slices, she got the technique down and prepared them expertly. After dinner she came up to me and told me that we would be making them more often in the semester to come.
Meanwhile, the friend with whom I went to the Hispanic grocery store and my roommate worked diligently on the pupusas, making the bean and cheese stuffing for the corn tortillas while another friend cooked the lomo saltado and I worked on the pozole. The experience of running around my apartment kitchen while four other people were also using it to cook their dishes and prepare dinner was uniquely communal and chaotic in nature, and it's a memory I'll never forget. To be honest, none of us, especially me, really knew what we were doing, but the fact that we were all determined to make this potluck a reality made the chaos worth it and even fun.
When I was in Nicaragua, my friend taught me how to make corn tortillas with masa flour, and I was able to make them in my apartment from memory while also teaching my friends how to do the same for their pupusas. For the two of my friends making the pupusas, it was their first time ever cooking a Latin American dish, and they were so proud and excited to make it. Since I was busy making the pozole and my other friend was working on the lomo saltado, they had to do everything themselves, even though they had never seen a pupusa in real life before. It's a pretty impressive feat to come up with something that tasted like Central America on a plate when you've never even tried one yourself. It was so cool getting to see how proud they were of their dish, and how well everyone responded to it. Our friends from Peru, Nicaragua, and Venezuela made it even better when their faces lit up each time they tried one of the dishes that we made. My roommate told me that he looks forward to being able to share this recipe with his friends in the future and repeated how much fun he had cooking the pupusas, and there was an overwhelming desire to have another potluck with more people next semester.
When my friend from Peru came to my apartment to help us finish cooking the Lomo saltado, she lit up, telling us that this is exactly how it looked when her mother made it at home, and to be honest it was one of the best meals I have ever had.
To be honest, the pozole was supposed to be more of a soup than it turned out to be. After boiling it in a large saucepan with chilies, salsa verde, hominy, garlic, onions, etc. for an hour, all of the broth disappeared. The recipe called for bowls in which to serve the pozole, but we were able to serve it with a spatula on the side of all of our plates. Even though the soup we chose to make wasn't really a soup, it was still one of the best and cost effective meals I've ever had. For less than $20, the pozole fed 11 people!
My friend who studied abroad in Argentina made a delicious Argentinian appetizer called choripan, which is basically french bread with sausage and chimichurri sauce. The most inspiring thing about this whole potluck was the fact that she was so excited about the concept of celebrating Latin American culture that she asked me if she could invite a student from Venezuela that she met less than 24 hours before the meal even started. The whole apartment's atmosphere was so welcoming, and it reaffirmed my belief that a simple meal (or complex potluck) can break down every single barrier that exists, and friends can be made in a matter of an hour (or after second helpings).
When I looked down after ladling the foods from each country onto my plate, I noticed how difficult it was to distinguish the different foods from each other, and gave up after trying to take a bite from each one separately. The dishes complimented and contrasted each other wonderfully in what became the best meal I've had in such a long time.
The best part of the meal was that as we all sat down on my apartment floor (we didn't have enough chairs), the conversations mixed and flowed seamlessly. And I felt genuinely lucky to be a part of a meal where differences were celebrated and stories were told about peoples' home countries or experiences abroad or how much work was put into the meals that they made.
I'll always remember this potluck and project in general with a smile and a spark of curiosity for the next meal and stories I'll have with (new) friends. As this project comes to an end, I wanted to tell whoever is reading this one more time that the amount of memories I've been able to make and things I've been able to learn by honing a sense of curiosity has been one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had. I hope that you've enjoyed reading my blog as much as I've enjoyed learning about and celebrating this beautiful group of cultures. It's time to reheat some leftovers.