Eat The World

It wasn't long ago that I used to "cook" my food from a box and serve take-out as a grand feast. I was like most people - utilizing convenience products as my craftiest kitchen tools! Sadly, as a result, our familial diet was over-processed and terribly unhealthy. But even worse than that, our grasp on world cuisine rarely strayed far beyond Ramen noodles and a DiGiorno pizza.

 

We were one of those households - you know, the kind that sees a news story about Eritrea and wonders...where is that?! It seemed, with every bite of our Frito-Lay, PepsiCo, Nabisco-laden food supply, that we were losing touch with the world around us. We were missing out! So, we realized that something had to change. But, what?

 

Simply, I decided we should eat the world. That's right! Eat it! All of it! Maybe not the way Andrew Zimmern does, but in our own, more cautious ways, we would learn about the world through food. So, here's how we decided to start:

 

• Each month, at random, we would pick a new country of the world to study. And by study I mean cook food from that nation...from scratch! No T.V. dinners. No cheating!

• For the chosen country of the month, we would be obligated to make at least one appetizer, one dinner entree and one dessert. But not necessarily all in one day.

• And, to make things more fun, we would also try to learn as much about our country as possible. That would mean listening to music, dancing, reading books, watching movies, and, with any luck, taking a "field trip" to a local restaurant serving that fare!

 

This was the plan we made up a few years ago. We stuck to it ardently for a good long while. You can check out the blog that documented this experiment here: http://exploringtheworldthroughfood.blogspot.com/.

 

Then, as plans sometimes fall by the wayside, this journey was temporarily derailed by my second pregnancy. However, now that our children have more teeth than complaints, we are excited to begin again. And this time, we invite you to join us!

 

Please follow along as we discover new things, learn about cultures and explore the wonderful world through food.

 

 

 

Cindy