Falling in love over 85 cuisines
If you are looking to spice up date night then take a page out of Gailyn Wood’s bursting recipe book. Until the time comes to travel the world, Gailyn, 63 from Alderley, Queensland and her partner Dave have decided to recreate recipes from countries around the world. Since March 2013, they have made their way through A to Z worth of countries. Besides discovering delicious dishes and learning about new cultures, a weekly ritual of “Friday night nibbles” was born.
My partner Dave and I were talking about overseas travel and how when we retire we would like to go on a boat trip down the Rhine and just stop off at out-of-the way places so we could eat and drink with the natives. This grew into a discussion about how different countries, even neighbouring countries, eat and prepare foods in different ways. We can't do the travel overseas yet so we came up with this as a fun alternative. The idea of "eating indigenously" was actually Dave's but we decided the best way to do it was together. Quite frankly, I thought we would do it for a few weeks and then it would lose its appeal, be too hard or just peter out. That was 85 countries ago! Of course we don't do it every meal, or every week but unless we have something like holidays, or travel or parties we pretty much do it.
Our weekly ritual is that Saturday morning we find the recipes for the week together. We decided early on to stick with mains and not include desserts. We try to include one fish and a variety of meats. Of course some countries are easier than others. For example I found an amazing duck soba recipe for Japan which was ultra-simple but oh so tasty! I cheat sometimes and I did with this one and bought the duck already cooked. Other countries we've struggled with. We've just eaten in Kazakhstan and their staple meat is mutton and horse, including the head of the sheep.
Dave is the one who studies the geography and the culture. We've learnt so much about other countries. Our palates have grown and I am constantly amazed how much variety can be produced with a few simple ingredients and how other cultures are not reliant on 'meat and three veggies'. We find the recipes together and I use the recipes to write out my shopping list. I then check off things like spices or herbs I have in the pantry or growing in the garden. One benefit of this is that I have very little waste and because so many of the meals are slow cooked I can use cheaper cuts of meat. I use lots of spices I've never used before but it's rare to buy a spice I only use once or twice. For example cumin is a spice used in a lot of European and African dishes.
One Friday night I served up some leftover bits to have with our nightcap and hey presto our “Friday night nibbles” were born. It's the time we sit together, we have a glass (or two) of wine and a sample of food. Sometimes it's leftovers and sometimes like when we were eating in Jordan it's a trio of things I make. Jordan it was dips and bread I made for just that meal.
Since we've been eating this way Dave has lost 12 kilos. He hasn't changed much else but we don't eat much bread unless I make it as one of the menu items. He says it's because the meals are so interesting and varied he is not tempted to eat junk. My shopping bills have gone down. I'm forced to be organised and I shop to a list. I've discovered lots of great places to shop like the local Japanese grocer who loves to help me find the right ingredients, the fruit shop where I can get okra and Asian vegetables, the butchers where I can ask for specific cuts of meat. I still haven't found a good fishmonger which is ironic as I live in Brisbane.
I use notes on my iPad to keep the recipes so have a complete record. I take photos of my efforts and I record them on an app called 365. I upload a photo to Facebook once or twice a week and have a few followers. I've thought about starting a blog but so far haven't had the time. We both work full time.
It’s hard to nominate favourite recipes. Even though some countries are similar each week is different. Australia was fun. We concentrated on native produce like barramundi and I even tried kangaroo. Afghanistan was our first country and we had an amazing potato bread from there, a beautiful stuffed grilled trout from Equatorial Guinea, osso buco from Italy, Irish stew, lamb roast from Iceland, moussaka from Greece, mustard chicken from Gabo, curries from Jamaica, chicken Creole from Haiti. Whatever we had last becomes the favourite.
We source the recipes on Google. We aren't the only ones to do this. A fact we discovered after we started but I think we are the only ones to eat an entire week in each country. Are all our recipes authentic? Probably not, but we do try to choose from authentic websites. Will we do it to Z. Yes. Would I recommend you do it? Yes. Find a way that suits you: once a week, nibbles, desserts. It gives us a shared interest, something to talk about besides work and the kids, and it's a lot of fun.
Here are just some of the dishes we've made:
Juuwari soba with duck breast, engine and shiitake. We have a great Japanese grocery store just down the road which has made shopping easy this week. Only trouble is some of the instructions on the packets are in Japanese.
Friday night nibbles from Guyana beer battered prawns, garlic pork cutlets and Guyanese pholourie. With a glass of white the perfect start to the weekend.
Iranian chicken with lentil rice and salad.
Keftedes. Not as nicely shaped as the ones in the recipe photo. Kind of rustic Cyprian pork sausages.
Eating in Grenada. Pork chops with spicy homemade tomato sauce, yams and potatoes.
Lag man shurpa (lamb stew) with noodles from Kazakhstan. I cheated and bought the noodles. Stew finished with white wine which gives it an interesting flavour.
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