Peruvian Chicken and women entrepreneurs

Peruvian chicken----Feb. 2014, Falls Church, VA

For those of you not in-the-know, “Peruvian chicken” is one of the most popular ethnic foods in northern Virginia. It’s a dish—rotisserie-roasted whole or half chicken served with French fries or fried yucca and a lettuce and tomato salad. Optional sides usually include friend plantains or bananas, potato salad, sometimes corn on the cob or rice and beans, and others. But Peruvian chicken places also serve steak or chicken sandwiches (toasted bun with lettuce and slice of tomato), provolone cheese, and mayonnaise and spicy green sauce (tomatillo and green chili). They also serve a few other dishes, depending on the particular restaurant—tongue stew, sausage, fried fish. They offer drinks (Inca cola, horchata, various soft drinks) and desserts (flan, cakes, ice cream). Also, they are not necessarily run by Peruvians. Immigrants from other central and South American countries capitalize on its popularity and offer variations of it along with their own cuisine.

I was first introduced me to Peruvian Chicken by my friends Sam and Gail, local residents and aficionados of local culture.  A few years back, they took me to the original restaurant that popularized it in the early 2000s--Edy’s Chicken and Steak Restaurant (5240 Leesburg Pike, Bailey’s Crossroads, VA  22041). I’ve gone to a few other restaurants in northern VA, where they have proliferated (along with the Latin American population there), and stopped in today (Monday, Feb. 24) at one I hadn’t been to before.  On Route 50 across from Seven Corners, Peruvian Chicken and Steak (6198 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA.) stood out with red and white colors and its name blazoned across the side. It offered the usual fare—although I did notice a “Chicken gyros”—an interesting fusion of culinary traditions. The décor included maps of Peru and motifs from Incan culture (a painting of Machu Pichu) along with servers wearing a cheerful red apron and hat with “Peruvian Chicken and Steak” written across it. I ordered a steak sandwich (they didn’t seem to offer the usual chicken and steak sandwich) with a side of potato salad. The food was tasty, especially the mayonnaise and green sauce.

What I did notice even more, though, was a sign with the names of the owner and managers. All were female. That’s not unusual either. It does, however, challenge some of the mainstream stereotypes of women from so-called “undeveloped” countries as being oppressed by and submissive to men. Here they were being the entrepreneurs and the ones in charge. So I asked to speak to the owner.

The owner is actually from El Salvador, coming to the US about 30 years ago. She met her husband here, and he was from Peru. They opened the restaurant together, offering “Peruvian chicken and steak” since that’s what seemed to sell in the area. She was pleased to tell me her story and have her photo taken in the store, and I wish I had had more time to hear more. Her husband died several years ago, so she runs the restaurant alone. It still features the Peruvian chicken, but also offers a few Salvadorean specialties-- tamal de pollo was advertised the day I was there. I didn’t ask her about the rise in competition from the numerous small diner types of Latin-American restaurants that cater to the ethnic population here, but her restaurant seemed to offer a more Americanized-type of atmosphere, almost a fast-food franchise feel to the seating, clean floors, and large windows.

It was interesting to compare it with the much smaller, “hole-in the wall” place I went to with Betty, another friend and fellow traveler of foodways experiences, several days earlier that advertised Peruvian-Salvadorean-Mexican fare and didn’t particularly cater to “Anglos.” Also, it struck me in contrast to the very busy Mexican bakery and chicken place on the opposite corner of the shopping center. People tend to gather around the familiar and in places that make them feel at home. Was this restaurant teetering in the balance of appealing to “Americans” and “ethnics?” Or were people just going to where others spoke with similar accents and could talk about the same places “back home?”

More research, more tasting, and more talking to people working and eating there is called for. In the meantime, I admire the strength of women who come from another country to make a life in a new one, oftentimes without family or friends, then experience heartaches that accompany all lives but seem to visit them more, and then somewhere continue. The least I can do is order another meal from them.

 

 

Comfort Food—To each his/her own (3/26/2013)

I’ve thinking lately about comfort food, primarily because I’m putting together a panel on the topic for a conference (American Folklore Society in Providence, RI in Oct., 2013). That got me looking at scholarship on the subject, but it also got me thinking about what comfort food is. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it rather obviously as “food that comforts or offers solace,” but that doesn’t offer any clues as to what foods those are, how they work, and why we might need comforting anyway.

The last question became obvious over a few days when I visited my 89-year-old father. Although he is in remarkably good health and looks 75 or younger, he is recovering from pneumonia and suddenly feeling the aging process. I usually cook for him when I visit, and these are usually foods from his Appalachian childhood—hominy, grits, beans, greens. He now tends to add some chunks of canned salmon, canned applesauce, and ketchup to everything he eats, which is actually very healthy, but has a disconcerting effect on the aesthetics of the meal for the rest of us. Because of an uncomfortable family situation (which I won’t go into here, but could use as the basis for numerous blogs and books as well as perhaps, crimes), I didn’t cook for him this time. Instead, we went out to eat or I brought in food. It was obviously not the same. He wanted the comfort of familiar foods and familiar routines.

Instead, he took what comfort he could in going to restaurants that held memories for him, that allowed him to be nostalgic about his own history and about his wife, my mother, who died three years ago. Some of these were more successful than others in terms of offering solace and emotional sustenance. For example, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant, in honor of his having worked in Saigon for 4 years up until the “end” of the war in 1975. I stayed with him there for a semester of college, so I chose a café specializing in noodle soups (pho) that reminded me of the inexpensive but delicious meals I consumed in market places and sidewalk vendor stands. For me, these were comfort foods, reminding me of youthful adventures as well as special times with my father (my mother and siblings had lived in Bangkok rather than Saigon for safety reasons). My father, however, did not remember those years. What he did remember was frequenting a different restaurant in the Vietnamese enclave of shops (the Eden Center in Falls Church, VA). That restaurant had belonged to a Vietnamese refugee whom he had known in Saigon and then helped get established in the US. That restaurant, the Four Seasons, had since moved to another part of town, but he brought it up repeatedly as where he had wanted to go. He used to take my mother there on Sunday afternoons, and he liked seeing the “fruits” of his own generosity and friendship to the restaurant owner. Plus, I think he sometimes got a discount! The point, though, was that the food itself seemed to hold no comfort for him; it was the place that would have comforted. He enjoyed the meal, especially since he got to visit with my college age daughter, but it didn’t “nourish” him emotionally as it did me.

This got me thinking more about comfort foods, though, and how each of us have our own memories, our own histories, and our own tastes that make some foods comforting. When I asked my own children (now in the twenties) what foods they considered comfort foods, one responded with a list of items (grits and hash browns that I usually made for her; potato salad that her grandmother made), while another said “anything that Meema made.” He couldn’t think of anything specific until I reminded him of an essay he had written in high school about his grandmother making pancakes in any shape requested, including pterodactyls. It was the shapes, not the pancakes, themselves that he remembered fondly and made him nostalgic for the long summer days spent with his grandparents. My own comfort foods would not fit the usual American expectations of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, etc, but reflect my own multicultural history of growing up in the American South and Appalachian mountains, and far east and southeast Asia—hominy, cornbread, Korean bulgogi and kimchi. Also, I realized that more recent events had introduced foods that to me represented comfort, or at least memories that nurtured and soothed—soda bread from a year in Northern Ireland, flan from a year in Spain, corn casserole from decades in the American Midwest.

So what does this tell us about comfort food? It’s different for each of us. We all have different pasts as well as different needs for comfort. My comfort foods give me a sense of continuity with the numerous homes I have had and people I have known. They remind me of good times, or at least, times that made a mark on me in some way, and that are now a part of my history. And I realize that I need them when I feel dislocated somehow and distanced from those places and people. They comfort me in reminding me that I am part of things larger than myself and that my life has been rich and full. And that last adjective can be taken literally and metaphorically.

One last question—actually, several: Why do we (Americans) usually think of comfort food as being unhealthy, loaded with carbohydrates, fats and sugar? And why is only some food comforting? Why not all of it? 

Polish-American Food: Stanley’s Market in North Toledo

Thursday, August 16, 2012

(Part of the research I'm doing for the Center's series on foodways traditions in northwest Ohio...)

I spent a delightful Thursday at Stanley’s Market in North Toledo in what used to be a neighborhood with thriving businesses run by and catering to the Polish community there. Most of the Polish immigrants came to Toledo in the early 1900s to work in the auto industry and settled in two neighborhoods, Lagrinka (which turned into LaGrange Street) and Kuschwantz. Both neighborhoods centered on a catholic church (St. Hedwig’s) and were essentially villages where people spoke Polish to one another, purchased familiar foods, and enjoyed a familiar cultural and social life. As the immigrants settled in and became established, though, they began moving to suburbs where their children could become Americanized and attend better schools. Some of the old businesses remained, and families frequently returned to them to purchase items for holidays, family reunions, and for “old time’s sake.”

Stanley’s Market began in 1932 as a kielbasa stand by a Ukranian immigrant (national borders at the time were somewhat vague and cultures and languages were frequently shared). In 1935, he bought the building where the Market is today and became known for his homemade sausage (kielbasa). He sold the business after “the war” (WWII) to a Polish family who still runs it today.

Joe, the son, is a friendly and hospitable businessman and promoter of Polish culture. The market still features his renowned kielbasa along with pierogi, sauerkraut, hot dog sauce, horse radish, bakery breads, and other Polish items (sweet and sour cabbage, stuffed cabbage rolls, potato pancakes). A special shelf stocks Polish beers and liquors, and the walls are decorated with Polish items, including a blackboard with the Polish word for the week. T-shirts with Stanley’s Market inscribed on them and mugs with Polish writing are also offered. Obviously, Polish pride is taken for granted!

Other items are included that reflect the changing neighborhood—southern “soul” food items like catfish nuggets, corn bread mixes, batter for frying chicken or pork chops. Also, some of the Polish food has been “up-dated.” Marjoram is the featured herb in the kielbasa, but with the growing popularity of spicy dishes and chilis, Hungarian paprika has been added to make a hot version. The sausages are also smoked, and these are frequently sold as snacks to be eaten on the spot. (or in the car on the way home…)

Several customers stopped to chat with us as we videotaped the store. One said that he was 73 years old and had been shopping there longer than Joe had run the place. A woman had run out of bread and had to come shopping a day earlier than her usual weekly shopping day. Another woman said she remembered her mother calling the “pigs-in-a-blanket”or cabbage rolls glomka in Polish. She said she always came to Stanley’s to buy them. Others said they came here for the kielbasa and pierogi. It was the last store left in the area that made those items.

The surroundings of the store suggested it’s lone status as a hold-out of the old neighborhood. Boarded up windows and abandoned buildings spoke of the disappearance of the old Polish community, whether through aging or suburban-flight. Even the beautiful old churches were dwindling in their use and were closing their congregations. Joe and other customers wistfully mused that children don’t appreciate the old ways but that it’s also the nature of progress and moving on. Maybe, though, the future can include not only recognition and celebration of the Polish heritage but also see some of that heritage as vital and useful to living today. That’s easy to imagine at a venue like Stanley’s Market, where the food speaks volumes about ethnicity and is also very, very tasty.

For more information about Stanley’s Market, see http://stanleysmarket.com.

An excellent resource for information on the Polish in Toledo is the Toledo Polish Genealogical Society, http://tpgs02.org/history.htm.

Stanley’s Market is being featured in our educational documentary video series on Northwest Ohio Foodways Traditions. See www.foodandculture.org.

July 3, 2012  Latino Food at the Dayton Cityfolk Festival

The Dayton Cityfolk Festival was this past weekend (June 29-July 1), and I had the honor of working in the Latino Culture Tent with artists and cooks representing a number of countries from Central and South America (and Texas, which likes to consider itself its own country). Most of the individuals now live in Ohio, and it is a reminder of the wealth of cultures we have here as well as the diversity that gets lumped under the terms “Latino” or “Hispanic.”

A good example was in one of the foodways panels that I helped moderate. Gloria is Mexican-American from San Antonio, Texas who moved to northwest Ohio when she was a child. Leticia was born in Mexico City but came to Columbus, OH when she was 28; and Yasmina, of Croatian heritage, grew up in Argentina before immigrating to the US to Yellow Springs, Ohio. All three are considered Latina, but have had very different experiences and very different thoughts on their ethnicity—and how it is expressed through their food. And their food is very different.

They all discussed the ways in which their food has evolved. Some ingredients that used to be regional are now easier to get now: Gloria remembers her mother not being able to get chili peppers in northwest Ohio, so having to depend on relatives or friends bringing them back from Texas when they visited. That gradually changed, but even now, the variety of peppers is not available in the stores (or they’re expensive). She has friends who grow different kinds and give them to her. Leticia could get any regional ingredient she needed in Mexico City, since it’s the hub of commerce for the country. Columbus offers a lot, but not as much as Mexico City, and chili peppers were not a problem for Yasmina at all since they are not used in traditional Argentinean or Croatian cooking. She said the most important food in Argentina is beef, and grilling meat is the national foodways and pastime. (Sounds like they have a lot in common with many Anglo-Americans!)

Tortillas are similarly complicated. The corn “flour” for corn tortillas, the traditional type in Mexico is processed with alkaline (lime, potash, ashes, lye) in order to soften the hull. This process, known as nixtamalization, also releases niacin (vitamin b), making the corn healthier to eat. Hominy (posole) is made this way. The softened corn kernels have to be rinsed carefully and then are ground to make the dough for the tortillas, which traditionally accompany every meal. This is usually a daily chore, and a demanding one. Gloria said that her mother always made flour tortillas since they couldn’t get the corn flour in northwest Ohio, but she also remembers the tortillas in Texas being wheat also. Leticia found that strange since corn is so central to Mexican foodways (and is held sacred in older belief systems). I wonder if it might reflect the Colonial Anglo-American preference for wheat flour and wheat bread and the dismissal of corn as being animal feed and the food of the “savages.” Gloria thinks it was just a matter of what was available, but the others want to look into that more.

Yasmina’s yerba mate tradition drew a lot of attention, partly because audiences thought she was smoking something somewhat illegal! It is a tea that has long been used in Argentina and Paraguay and has numerous anti-oxidants. It is also a stimulant and can be used in place of coffee. According to Yasmina, it is drunk all day long in Argentina, and a bowl is oftentimes shared with friends. The part that caught peoples’ attention was the way that it is served—in a small gourd with a wooden straw. She also had variations on that—elaborate silver and decorated bowls and straws. She shared the tea with anyone willing (which, of course, included me). It was naturally bitter, so she put sugar in it. She said the leaves were boiled in milk to give to children.  She sent me home with all the makings for it that I need, so I plan to experiment with it, all in the name of research, of course!

packages of yerba mate

Yasmina explaining yerba mate

Breads and tamales on the Mexican Day of the Dead table.

Gloria telling how to make Mexican bread pudding (cheese, no eggs or milk)

Corn and peanuts at the Mexican Day of the Dead Altar

 (with her friend/assistant from Peru)

Leticia's Mexican Day of the Dead altar

The experiences I had at the festival affirmed my opinion of Latin cultures generally being warm and hospitable, eager to share their food, their knowledge, and their good times. (That was demonstrated on Saturday night after the festival closed, and the musicians stayed up until 2 a.m. entertaining the rest of us.) It was fascinating to get to know the artists and cooks as individuals, though. Like all of us, they each have their own story to tell and their own take on their cultural identity. Also, for our good fortune, they each have their own recipes, too!  

Food and Fiddle

March 14, 2012

Connections. That almost sounds calculating, kind of like “networking,” using people for what they can give you. What I mean by it is a sense of connectedness to a place or to other people or to one’s own past, or to a present and future. It is a feeling that one has a place within this vast universe and, in some way, matters because of that.

Connectedness has always been important to me, I think because I grew up feeling slightly on the outside of every culture and group I was in. I now know that we are all “on the outside”, so to speak.

Food in a strange way offered me connections. I didn’t like to cook--I grew up surrounded by brothers and was offended when I was told I had to work in the kitchen while they could play outside. Naturally, I rebelled. But I loved to eat. I loved the tastes of food; the way food seemed to bring the whole world to a halt to concentrate it in those acts of chewing and swallowing.

That may have been because both my mother and her mother were wonderful cooks. Both were grounded in the southern traditions of frying and making pan gravy, biscuits, green beans flavored with fatback (my mother later left out the fatback and steamed vegetables), sauces, and wonderful desserts. In my early years, we went to my grandparents’ house in Kannapolis on Sundays for Sunday dinner (the big family meal after church—both of which were southern institutions). I remember my grandmother cooking and serving wonderful dinners. I would eat and eat, usually to the point of a stomachache from eating too much! My brothers and I would turn eating into a competition, but I oftentimes overate out of the sheer joy of the food.

To this day, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, biscuits, cold slaw, fried corn, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, and pecan pie take me back to my grandmother’s table. That’s also the quintessential southern meal, but for me it’s special and very personal. I’m named after my grandmother--her name was Lucille—and my mother was adamant that I inherit her violin, which I now play as a fiddle for old-time music and in a band, the Root Cellar String Band. Memories of those meals, then, definitely connect me to my past and my family, but they also connect me to my own present, a present that combines that past with all the new potentials for connectedness.

Beginning the connection

Nourishing connections—To Food, Through Food

March 9, 2012

A birthday seems like an appropriate time to start a project like this food blog. It offers a way to measure life every year, not so much in terms of progress towards a goal, but more as a time to evaluate how life is being lived.

I focus on food here, but I’m not the standard foodie. I’ve always loved to eat and to explore new foods and socialize around food. But I always also did a lot of thinking through food. That might be because I became aware very young that there were differences in the ways in which different people and cultures ate and that food and eating could mean different things to different people. The differences don’t sound like much—Appalachian North Carolina (my father’s side) and piedmont North Carolina (my mother’s)—I felt them and frequently felt on the outside. Then we moved to northern Virginia when I was about 7 and I learned that I had an accent and ate weird food like grits. Then we moved to Korea (my father was with the State Department), and that introduced me to real cultural differences—and also the fact that people were still people regardless of the language they spoke, the color of their skin, or the strange food they ate. From there it was a logical step to studying folklore, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and philosophy in school, and then applying all of that to food. 

So, I’m now a food studies scholar, but this blog isn’t about that. It’s about how food gives me a sense of connection to my own past, to other people, to places, and to the possibilities in the present. I learn about things through food and think through things with food. I also like to give to people by cooking for them or by creating meal opportunities (parties). Those are the things I’ll be writing about here. I hope my musings are useful—and enjoyable—for other people as well, and that they nourish the imagination and soul, if not the stomach…