Bringing the pieces together

In week six we start to look over material gathered during the previous five weeks of Our Cuisine=Our Stories. This photo provides a nice snippet of both the Our Cuisine meetings, some of the amazingly delicious meals and desserts as well as a few of the previous zine publications that Amal & Sari have worked on.

This week we not only got into the lovely Afghani food but also into developing our final publication for the project. Below is one activity (express your personal food associations) that will be included as part of the final outcomes.

Rastis-Cake-recipe

RASTIS-CAKE (aka Cheeseless Cheese-cake)

1 box       outmeal cookies
100 gr      butter or margarine
2 dl          whipped cream
1 tsp        vanilla sugar
2 dl          curd
1 dl          sugar
0,5 dl       syrup
0,5 dl       liquid to give taste, for instance juice, liquerm champagne, coffee, milk
 5 tsp       Agar Agar or gelatin powder, you can also use gelatin leaves instead
               Cake decorations (berries, fruits, flowers, candies)

1.            Crush the bisquits in to smalll small peaces
2.            Mix the crushed bisquits with soft melted butter or margarine and cover a pie tin with it
3..           Whip the cream with the vanilla sugar
4.            Add the curd and whip
5.            Add the sugar and whip
6.            Add the syrup and whip
7.            Heat up the liquid of your choice and miw it with the Agar Agar powder or gelatine.
               Its little different if you use gelatin leaves or powder, leaves should be mixed in cold
               liquid and then heated up, powder the opposite - read the instructions on the box.
8.            Mix the liquid with the whipped mix and pour it in to the pie tin on top of the bisquit base
9.            Decorate the cake with whatever you like; berries, fruits, eatable flowers, candies
10.          Put the cake in the freezer and take it out to melt inn the fridge a few hours before eating

I use to change the liquid that gives the taste according to the season to get some variety. For instance, in christmas time I use mulled wine (glögi), in spring mead (sima), in summertime juice or alcoholfree cider and so on. You can also use some sweet alcohol or coffee. Milk gives a very neutral taste but instead you can use curd with taste of berries or lime or cinnamon something and get the taste from that. In christmas time I also use ginger bread (piparkakkuja) mixed with the bisquits for more christmas taste. The same way you can change the decorations according to the season. Only your imagination is the limit!
         

maps & recipes

 Pilvi's grandmother's fish soup recipe

A map of Sari's hometown

Es Teler, Indonesian dessert.
Palm Seed, longan / lychee, jack fruit, avocado, rambutan, papaya, coconut milk, palm sugar, ice cream.

Taste Sensations

After returning home from the third session of Our Cuisine=Our Stories I can say I am happily full with a rich selection of taste sensations. Today Flavia delighted us with her Brazilian cuisine of Mango Salsa, fried Kassava and Seafood Stew. And Evita treated us with her mobile coffee cafe and a rich assortment of tropical fruits such as jackfruit and longan fruit mixed with coconut and avocado. The combination of everything enjoyed tonight has left my senses delighted with the rich variety of textures and tastes.

Mmmmm......

Mango Salsa 

**more images to come soon! **

welcome = tervetuloa

Our first session began with picking nuts from a bowl that Amal passed around with the instruction "take as many as you like but don't eat them yet" and then "now for each nut you took tell us something about yourself." Around in a circle we shared details about places we've been, people we care for, things we like to do, things we do for work, things we have done, what we hope to do and so forth. This was the introduction to the group Our Cuisine=Our Stories and it was the first time we sat down together and shared something of ourselves to each other.

We then proceeded by writing and drawing some of our food associations (which will be developed in the coming weeks) and we shared our first meal together; a mix of hearty vegetarian (home grown aussie inspired) soup prepared by Sari and refreshing Moroccan salads prepared by Amal.

 








We are a group of 9 women who are meeting on Monday nights for 7 weeks at Stoa cultural centre in Itäkeskus, Helsinki.