Sunday, November 28, 2010

Scavenger Hunt 3: TV Ads

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Announcing the Third Scavenger Hunt - TV Ads

Here's the deal: Pick your top 3 TV advertisements from your place of research. Hopefully they are available on Youtube and you can simply get the embed code (look just below the video) and post it into Blogspot. Commentary, of course, appreciated.

Good luck with this foray into the intersection of old and new media!

To start us off, here are my top 3 ads from India:

3) The Blackberry Boys


Coming in third is the Vodafone/BlackBerry ad for prepaid services on BlackBerry. Other than the annoyingly catchy song, I'm a little intrigued by the way that BlackBerry is choosing to change its branding from men (largely middle aged) in suits to hip young men and women. So is this a case of the democratization of a brand or simply a case of rebranding? Of course, both the men in suits and the the hip young men and women appear to be urban and upper class, so while I appreciate, in particular, the attempt to make a brand more gender-inclusive, I'm wondering what a truly inclusive BlackBerry Boys ad would look like.

2) Cadbury Silk


At number two is an ad for Cadbury's Dairy Milk Silk chocolate. In addition to liking the song, I love the perfect contentment the guy derives from eating the chocolate bar. On the gender analysis front--I like that it is a male figure that is seen indulging in chocolate, instead of the usual chocolate = women (There's a related version of the ad with women dancers). I particularly appreciate how he treats himself to the chocolate bar after what seems to be a good meeting--and hey, who hasn't done that... Ok, before I give myself away, on to number one...

1) KitKat

Some of you may already know my partiality for this ad, so the number one slot won't come as a surprise. But, beyond singing squirrels there is something charming about the earnestness of the squirrels in this rendition of old-school Bollywood melodrama (it is an old Bollywood number), particularly in contrast with the vaguely too-cool-for-school hip young guys, who keep turning up everywhere with their fancy technology.

Naija Chop: Egusi Soup & Semo

As some of you may know, I have been living in the land of expatriates for the past couple weeks, after stumbling onto the most awesome housesitting gig yet. This was fantastic for many reasons (air conditioning! running water and hot showers! imported American toilet paper!) but the well-equipped kitchen meant I could finally cook for myself, which was not so great for my local food stories. However, a week-long trip to Kano provided great relief in that department.

Thanks to Katie's most wonderful network up there, I was able to stay with several different families throughout my visit. One of my most memorable nights, though, was with her good friend Grace, who taught us how to make egusi soup, arguably the most popular dinner in Nigeria. I don't know if it counts as "evocative" or "emblematic" (high orders that stress me out for blogging purposes) but it certainly seems close enough after my own long delay on this post.

So, without further ado, I humbly present to the Cohorticulture scavenger hunt committee and to the interwebs at large, a lesson in Egusi preparation, made in the courtyard of Grace's small concrete bungalow in the "village" outskirts of Kano. Tony Bourdain would be at home here right?





Like with all Nigerian foods, you start with palm oil. A LOT of palm oil. Like a quart or two. Grace emptied out most of this bag, promising that she was actually reducing the amounts since some foreigners don't like it as much. This explains a lot about why half my pants don't fit anymore.





Next, you add ground up melon/pumpkin seeds (the yellow bits) and a ton of local spinach (the green chunks). The palm oil (red stuff) envelops these and basically deep fries them, along with some onion, dried pounded crayfish, lots of hot pepper, and Maggi bouillon "flavor cubes".






At the end you can add your meat--chicken, goat, beef, or fish. Since all of the goat and beef was gone for the upcoming Sallah festival, we got fish. If you're lucky, it's freshly roasted fish from the market like this one. If you're not, it's the much stinkier dried fish. Both are sold in markets and roadsides from big trays precariously balanced on the top of people's heads. Oh, and if you are really really lucky, someone takes the time to piece them apart and remove (most of) the prickly bones inside, which I still haven't acquired the skill to remove and often swallow whole by accident. Also note awesome bending--another necessary skill I haven't acquired.





And that's your soup, giant puddle of deep frying oil and all. Mmmm. Next up, the starch. Tonight, we made semo, which is basically a huge mound of sticky cream of wheat. Here is my friend Bic, helping stir in the semo flour over the modified trashcan/cooking bin.





For extra fanciness, Grace swirled each lump of finished semo in a calabash shell to give it that round professional look. Note also the food coozie/thermos, brilliant and ubiquitous solution for life with microwaves. Here we were saving some for Grace's husband.






Finished setup. The giant portion size of that carb component also explains a lot. And if you look closely, you can even see the wedding sticker on my bowl, a favorite party swag item for all kinds of celebrations.





... But of course, we actually didn't have light, so here is what it all looked like without the camera flash. Unfortunately, my fingers were too sticky with palm oil to actually bust out the camera during eating, but the idea is that you pinch off small balls of the semo (or any other starch) and use your thumb to indent it and scoop out the soup. Messy for me even with light, but super sloppy without. But still completely delicious.


Friday, November 26, 2010

¡La hoja de coca no es droga!

In fact, I think I would have slept for 72 hours straight without it in Cuzco.

The Second Scavenger Hunt: Foooood

In order to avoid being further shamed cross-continentally by Susan, I shall post for the second scavenger hunt...

While Kolkata's street food is famed and delicious, it is known to consider considerable gastrointestinal distress to the untrained stomach, and even well-trained stomachs. So, my cousin and aunt decided to take Caitlin and me to Haldiram's for a more hygienic version of Indian street food and snacks.



Front, Left Tray - Chole Bhatura or curried chick peas with fried bread.
Front, Right Tray - On the left is Pav Bhaji--most popular in Maharashtra, including Mumbai--is bread with curried vegetables. On the right is dhokla, or a steamed snack made from chickpea flour, eaten with tamarind or mint chutney.
Back tray: Dosa--not really street food--but popular South Indian dish of rice crepe with sambar or spicy lentils.

While all of these are popular in Kolkata, we didn't have the most iconic of street food here: the phuchka, or small hollow fried breads, eaten with a stuffing of potatos and tamarind water.

However, here's a picture (courtesy of Caitlin) of a typical Bengali meal at home:



Along with rice, there is some spicy okra, fried poppy seed balls, daal--or lentils, this one made with bitter gourd--and finally some friend pomfret fish.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Cohorting Scavenger Hunt #2: Apthapi

So, I came to regret the assignment I handed out as our Scavenger Hunt item #2. It never seemed like I was eating those meals I find most "evocative" or "emblematic" of my fieldsite -- as I so imprudently invited us to post over two weeks ago.

I carried around my camera, ready to capture that special meal. But it didn't happen. Some friends ordered the always crowd-pleasing Pique Macho at a nice bar, but that version looked nothing like the mounds of thick-cut fries, oily hot dog slices, and mounds of beef, onion, egg, and hot peppers you get at, say,
Dumbos with your godkids. I thought about trying to capture the extent to which starches comprise most meals here: piles of rice with a side of noodles (usually a little burnt, because they are often toasted first), several boiled potatoes and/or rehydrated chuño with a helping of boiled chicken or pan-fried meat. But now that I am eating less with my compadres (due to my research schedule), I have fewer opportunities to capture our (and most Bolivians') carb-driven meals. I was at a loss for something satisfying.

And then,
Todos Santos (All Souls) happened. And I was reminded of that meal I do find most evocative of my fieldsite.

It's not so much a particular dish as a
WAY of eating: the apthapi.

Sure, the
apthapi usually has common food elements: boiled potatoes (lots of them), rehydrated chuño and tunta, ispi (deep fried Lake Titikaka minnows), roasted bananas, sweet oka, puffed corn, fava beans, oranges, bread. But the point of the Apthapi is the act itself -- that everyone brings a little something, spreads it out on big aguayo blankets, and gathers 'round to share, often inviting each other to glasses of beer in order to ch'allar the pachamama. And that meal is often followed by time to open the ch'uspa and invite each other to pichar (chew) coca while offering more libations.

The below photos are variations on my most recent
apthapi experiences while celebrating Todos Santos -- first with my compadres de rutucha (I'm the godmother of their daughter's first haircut) in Viacha and then with friends in their rural community, Quieskapa.

Above: Prepping bananas, sweet and plain potatoes for roasting in the huge oven the Rojas family uses for baking bread. Present: extended family members, compadres, and a few neighbors.

Above: On Tuesday's celebration of Todos Santos in the campo (countryside) I got served two full dishes -- as always seems to happen every time I visit the Altiplano's rural hamlets. My friends had prepared boiled pork in a spicy aji sauce (which we also had for breakfast at 8am!), boiled potatoes, puffed corn, tunta (white dried potato). Their extended family brought roasted pork (initially placed at the head of the mesa for their deceased loved one during the prayers for Todos Santos), salad, the sweet, pink and yellow oka potatoes, and roasted bananas. Everyone contributed bread, cases of beer, sugar cane to the kids. Anytime a vecino (neighbor) would appear, they would be called over to partake.

Finally after sharing a sleepy, joke-filled meal (jokes usually at my expense), we gathered around to invite each other to coca and to ch'allar (pour libations to the Pachamama) and pass around cups of beer.