Traditional foods in your country what might feels strange to others

[sister herb]

Send here food recipes from your countries, specially those what might sounds/taste/smell/look strange by others.

This is mine:

Mammi is a very traditional Finnish Easter time dessert made from rye flour and malt. It has a brown and sticky appearance and as far as mammi is concerned there are two types of people: those who love it; and those who hate it. There's no middle ground. If your Finnish host/friend/loved one offers you mammi, try it. But remember that 50% of the Finnish population loathes the stuff and it's quite possible that you will too. It is perfectly acceptable to dislike mammi (but not saunas) and the following rural legend shows how this controversial foodstuff has divided Finnish opinion.

Mammi and the Foreign Relief Worker

Just after the Second World War a foreign relief worker was checking how Finns were getting along for food and so on. During Easter this foreigner ended up staying with a family on a small farm in the middle of nowhere ('the middle of nowhere' being a very common place in Finland during those days). The family had just finished the main course of their Easter meal, and there was only mammi left on the table when the relief worker stepped in. He took a look around, saw the mammi and rushed to his car and told the driver to drive to the nearest city as soon as possible. There he went straight to the telegraph office and send the following message to his headquarters.

Immediate food aid needed, people up here are eating something that has all ready been eaten once!

Lovers of mammi naturally claim this story to be just a mammi-haters' conspiracy which mocks a perfectly good Easter tradition, while the not so mammi-friendly Finns are ready to swear with their hand on a Bible that this story is true.

How to Make Mammi

Nowadays mammi can be bought ready-made from any store during Easter and occasionally during other times of the year, too. Making mämmi isn't hard either; it just takes quite a lot of time.

Ingredients

5 bowls made out of birch bark*
3.5 litres of water
1kg of rye flour
1/4kg of malt, preferably rye malts
2 tablespoons of syrup (melasse)
2 teaspoons of salt
2 tablespoons of orange peel

Method

Put 1.5 litres of water into a big kettle. Heat it to about 60° Celsius. Add rye flour and malt until you get a thin porridge. Keep stirring while adding the flour and malt. Stop stirring and cover the porridge with more rye flour and malt. Cover the kettle and leave it in a warm place for one hour to sweeten.

Stir the covering into the mixture and add one litre of hot water. Cover again with flour and malt and leave in a warm place for an hour. Again, mix the covering into the porridge, adding one litre of water and covering it with flour and malt. Once more let it sweeten for an hour. By now you should have used up all of the water, flour and malt.

Bring the porridge to a boil and add salt, orange peel and syrup. Boil for half an hour, stirring continuously. After boiling, whip the mammi for a while before putting it into bowls that have been rinsed with cold water. Scatter some sugar on top and put into an oven (100-125° Celsius) for three hours.

Allow the mammi to cool and serve together with sugar and cream.
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* If you can't find these, use normal bowls.

p.s. if you don´t understand the reaction of that foreign relief worker, this picture of mammi might explain something...

[Woodrow]

Outside of Native American foods there are very few actual American foods. Nearly all recipes have there origin from other countries. Oddly Chop Suey is American, first made in California. The Chinese Railroad laborers called it Chop Suey and the name stuck.


Only in America can you find Italian Pizza sold in a Chinese Restaurant run by Mexicans.

With that in mind my contriutions on this thread will be Native American foods. This recipe for Bean Bread tsu-ya-ga contains honey. Honey was not part of native American food until after the coming of Europeans. Honey Bees are not native to the Americas. Most likely the original recipe called for maple syrup or Birch syrup


Tsu-ya-Ga

1 cup of cornmeal

•½ cup flour

•2 tsp baking powder

•1 tbsp sugar

•2 cups milk (Bison milk, if you can catch a bison and milk it, if you don't have a wild bison in your back yard use cow milk)


•¼ cup melted shortening (any liquid vegetable shortening such as corn oil works)

•1 beaten egg (Traditionaly this was most probably wild duck egs)

•2 tbsp honey (Most likely it originally was maple syrup)

•4 cups drained brown beans (Use vegetarian style baked beans)

Mix all of these ingredients, except beans, thoroughly, and then fold in the beans. Pour into greased, heated pan. Bake at 450 until brown (usually 30 minutes or so)

[Woodrow]

From the Lakota Sioux

Sioux fry bread, this is unique to the Sioux.

Although it is not an ancient recipe, it only dates back to the 1800s. When the Sioux were forced onto the reservations and had no food the USA government gave them scks of flour. The Sioux had never seen European flour and did not know what to do with it. They tried different things to do with it and this worked.

* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon baking powder
* 3 cups of flour
* 1 cup warm water


Directions

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Add warm water in small amounts and knead until soft but not sticky.
Adjust the flour or water as needed, Cover aand let stand 15 to 20 minutes.
Pull of large egg sized balls of dough, turn out into fairly thin rounds.
Fry rounds in hot oil until bubbles appear on the dough, turn over and fry on the other side until golden brown.


If you made too much of the dough use the rest to make this.


Bison Stew

* 1 lb of Bison (If you don't have a wild bison, use lean beef)
* 1 teaspoon of baking powder
* 4 Potatoes
* 1/2 teaspoon of salt
* 1 Medium Onion
* A pinch of sugar gives the bread a yummy taste and makes it softer.
* 2 Tablespoons of Oil
* Milk
* Seasoning Salt
* Oil
* Tomato sauce or jarred spaghetti sauce (fresh chopped tomatoes is better)
* For the bread crust (same as Fry Bread)
* 1 cup of Flour


Directions

Heat the oil in a Stew Pot, chop the Onions add to heated oil. Cook for a couple of minutes.

Rinse your stew meat add to the Onions add the seasoning salt to taste and add tomato sauce or spaghetti sauce stir well covering all the meat add 1/2 cup of water get it boiling let cook for about 30 minutes add the potatoes, cover and let cook through.

Then make your bread crust. Mix all the dry ingredients together then add your liquids make a soft dough roll out on a floured surface when 30 minutes has past take Stew off the stove let it cool and let the dough rest for about 10 minutes then put your stew in a casserole and top with the rolled out dough. Bake for about 20 - 30 minutes. It is ssssoooo good especially in the Winter nice and warm.

[S_87]

hehe that mami doesnt look nice at all.

[sister herb]

hehe that mami doesnt look nice at all.

Wait that I brings here recipe of Swedish rotten fish...



They taste good but they smell... for this Swedish eat them at summer and outside of house.

[sister herb]

Thanks br Woodrow about native american recipes. Only problem with them is...

we don´t have wild bisons at backyards.

[Woodrow]

Thanks br Woodrow about native american recipes. Only problem with them is...

we don´t have wild bisons at backyards.

No problem use beef. Bison are very close relative to Cattle, only much bigger. The meat is leaner and more tender then beef, it also has better flavor. but beef especially lean tenderized beef is very similar.

[sister herb]

Ok and now to Swedish kitchen making hot sauce:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_UC...layer_embedded

[sister herb]

This is from Australia:

Homemade Lemonade

Makes 1.5 litre (6 cups)

Ingredients:

5 sprigs fresh mint
3 cups fresh lemon juice
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
7 ice cubes

Mix all the ingredients together in a jug and serve.
Tip decorate the cup with some lemon slice around the edge.