Pro Tip: International Friends= International Foods

All of the close friends that I have made thus far have been fellow internationals. Thats nice, people who get what its like to move to a new country, that must be why we found each other. Wrong! I actually decided to befriend them only to trick them into cooking for me so I can try new dishes. Just joking guys (😉). 

Actually a really wonderful tradition the pals and I have been developing is hosting dinners at our various abodes about once a week or so. The gang consists of Claire (Irish), Constantina (Greek), Modjeh (Iranian), and Jessica (Canada eh). Today I captured the last dish to complete my quest to sample each cuisine. 

Claire has treated me to a classic roast dinner, complete with chicken, spuds (of course), and yorkshire pudding, all washed down with a pint o beer. Can't go wrong with that. The highlight of course was the yorkshire pudding, which I have only ever read about jealously in various British books. Eating this meal made me feel as if I had been traveling for a long time through a mystical forest with only stale bread and hard cheese for sustenance, had happened upon the only tavern for miles, and had paid a shilling for the first hot meal I had eaten in weeks. It was absolutely deadly (some Irish slang for ya).

Modjeh made a delightful eggplant stew over saffron rice with a coleslaw-esk cabbage side. I'll freely admit that I've been skeptical of eggplant in the past, but this stew totally destroyed any trepidations I have of the vegetable. The stew itself was very savory, stewed beef and eggplant coming together to create a smooth umami flavor, with the tangy cabbage as a perfect balance. I attempted to recreate the dish the next day, but obviously it wasn't quite up to the same level as Modjeh's.

Constantina wowed me with a soup which I cannot hope to make myself because the main ingredient is a kind of dried goat's milk, flour mixture called trahana (sourced from the town she is from, and processed by her and her mother-- pretty sure it doesn't get more Greek than that). It adds a sour, creamy flavor when added to the soup, quite unlike anything I've had the pleasure of eating thus far in my life. The soup is a relatively simple concoction; creamy, with mushrooms, leeks, and onions. The trahana is what gives it the unique sour flavor, and topped with another soft, sour cheese (almost feta like but not quite), I have to say it is one of the most warming, comforting dishes I've had. I told Constantina that I'd be thinking about this soup for a long time to come, and so I shall.

Step one, drying goat milk and flour mixture

Step two: Grinding the dried Trahana

All of the lads have had the audacity to say that they are unsure if I will like the meal they've prepared, before setting before me a dish of the gods. Absolutely ridiculous. Consider my palate deliciously expanded. Its a bit cliche to say, but its true that food really does bring people together. If you think about it, its very amazing that all of us have been able to come together and benefit from this worldwide sharing of foods.