Romania – Traditional Food and Cooking Styles

Romania is a beautiful little country in Eastern Europe in the Balkan region. While living and working there over the years, I have eaten and enjoyed many delicious meals. Meal time in Romania is a very special time. Family and friends come together and may linger long after a meal is over in deep conversation.

The food of Romania is diverse. Food choices and cooking styles are influenced by Balkan traditions as well as German, Hungarian, Turkish, Russian and those of the Near East which includes Israel, Palestine, Jordon, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.

Some of the traditional Romanian dishes are stuffed cabbage leaves known in the Romanian language as sarmale. Other vegetables cooked and served are stuffed bell peppers (ardei umpluti); green beans (fasole verde); carrots sote (sote de morcovi); roasted peppers (ardei copti); eggplant salad (salata de vinete); and tomato salad (salata de rosii). Potatoes are popular in Romania and are served very often. They are cheap to buy and are sold everywhere in the fall, both in markets and along the streets and highways in front of private homes. There are vegetables and fruits of all kinds and many of them are raised in the country itself.

Pork and lamb are preferred over beef in Romania and pork fat is used for cooking. For Christmas a pig is traditionally butchered by every family and a variety of recipes are used to prepare the meat. One of the popular dishes made from the liver and intestines of the pork is a long sausage called carnati. Another dish is piftie which is made from the feet, head, and the ears and is suspended in aspic. I have seen most of the country and in my travels around I have seen many more sheep and pigs grazing in fields than cattle. Romanians love spicy meatballs made from a mixture of pork and beef. Ghiveci is a Romanian dish which combines meat and vegetables and is baked. Other meat dishes include skewered meat (frigarui); cow tongue with olives (limba cu masline); grilled mince meat rolls (mititei); and chicken cutlet (snitel). At Easter roast lamb is served and also a cooked mixture of intestines, meat, and fresh vegetables called drob in Romanian. Fish from the Danube River and scad from the Black Sea is very important to Romanians. Pollution has widely affected the fishing industry in Eastern Europe and eating fish is not as popular as it once was.

Soups, especially bean soup, is served hot in the winter in Romania and cold soup made with cucumber, yogurt, and walnuts and known as tarator, is made in the summer. Lovage, an unusual herb tasting like celery, is used in Romanian cooking, especially in lamb soup. Soups are usually soured with lemon juice or a dash of vinegar. Read the rest of this entry »

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Barbeque America – A Brief Discussion of the Four Regional Barbeque Styles

People hear the word Barbecue, and it conjures different images of food based on the region the person has lived most of their life. First, we must distinguish Barbecue from general outdoor cooking with a grill. The term Barbecue as I am using it in this article, is for cooking meat in a wood or charcoal fired smoker, with indirect heat, at low temperature, for a long period of time. I am not referring to the grilling of meat on an outdoor grill, using direct heat(meaning directly over the fire source) quickly at high temperature. Please do not take this the wrong way. I love grilled foods, and would even consider myself a “grill master”. But, that isn’t Barbecue. I’m talking about the real deal here, wood smoked pig, cow or chicken.

Most barbecue experts would break the United States down into four geographic regions when it comes to the preferential styles of barbecue. These are not hard and fast rules along state and city territorial lines, but are merely generalizations for categorical purposes. What delineates these regions from each other are choice of meat, the makeup of various rubs and marinades, and ingredients in the finishing sauces. In some of these regions there are further sub-preferences which will also be discussed. The four main regional styles are:

  1. Carolina style
  2. Memphis style
  3. Kansas City style
  4. Texas style.

Carolina Barbecue Style

The overwhelming characteristic of Carolina Style Barbecue is whole hog smoking with a tangy vinegar based sauce, which has a peppery bite to it. Carolina style can be further broken down into three subcategories, Eastern North Carolina, Western North Carolina and south Carolina. These three sub-regions all prefer the same type of meat, Pork (usually the whole hog, but pork shoulder and ribs will work as well). The difference between Eastern and Western is that Eastern doesn’t use any tomato product in their sauce. Western, even though the predominate ingredient is vinegar, will also add some type of tomato product either tomato juice, tomato sauce or ketchup into the sauce. South Carolina will add mustard instead of a tomato product, giving their sauce a completely different look and level of tangy flavor. Read the rest of this entry »

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Semolina Based Middle Eastern Sweets

Few Middle Eastern sweets are made from semolina dough. While most pastries like Baklava, Borma, Ballorieh, and others are made from flour, Middle Eastern cookies like Mamoul and Karabij and as cakes such as Basbousa and Sfouf are made from semolina. Sweets made from semolina do taste very differently than those made from flour. The former gives the products a soft and delicate taste while the latter makes them crunchy. No matter what the dough is, all these confections have sugar syrup in them to give them a sweet taste.

Hadef is the only Middle Eastern pastry made from semolina. Whenever one mentions this type of dough, the first few items that come to mind are Mamoul, Basbousa, and Sfouf. These are very traditional desserts in the Arab world.

Mamoul are by far the most popular Middle Eastern cookies. These dates and nuts filled treats are loved by everyone. There is hardly a person who like Middle Eastern sweets but does not like Mamoul. For many people, these are the preferred type of all. Many prefer them over the assorted Baklava pastries, even though these are more popular worldwide. Mamoul might be as popular as Baklava in the Middle East, but in the Western world, Baklava is much more desired.

There are two more variations on this original cookie that are also in demand: Karabij and Mamoul Mad. Karabij is a small cookie filled with pistachio and made from the same ingredients as Mamoul. This one however is offered with Natef, which is a special dipping cream especially made for it. People enjoy eating Karabij while watching television or engaging in some other activity because they are small in size and can be dipped and eaten in one bite. Mamoul-Mad is made from the same exact ingredients as Mamoul, but looks and looks very different. It is made into squares where the crust covers the filling only from the top and bottom sides. Its filling is also denser and sweeter than that of the original version. Read the rest of this entry »

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