Cultural & Regional Cuisines: What They Are & Are Not
People are always asking what the cuisine of Ukraine is like compared to that of Poland. I get asked how Cuban cuisine compares with Spanish or Mexican cuisines. What most people do not seem to understand or know is, that regional or cultural cuisines are basically the same. Polish, Ukrainian, most Russian, Czech, Slovakian are all Slavic or Slavonian cuisines. They share the same basics in all things. Balkan (Serbian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Montenegrin, some Albanian, some Slovenian & northern Greek are basically the same. Most Turkish, some Albanian, Armenian & some Georgian are in the same category as well.
Spanish & Portuguese cuisines are very close & share many dishes & ingredients. Middle Eastern, Central Asian & Northern India all share ingredients, basics & techniques as well. German, Dutch, Scandinavian, & some Belgian foods are the same way also. French cooking is, if you ask the French, a solitary & unique cuisine but that is not so. French cuisine relies heavily upon their Latin neighbors, Spain, Portugal & Italy as well as their German & Swiss neighbors also.
Hungarian, Austrian, & much of Romanian cuisine is probably the most intricate of the cuisines except for the various Chinese, Indian & Japanese cuisines.
Hispanic foods of the Americas have many commonalities but Cuban is vastly different from Mexican and both are different from Argentine, Uruguayan, Paraguayan & Chilean. Peruvian & Bolivian are yet again different from Columbian, Nicaraguan, Panamanian, & Honduran. They do share some ingredients, some names & some technical commonalities but they occupy different places on the Hispanic cuisine spectrum.
Recently I heard a man who is supposed to be "in the know" about international cuisines. He made statements such as, "All Spanish foods are the same!" I asked him, "Is Mexican food from Sonora the same as food from Cadiz or Madrid?" He replied, "Of course! It is all the same food!" Just goes to show that even the experts are not always in the know as much as they think.
Remember that cultural cuisines such as Slavic are usually the same with minor regional variations. You can also seek ingredients of a cultural nature for Russian foods in Polish groceries, Serbian or Bulgarian groceries & vice versa. On the Internet there area number of sites that you can find by simply going to a "search engine" such as Google, mama.com, DogPile.com, AskJeeves.com, etc. & typing in "balkan_cuisines" or "spanish cuisines" or "chinese_cuisines"or whatever type you seek. You can be specific as well and type in "turkish_cuisine" or "cuban_cuisine" or "andalusian_cuisine" just be sure to check all of the listings that will come up. The reason being is that some are better than others.
On "American" or more accurately, U.S. cuisines, Native American food is varied usually driven by geographic-environmental forces and is good. A great example is succotash and another is chilli. Both are derived from Native American sources yet can and do differ depending upon locale. Cajun cuisine is another "American" cuisine as is Southern or Dixieland cuisine. New England has its own signature dishes as well. Because we, the USA, is a land of many background cultures we have a huge varietal base for our national cuisine.Now we have thes enew "fusion" cuisines as well. Chef Paul prodhomme, has added "blackening" to Cajun cuisine but cajuns are not happy with that addition. his own mom calls it "faux Cajun" cooking! Like everything, uisines evelove as technology, scince & time cause change to be come ineveitable. Up until the latter part of the 20th century we cooked with animal fats (lard) as aour primary oil source. Now we use a healtheir source, vegetable oils & shortenings. The same holds true all over the world. Change is not always bad but it does take some getting used to by all concerned. When i geta new recipe. I make exactly as I was given it. The next time I may make tweaks & adjustmenst to change it but always the first tiem around I make according to the culture from which it came.
Differences ar caused by geography more than anything esle second only to climate. Celebrate the differences but never decry them!
Copyright © 2006- 2008 Donald R Houston, PhD. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the author's consent.
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Comments: 11
"But it's waffer thin."
It is amazing to me, as you say, when people who are supposedly in the know, or should know, lump all Hispanic cuisines together...... To see the differences it is simple to do a comparison of just one dish and how it is made in the different countries......the tamal.
Mexican tamales are not the same as Peruvian and definitely not the same as Cuban and even the Puerto Rican version (pasteles) are radically different from all the rest.
Other countries in South America call a corn patty thing (usually smaller in diameter and about 1/12" thick) an "arepa".
In fact, corn is considered fit food for livestock, not human beings, in Spain--don't look for Mexican food there!
The food of Spain is a European cuisine with strong Moorish influences, whereas the food of Mexico is primarily First American, especially Aztec or Mayan, depending on the region, and the cooking of other American countries based on that of their own first nations, for example, Peruvian food is based on the cuisine of the Inca.
Spanish food--and by this I refer *only* to Spain--is flavorful but *not* loaded with capsaicin. No resemblance to Mexican! Spanish food is flavorful with items not used in Mexico, including olive oil, smoked paprika, saffron, garlic and lots of Italian parsley. Spain's bread is similar to France's, no relationship with Mexican flour products.
Even the chorizo from the two countries is totally didfferent and not interchangeable in recipes.
And I have a huge list of differences in the very names for foods!