Ethnic Request

[Beth]

This is really last minute, but I haven't come up with anything I'm really excited about. My 4 yr old has a school program tomorrow night with an international theme. FOlowing is a pot luck dinner, and each family is asked to bring a dish reflecting their heritage.

DH and I each have 1/2 WASP background; my other half is pure Dutch and his is Nicaraguan. None of us eat herring, and everything I think of for Dutch is bread, dessert or cheese (I think they wanted these to be main dish, but I'll double check) or borrowed from Indonesia. DH says his dad grew up on beans, rice and tortillas 3xday. That's not real inspiring. If it's not limited to main dishes, I may have to go with chocolate. What's more Dutch than that?Any ideas? TIA

[sneezles]

There is a section in the Encyclopedia of Cookery that I have on Dutch Cooking. Here are some of the dishes listed, let me know if you want a recipe...
Appetizers and Soups

Cheese Truffles (no cooking)
Kidney Soup
Pea Soup
Vegetable Soup with Meatballs

Fish

Baked Fillets of Haddock or Cod with Potatoes
Pike with White Wine Sauce
Shrimp Crouquettes

Meat and Eggs

Filet of Beef with Vegetables
Stewed Meat
Puree of Potatoes with Ham and Onions
Kale with Potatoes and Sausage
Bacon Stew
Baked Eggs with Onion and Cheese

The book also lists the Dutch name with the recipe and there are also some desserts, none of which has chocolate!

[Vanessa]

Hi Beth. Recipes from different countries are so interesting. I tried to access some from Nicaragua but the servers were not responding. I did read that besides the beans, rice, plantain, meat dishes in Nicaragua biscocho tres leches is popular. In CL April there is a tres leches recipes (in the latin cooking article)
TRy www.latinsynergy.org/tm6.htm (http://www.latinsynergy.org/tm6.htm)
under NIcaragua recipes...maybe you can open that file...I could not (could be my computer acting up)

[Don]

Boy does this bring back memories. When I was in elementary school, we had an international festival where everyone was assigned a country. I was assigned to the Netherlands team. We fretted for days about what foods we would offer at our booth. We finally settled on Stamfpot (or something like that) which was mashed vegetables and potatoes and tasted like mashed potatoes. While we couldn't compete with the pizza over at the Italy booth, we were out of Stamfpot before the day was half over. (I don't even remember what else we had to offer at the table.) I wish I had a recipe for you, but maybe you can find one on the Internet. Good luck!

[sneezles]

I have a recipe for Stamppot Witte Kool (White Cabbage with Potatoes).

[Beth]

Thanks everyone. Vanessa, I couldn't get there either. I thought about the tres leches cake, but the only review I've seen wasn't encouraging and I couldn't get to the store for more eggs because I was having 4 tons of rock delivered on my driveway. Minor details.

I decided to do whenever dinner is unplanned and pressing...go to the pantry and pick something. I made Spanish rice with black beans and corn.

The dinner was an interesting spread, from Kenya, Korea, Germany, fondue that I assume was from a Scandanavian country, several lasagnas and so many that were not labeled. Then there were chocolate chip cookies, cheesecake sguares, grocery store bakery cookies, a platter of purchased barbeque and very ordinary salads. But the best part of all was watching my 4 year old sing his songs and then wink at DH as they walked off the stage. http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[Vanessa]

Hi Beth
Glad all worked out ok. Sorry you could not access the Nicaraguan recipes either. I thought it was my computer acting up.