Tokyo

Osechi Ryori: Edible New Year

‘Tis the season of the Japanese New Year’s trinity: osechi, oseibo and nengajo. Like newsy Christmas cards, the nengajo is a recap of family or personal news mailed in postcards during the weeks preceding the end of the year and efficiently delivered all over Japan promptly on January 1. The winter gift-giving season is in full swing, with companies and individuals sending oseibo gifts as thank-you expressions for kindnesses over the year. Most gifts are food or household items like cooking oil or soap. The best of the traditions is osechi ryori, traditional New Year’s cuisine. Osechi is not something one can find in a restaurant because it’s eaten only one time a year, at home or when visiting others at home.

Athens

Essential Bites: Rediscovering the Local Farmers’ Market in Athens

For most of us around the globe, 2020 has been an unexpected and extremely challenging year. The world has never felt smaller. Here in Athens, we have been on a second strict lockdown for a month and a half now. My seven-year-old son is learning online, and I often feel like I’m juggling too many balls: coordinating and overseeing his schooling schedule, keeping the house as organized as I can considering that we spend almost all our time here, and trying to work at the same time. But the pandemic has had one positive effect, at least for me: I’ve found the time to experiment with recipes and spend quality time alone and focused (or at least semi-focused) in my kitchen. It has been keeping me sane, creative and positive. “My kitchen is my shrine and in it I shine!” is my motto for this weird year.

Lisbon

Essential Bites: From Homemade Samosas to a “Filthy” Pork Sandwich in Lisbon

Switch Samosas (Or, Last Night a DJ Saved My Dinner) As lockdowns continue to ravage the restaurant industry, predictions in the news tell us we ain’t seen nothing yet. Uber Eats riders, unmistakable with their lime green cooler backpacks, have taken over the streets, blazing up the Avenida like road warriors in formation. Mom and pop can barely keep the lights of their tasca on much less pay the delivery shakedown. Hope is scarce for the independent, free-spirited food entrepreneur whose livelihood is built on serving people, directly. If you are as tired of this old tune as we are, prick up your ears to the story of Switch Samosas, a project of Marco Antão AKA DJ Switchdance, Lisbon’s premier DJ-cum-samosa-slinger, who is nurturing his community through the pandemic on his own terms with his mother’s samosas.

Athens

Recipe: Christopsomo, a Greek Christmas Bread Enriched with Symbolism

The presence of bread on the Greek Christmas table is rich with significance: It symbolizes hope for prosperity, an abundant harvest year and good health. The tradition of baking bread for a festive occasion, as well as its many symbolic meanings, can be traced back to ancient times, when many great Mediterranean civilizations associated the cycle of human life with the full life cycle of wheat. It was a belief that embedded deeply in Greek folk culture and has survived over the centuries, ultimately coming to occupy an important place in Christianity. Christopsomo (Christ’s Bread) is a type of traditional Christmas bread prepared all across Greece. The bread itself and the ceremonial nature of preparing it symbolize the prosperity of the household.

Lisbon

Bacalhau: At Christmas, It’s in Cod that Lisboetas Trust

The black-and-white photo shows a crowd, a policeman and José Martins holding a piece of salted cod, all crammed together in Manteigaria Silva, a small, historic shop in Baixa. It’s from a newspaper clipping dated December 10, 1977 – Christmas season. That year Portugal experienced a shortage of bacalhau, the beloved salt cod that was (and still is) a Christmas Eve favorite, and the people of Lisbon were so desperate to get their preserved fish that the police were often called in to maintain order. The scene at Manteigaria Silva played out at shops across the city. José, who still oversees the bacalhau section at Manteigaria Silva, remembers those days well. “Hard to imagine now but people were fighting for salt cod, that’s why we had to call the police,” he recalls.

Istanbul

A New LIFE: Helping Refugees Become Food Entrepreneurs

In happier times in Aleppo, a sweet drink called sharab al-louz ¬– made with almond extract, milk and sugar – was a staple at celebratory events such as engagement parties and weddings, Ammar Rida recalls. That was before he had to leave his job as a lecturer at the University of Aleppo and flee Syria lest he be conscripted to fight in the war that has been ravaging his country since 2011. Today, Rida, a serious man in his late thirties with short salt-and-pepper hair and a stubbly beard, is working to establish a business selling sharab al-louz and other healthy, natural drinks – some traditional to Syria and others he is developing based on his background in food science – at restaurants in Istanbul.

Athens

Recipe: Baked Gigantes, the Giant of Greek Bean Dishes

Unlike many other pulses, most bean varieties were not native to the eastern Mediterranean, originating instead in Central and South America. Yet they have adapted well to the climate in Greece (and across the globe) and are now quite popular and an important source of protein here, where they are cooked in a variety of ways. In fact, the bean soup known as fasolada is considered our national dish – it’s humble, affordable and easy-to-cook yet still hearty and delicious. Gigantes (“giants”) are particularly loved in Greece. These large white beans are also known as elephant beans, a nod to their size. Some of the best giant beans in Greece are grown in the country’s northwest, most famously in Prespes and Kastoria, both regions with a PGI (Protected Geographic Indication) for giant beans.