[Cz-L] Re topics

Genealogy is fascinating but tends to be personal, belonging to individual =
families.  Language we all share.

The same with food.  Someone mentioned Mamaliga and the very word gets th=
e juices running in my mouth. Mamaliga mit schmetten und some Brinza de Br=
aila. 

Does anyone remember peasants coming into town with their traista slung o=
ver their shoulder, and they would sit themselves down on a curb and pull ou=
t a cold hunk of mamaliga and a big onion, alternatively taking a zestful bi=
te out of each?  I used to envy them because as a civilized boy I co=
uldn't sit down on the curb and do that.

In the late 1950s I read that little Romania had been growing more corn=
 than all of Canada in which Romania could get lost like an ant in a palace.=
  I wondered how corn, discovered by the Spaniards who invaded the New Wor=
ld, made it all the way to Romania to become its national dish.  Ceausescu=
 later changed all that.

I once served Mamaliga to a hungry neighbor in New York who was originally =
 from the south.  I pitched it as an exotic foreign dish from my country.=
  He took a bite, looked up and said, "Hell, that's just corn mush."  I =
guess it's a cousin of grits that used to be so popular in the U.S. South.

In 1994 I visited Bucuresti and Brasov and stayed with a Romanian who worke=
d in the film industry.  Being in Romania for the first time since 1939, I=
 said we had to celebrate by having some Mamaliga.  He looked at me as if =
I were talking about some vague, distant memory. 
It took me a couple of hours to find a little store that actually had some =
corn meal.  And it was full of chaff and foreign matter.  We had to sift=
 it over and over again to get it clean.  My host then was totally unsure =
as to how to cook it.  It was obvious he had never made it.  I just thro=
w it in cold water and keep stirring with a wooden spoon as it boils. 

I suspect Ceausescu, who wanted to remodel the image of Romania, distancing=
 it from the agrarian image, may have forbidden or discouraged the grindin=
g of and sales of corn meal - feeling that Mamaliga was peasant food.  Tha=
t little monster robbed the country of its distinction. 

The revolution was only three years past when I visited and bullet holes co=
uld still be seen in the walls of public buildings.  But already some entr=
epreneurs were launching popular new enterprises.  A pizza restaurant was =
doing great business.  It struck me that this was less Italian and more Am=
erican in spirit and character. I had spent two months in Lido and Venice =
in the late 1930s and had never encountered pizza.  In 1947 I visited New =
York for the first time and everybody was talking about pizza.  This place=
 had great pizza.  Stay away from the one around the corner, they don't =
know how to make a good pizze.  Pizza here and pizza there. 
When I got back to Toronto I asked my Italian barber if he was born in =
Italy.  He said yes.  So I told him about all the pizza talk in New York=
 and said, "I spent a whole summer in Italy and never heard of pizza."  He=
 asked "Where you was?"  I said "In Venezia."  "That's a-not Italy," he =
said, "You gotta go to Sicily."
The Romanian visit gave me an idea for a fast food restaurant to be calle=
d "Mama Mamaliga." The logo would have been a rosy cheeked, chubby Romania=
n peasant woman carrying a tray.  The servings would include a brilliantly=
 yellow dollop of mamaliga, a hunk of sparkling white brinza, a couple of sp=
oons of sour cream and some bright, green salad.  Very healthy and fantast=
ically appetizing looking with the vivid yellow and white and green.  Bo=
n apetit.  Now who remembers Gabe's Deli with the fantastic broetchen of c=
hopped onion and a slice of egg topped with black or red caviar?  And the =
fantastic patiserie on Herrengasse where they had the best cakes outside of =
Vienna?
Andy
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Received on 2008-06-26 11:53:52