Hello and welcome to the 11th issue of Place: Our very first global dinner party! Food and place are deeply intertwined - it is difficult to unthread one from the other, to experience them in isolation. The food that we eat could come from nearby, or far away. Perhaps it’s recipe is a local delicacy, or something brought from abroad, to be introduced to people who have not had something quite the same before. The places that we eat, how we eat, and who we eat with are also meaningful. To share food or a kitchen or a camp stove or a grassy spot in the park, is to invite another into a ritualistic and yet constantly changing part of our lives. Sitting down (or standing up, if that’s your thing) to eat ensures our very survival but also can fulfill the deepest joys of our life. Sensory pleasures, fullness, and relationship. So now, dear readers, let us invite you to take off your coat and stay awhile, as we break bread in the most geographically spread out dining table in the world - the inbox. Unfurl your napkin and read on to see what dinner for six people around the world looked like this week.
At Place, we believe that the experiences, sensations and conversations we have as we move about the world stay with us, stacking up as the years go by, forming who we are and the way we view the world. Do you have a letter to share? Send it to us at placeletter@protonmail.com. If you are interested in writing for Place you can find our inaugural pitch guide here. If you’re the social type, follow us on Twitter (@place_letter) where you can share your favorite pieces and Instagram (@placenewsletter) for a visual feast. Yours, The Place editorial team.
A Global Dinner Party
When I moved to Aarhus, Denmark to attend an international master's degree program with students from over 50 countries, one of the first parties we had was a global potluck where everyone prepared a dish from their home country.
The tables at the student center were packed with dishes flavored with spices familiar to each of us, but new to most others (as an American, I struggled with what to bring as our modern food culture is all imported, eventually settling on the ingredients for s’mores - marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate with a small candle for achieving that perfect toasted brown). We spoke different languages, attended different school systems, hailed from countries with opposite political systems, but there was one thing that connected us all: A love of food.
Dinner parties became a staple of our social life while trying to live it up despite Denmark’s high prices and away from the familiar ingredients of home amidst the bland Scandinavian cuisine. There was the sunny afternoon with slow-roasted Uruguayan barbecue, cold December nights warmed by a communal spicy Chinese hot pot and cozy afternoons eating German sweets baked in dorm kitchens. Friendships deepened as our cooking improved -- who could forget the cheers when a Pakistani friend burst out of the kitchen proudly swinging a steaming pot of chicken biryani, a recipe he’d been perfecting for months? And yet sometimes, it was just a quiet meal in the dining hall, either by oneself or with a few friends after a long day of studying allowed a reflective moment during an intense year of growth. Sustenance, of all kinds.
This week we sought to create that feeling virtually. We asked some Place friends from all over the world to share their meal and traditions around food, from the must-have condiments to the conversation etiquette. The world may seem heavy right now, still disconnected by a persistent virus and the deeper cracks in our society that this crisis has unveiled. We invite you to pull up a chair, take a breath and have a bite to eat with us.
Cheers!
- Karis
Name: Caitlin Donaldson
Location: Sydney, Australia
Friday night dinners are something of a ritual for me and my friends. Always somewhere local and relatively cheap. Tonight it was a small Vietnamese restaurant in Paddington called Mr T’s. We ate duck pancakes, san Choi bro, crispy chicken and wagyu beef, washed down with some Aussie Riesling. I used to live with all the girls with me this evening. Although our lives have moved on, we always make time to catch up over a glass of wine and some cheap dinner. Sydney is currently in a weird limbo. We made it through a first wave of coronavirus, now the sense is we’re on the precipice of a second wave. Our dinner was brief but special, especially after so many weeks not being able to see each other. Nothing is ever off limits with old friends - we discussed topics from recurrent UTIs to our jobs. There are no rules but I will say the only phone produced the entire dinner was mine to capture this shot. Hopefully we can have another soon.
Name: Mario Braga
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
This was a Brazilian barbeque-turned-dinner. A super informal meal (with my sister and brother-in-law) ideal for a nice talk, some funny stories and a relaxing time together after work. Since we all have different schedules, dinner together is a way of catching up and staying in touch. The dishes are some of the main elements of an original barbeque: rice, meat, farofa (manioc flour fried with eggs), potato salad as a side and, of course, beer. Just one bottle on a weeknight, though. We normally go for a very minimal table set. The fewer the dishes to do later the better.
Name: Karis Hustad
Location: London, United Kingdom
On a rare warm summer evening in London, there are few places I’d rather eat dinner than at a park with friends. While on weekends we would probably try to cook and make a potluck picnic, while on weeknights it is just easier to get takeout. On this evening — with two of my increasingly-rare carnivorous friends — we decided to try a Cantonese spot, ordering an assortment of roasted meat -- duck, char siu and pork belly -- along rice, lo mein, wontons and bao, paired with Carlsberg beers to drink out of nostalgia for our student days in Denmark. It was delicious. While living abroad, most of my friendships have been formed through mealtimes, either asking an acquaintance to try a new restaurant or sharing much-loved recipes from our home countries in a different setting. Between the first few bites and the last few drinks, we’ve vented about our ambitions, frustrations, updates on life and Netflix recommendations. There’s something inherently familiar about sitting down for dinner - even if the ingredients or etiquette are vastly different. But I think meeting up with friends in a park, a neutral spot between all our houses, perfect for people watching and existing in a city, also allows us to feel like we’re making a home somewhere new.
Name: Shubham Kaushik
Location: Hamburg, Germany
I am eating Asian takeout - vegetable and egg noodles - in this photo. These noodles in particular are from probably the only place in Hamburg that comes close to doing Indo-Chinese cuisine. I am going through a stressful move at the moment, and it was great to have some comfort food during this time. I usually do not order takeout. Not only because it is just so expensive here, but also because I enjoy cooking my own meals. My “dining table” is actually the drawer set under my desk that I drag in front of the couch every time I eat or watch Netflix. It is essentially like my relaxation station. I live in a shared apartment with three other flatmates, and even though we have an actual dining area in the kitchen, I prefer to take my meals alone. Hence, the makeshift arrangement. Eating alone is important for me. I am a relatively reserved person, and I suffered from disordered eating for a while. Eating around other people makes me feel conscious of my body, what is on my plate, and my eating etiquette (took me a while to get the hang of using knives and forks for eating, which is different from how I used to eat in India). It is not always quite as bad - I do well in social situations, but I definitely prefer eating in the privacy of my own room.
Unless I am cooking for a communal dinner with my flatmates, the final thing I do before eating is putting all the things I need at my table in front of the couch. The things I usually have on it are my laptop, my Kindle, my phone, the medicines I take after eating, and usually some water. I keep Sriracha close too, because there are very few meals I eat without it. Once I am done cooking, I eat my meal while watching a TV show or talking to my family on Skype. After that, I settle in for the night to relax - which is why I have my Kindle, phone, and medicines on hand. This makeshift dinner table is where I begin to unwind at the end of the day, and this space is important to me.
Name: Carley Brady
Location: Divide Lake, Tombstone Mountain Range, Yukon
75 km up the graveled Dempster Highway, and roughly three hours south from the Arctic Circle, lies the Tombstone mountain range. After three full days of hiking we awoke to a pristine morning. The surrounding mountain tops are covered with a dusting of fresh snow, and we were still chilled from the storm that carried on through the night. We fired up our ‘pocket rocket’ stove, and patiently hovered around the flame as it heated the water to a boil so we could pour it over our instant oatmeal breakfast. On the table beside where we wait sat our pots and pans and a flask of whiskey enjoyed the night before. A pocket knife lay next to a bladder of water which has been taken from the lake next to the cook shelter. A collapsible mug rested on the table in the background and held our dehydrated spicy sausage pasta which we inhaled at the end of the day. We eat dehydrated meals up here, as all of our food needs to be kept in sealable canisters that are locked in bear proof lockers each night. Space for food in our canister is tight, so almost everything must be dried or dehydrated. We have calculated how much food we can eat per day, almost down to the almond. Although having to restrict your food intake can be a bit anxiety-inducing, there is something so simply satisfying about enjoying a meal outside with friends after a long day.
Name: Debby Falcon
Location: Metro Manila, Philippines
We always have at least one dish each of carbs, protein, and vegetables, and tonight’s selection consisted of red rice, baked pork chops, stir-fried cabbage, and leftovers of bangus belly, ribs, siomai, and bagnet. Some of the food is homemade, and some are from different friends-turned-home-chefs looking for supplementary income in the pandemic.
The items on the center of the lazy Susan are mainstays: condiments so each person can adjust taste based on their preferences, everyday medicine, and the newest addition is a tube of Berocca vitamin C tablets. Every night since lockdown started, before desserts are rolled out, my mom asks everyone if they’ve taken their daily dose of Berocca.
Sometimes my eldest brother gets home from work later than usual, and our dinner time gets pushed back since he has to jump in the shower right away. There’s a place setting missing tonight because my other brother (who’s a resident) had to rush back to the hospital; his replacement fell ill and couldn’t come in. Since lockdown started, he’s been using a different set of utensils and different drinkware than the rest of us.
Sitting down together for dinner as a family has always been about choosing to make time and space for us all to catch up, share anecdotes, and talk about family matters. While some aspects of dinner time have changed since lockdown started, it's mostly so we can continue to eat together as a family.
Place recommends:
Spaces of supremacy,
Monsters at the margins of maps,
Commemoration and corruption.
Join us next week for a vacation.