Festival of Nations
The Festival of Nations is definitely our favorite multi- cultural event in the Twin Cities. Over 90 ethnic groups from around the world participate to share with the rest of us their foods, traditions, arts and crafts. My daughter Aliyah volunteered in the Filipino food booth, and mind you, she worked a 3-hour shift! It turned out to be an awesome experience for her that she wants to do it again next year, this time with Mom.There were so many different kinds of foods to try. I have never been this interested in tasting so many diverse cuisines until I started cooking vegan last year. The obvious winner for me was the Egyptian booth. Their Koshary was awesome and even 3-year old Zurielle got in the act with their Spinach Pie. I was looking at their falafel too, but by that time I already had enough to eat. I must mention we had some Indian food before my husband came across the Egyptian booth.
I was really excited to see an old friend whom I worked with in the bank operations many years ago! He was working at the Turkish booth right next to where Aliyah helped. It's nice to see him after so many years and in his Turkish costume. It turned out his oldest daughter is as old as mine and he's mostly vegetarian. He had me try their dolma, and I would have tried the other food too, except they have cheese and all that stuff.A little more walking around and perusing the exhibit area and we have room again to try some food which were vegetarian/vegan, but either too greasy or salty, so not worth mentioning here, except for the macaroons which my bunch liked. Do you have a good veganized version of macaroons? Please holler. And when you have a moment, check out the Festival of Nations website, so I could at least share more of this experience with you. For some reasons, this annual event just took on a new and richer meaning for me and our family this year.
11 Comments:
I checked out that Festival of Nations web site, and that event looks like it was so cool! I love multicultural events like this, really nice. America, the melting pot... Macaroons are mostly egg whites and coconut, I would also be interested if there were a vegan verson of that! And good for Aliyah volunterring there, nice!
Wow, that sounds awesome! I wish they had stuff like that where I live. :(
The festival of Nations sounds like a great learning time! I have seen vegan macaroons before so I did a search on my computor files, here's what I found.
Posted on one of the vegsource boards—I haven’t tried it…BCG:
MARY’S PLAIN VEGAN MACAROONS
From: Mary (11 093.022.popsite.net) Date: April 7, 2001 at 4:54 pm PST
Here is a recipe that I just tried, and my non vegan husband loved them. He was
surprised how much they tasted like the macaroons made with egg whites. I have
also included recipes for chocolate ones if you want a variation.
3/4 cup light granulated unbleached or white beet sugar
2+1/2 cups unsweetened coconut
2 EnerG egg replacer (1 T. EnerG plus 4T water) lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Heat oven to 350 degrees F . Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl,
combine sugar, coconut, EnerG, vanilla, and salt. Mix well. Dampen hands with
cold water. For 1 1/2 tablespoons mixture into a loose haystack shape, and place
on baking sheet. Space macaroons about an inch apart. Bake until golden brown,
about 15 minutes. Let the cookies cool slightly on the cookie sheet, then
transfer to a wire rack. Store macaroons in an airtight container up to 4 days.
VARIATIONS:
CHOCOLATE CHUNK MACAROONS
Add 1/2 cup organic vegan semisweet chocolate chunks to the above, and proceed as directed.
CHOCOLATE MACAROONS
Melt 4 ounces of organic vegan semisweet chocolate and allow to cool slightly. Add this to the Plain Macaroon recipe along with 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder. Use 1 and 1/2 T. EnerG egg replacer plus 6 T. water. Proceed as above.
Here's another one I found.
BRYANNA’S AMARETTI VEGAN (VEGAN ALMOND "MACAROONS")
Makes 36 (from my book “Nonna’s Italian Kitchen”)
These are sure to become a favorite vegan cookie.
1/2 c. water
2 T. powdered egg replacer
2 c. granulated unbleached or white beet sugar
1 T. pure almond extract
2 and 1/4 c. fresh white or sweet bread crumbs 1 c. ground lightly-toasted almonds
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees ly grease or spray two cookie sheets.
In a medium, deep bowl, beat the water and the egg replacer with an electric beater until it is like softly mounded beaten egg whites (this may take 5-7 minutes). Beat in the sugar and the almond extract.
With a rubber spatula, fold in the breadcrumbs and the toasted almonds.
Roll tablespoonfuls of the mixture into balls with wet hands and place on the prepared cookie sheets, leaving some space in between the cookies. Bake for 15 minutes. let them cool a bit to firm up, then loosen them gently with a metal spatula and place them on racks to cool thoroughly.
What a nice event is this!
I'm glad you also had the chance of tasting Turkish food. I checked the menu, unfortunately most of the items are non-vegan. Though you had dolmas, that's great ;) Don't forget to try turkish tea next time. It will help digestion ;)
that's a great event, kai, and really helps our kids learn more and appreciate their culture and heritage. when my kids went to public school they too had a Filipino booth at the multi-cultural fair. we baked bibingka and made lumpiang shanghai and pandesal for the kids. Aliyah looks lovely!
what a wonderful event. And such a good experience for your daughter.
Oh, I wish I was back home! For our International Club field trip in high school we'd go to Festival of Nations every year. Thanks for bringing back memories of the passport stamping and getting your name written in all different languages...and of course the food bazaar! I used to go to the website and print out the menus so I could find vegetarian stuff quickly and not be tempted by all the other goodies :-) Looks like Aliyah had a great time too!
Dori- thanks for sharing these recipes. I'll let you know when I try one of them.
Isil, hubby and I were talking to a lady who was drinking the tea at the festival. She said it is awesome and that she was really thrilled to see it there, but when I looked in their menu it listed Turkish Latte, so I didn't even bother asking my friend about it. Is that the same thing?
Stef- the 3 goodies you mentioned are always a hit with the kids, aren't they? The bibingka is one that I really want to adapt/veganize.
Monica, thanks for sharing and for stopping by. Do you have a blog?
Thanks everyone for the nice comments!
No, they aren't the same thing.
That drink that is translated as Turkish latte is "sahlep" in Turkish. It's really tasty and fits cold winter nights. It's made
of a flour from orchids. For more information please have a look at here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salep
Though the conventional ones are made with cow's milk,so they're not vegan.I didn't try but I think vegan milk can be used instead.http://www.armory.com/~ssahin/mutfak/icecek/salep.html
Warm regards
I wish I was closer to experience this wonderful event!
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