The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

Tastes of Abroad: Azerbaijan

From learning how to open a pomegranate without staining my white t-shirt bright red, to experimenting with cuts of meat I had never tried in the United States, studying abroad really expanded my culinary palette. Instead of sticking to simple options at Cafe Mac such as a piece of grilled chicken or the regular option of a burger and fries, now I’ll grab a little cilantro, throw a little butter and pepper into a bowl of rice from south, cut up one of the peppers lying around the ice-filled troughs, and top it off with chopped up pieces of hamburger meat to make my rendition of Azerbaijani plov.

Coming from a Latino family in the United States, my parents have always instilled a strong sense of culture in me by talking about their food. Rice, beans and spices were staples to be combined and experimented with on a daily basis in order to make a tasty meal. It was really grounding to find similar culinary basis while abroad in Azerbaijan. My host mother would respond with smile on her face when I would describe how one of her dishes was really familiar to something my mom would make on a Friday night. She had told me that it was not often that an American student would be familiar with many ingredients used in Azerbaijani cuisine. While I quickly realized at college that my idea of a home-cooked meal everyday was different than many of my white peers, it was very strange to actually find more similarities while in a foreign country.

Learning about how another culture incorporates food into their daily life really gets you to understand so much more about where you are. I personally found so many cultural parallels between my Cuban identity and Azerbaijani culture over conversations at the dinner table in Baku.

This is the first edition of a column about experiences with food while on a semester abroad, and I look forward to hearing and talking about other experiences in the future.

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