Beans Around The World: Italian? Or American?

Nonno (Grandpa) was Italian and he made these beans for my dad, who rarely left his farm (Va Via Farm) in Michigan. So I thought I'd have a little fun with the idea of whether this farm scene could be re-imagined as an Italian scene. Actually, though, dad didn't really have a silo. If he did, he certainly would not have let the roof rust!

The other question of the day is whether Nonno's Bean Blend is wine or hot sauce? You'll only know by trying some, since "No-one says 'no' to Nonno"!

Photo credit goes to Sandra Salamony, who took the photograph from which Nonno's close-up is based. Thanks, Sandra!

Years ago, I had my first taste of slow cooked, French Canadian-style baked beans. It was what I’ll call a time stopping gustatory experience. It was mid February, cold as heck and I was on a journalism school assignment to report on the sights and sounds and all to be savoured at Festival du Voyageur....for those of you not familiar.....this annual festival is unique to my hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It all happens in our fantastic French Quarter, Saint-Boniface and is the largest winter event of its kind in Western Canada. Voyageurs worked for fur companies transporting goods by boat between trading posts. Voyageur, Métis and First Nations histories are celebrated amid happy fiddles playing, people jigging, hearty laughter, twinkle lights, bonfires, evergreens and delicious, traditional food (split pea soup, sugar pie|tarte a sucre, maple candy hardened in snow, tourtiere|meat pie, and that’s just the start!). Back to the beans. They had been cooked for hours in an old school clay bean pot by a man with a waxed moustache wearing a humongous fur hat. The navy beans were warm, tender and delicately starchy. The hunks of salt pork adding just enough unctuous, meaty flavour. But the crowning achievement of the dish was its beautifully sweet and savoury sauce. Glorious in its simplicity, it stuck fast to every bean creating an amber-hued sheen over every morsel. It’s February next month, right? My tum is rumbling.

Feijoada is the Brazilian national dish, a richer mixture of meats, black beans and lots of flavour. There are as many recipes as cookers, but always with the black beans as the main character... and here is my version: the way I like it on my table on Saturdays! Enjoy this dish, that is the culinary translation of Brazilians rich mixture of cultures, colours and flavours!

Grandma frequently made kluski, but not often enough, according to the family! They wanted it for every meal, including Christmas. I used to make it while I was going to college, but I substituted bacon for the pork shoulder. That was when I learned, from my great-aunt, that bacon is cheating! Unfortunately, there are those in the family who haven't fallen for kluski's charms. My husband refers to it as "fish bait". Oh, well, more for me!

Fave Memory : One of my favorite memories of food as a kid was spending Saturday afternoons around the kitchen table with my mom, my sisters and my brother making wontons. There is some skill to wrapping wontons perfectly the way my mom did and we all attempted but it we never quite matched it. What we loved was being creative with the wrapping - making egg roll shaped wontons, special delivery envelope wontons and anything else we could think of. The best part was when my mom would take a batch and make wonton soup as we finished up wrapping. I still gather around the kitchen table with my sisters to wrap wontons with my nieces and nephews wrapping wontons in creative ways.

Fave Memory - This recipe always makes me think of my grandmother. Her soup was one of my favorites when I was growing up. After we moved to the States from Finland I missed her cooking and asked her to write down some recipes for me. As a vegetarian, I haven't made this soup in years, but now it might just be fun to try it with temped instead. This is a traditional meat and potatoes soup from Finland.

I really like this new Challenge Theme. In fact, I'm doing the similar project this year. From JAN. to now I have finished 11 art works about "SPECIAL FOOD FOR ME". i combine the style of food receipt but not real receipt to express my food stories.
The " Braised pork " is very important for me, it's a very traditional Chinese home cooking. Every family has their own recipe, but the same thing is the taste means home . When we back home from far away, our parents always cook the braised pork for us, my father is also. My father is a chef, since he passed away, I never have a same one like his. It's a memory for me. This is my story of " Braised pork ".
I shared the Chinese zongzi for Dragon Boat Festival and Lotus pastry. All of these are my hometown taste.
" Fave Memory"

dumpling wrappers + ground pork + kimchi + green onions

My Japanese husband loves this dish so much, which his mom makes really well that I was a little intimidated to try making it myself. But one day we had some leftover cabbage and carrots that had to be used, and some ground pork in the freezer. I decided

Dong Po Rou is a traditional Chinese dish. Served with rice and vegetables.

Dumpling is a traditional Chinese New Year food. By the time of Chinese New Year, I did a recipe for dumpling.

My grandmother, who I lovingly called Mimi, was a passionate cook! All of her meals were made from scratch, and boy was she one heck of a cook! I wanted to use one of her classic recipes as inspiration for my illustration, and to share her wonderful recipe with everyone!

Zongzi (粽子) is a traditional Chinese rice dish made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves, generally of the species Indocalamus tessellatus, sometimes, with reed leaves, or other large flat leaves. They are cooked by steaming or boiling. In the Western world, they are also known as rice dumplings or sticky rice dumplings.

One of the dishes that reminds me of home is Lumpia Shanghai. It's a Chinese-Filipino fried spring roll that is often served at get-togethers. Ever since I was little, my mom and I would sit around the kitchen table and wrap them together.

This illustration was created for Rebecca Bradley's Illustrating the Edible class at MICA.