Serves two:

• orange pumpkin of about 1.25 kg
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 250 g cleaned Brussels sprouts

Sauce:

• 2 heaped tablespoons fair trade peanut butter
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
• salt
• water

Garnish:

• red pepper
• chopped parsley
• cornflakes

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‘American’ because of the ingredients, especially peanut butter and cornflakes. Doctor and vegetarian John Harvey Kellogg claimed that he invented peanut butter around 1890 for patients with dental problems. ‘Not at all certain’, writes Andrew F. Smith in The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink (2007). And he immediately adds that people in South America, where the bean is native, and in Africa, where it was planted by slave traders as food for their merchandise, also ate it ground. Slaves in turn brought it back to North America. The Dutch word pinda for peanut was derived from Congolese via Papiamento.

Since Kellogg was an exceptionally good promoter, peanut butter became a hit among vegetarians, but not only there. Children liked it and could spread it on their own bread, which made the product so popular in 1920 that it had a profound influence on the cuisine of North America. Americans love their peanuts very much. For example Andrew Smith experiences the smell of peanut roasting  as ‘heavenly’ and sees the combination of peanuts/chocolate (peanut rocks!) as ‘a marriage made in heaven’.

Serves two:

• 100 g bulgur
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• pepper, salt
• 1 aubergine (approx. 350 g)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 2 tbsp chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic
• half green pepper
• 1 peeled Roma tomato
• 10 ‘ready-to-eat’ dried apricots
• 2 tbsp blanched hazelnuts
• pinch of ground coriander,
• cinnamon and cardamom
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• coriander leaves

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Badindjan mahsji bi’l misjmisj from the rich collection of Middle Eastern recipes without meat. The cooking in the now Arabic-speaking countries was already environmentally friendly before the word existed. Lots of vegetables, grains, nuts and legumes.

The appreciation for this kind of dishes in those regions does not date from today or yesterday. Take Daniel from the Old Testament. He refused to follow the menu of King Nebuchadnezzar and asked for vegetables and water. And what happened? He became very handsome and fit (Dan.1:1-21) and was not torn by the lions. So if you want to seduce a lion, don’t eat meat!

Serves two:

• handful of Brussels sprouts
• 1 parsnip
• piece of winter carrot
• piece of celeriac
• half Hokkaido pumpkin
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 shallots in rings
• 125 g chestnut mushrooms
• half a can of chestnut puree (220 g)
• plenty of pepper
• salt
• thyme

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Villages on the  Veluwe, a wooded region in the middle of the Netherlands, welcome visitors in autumn with a market full of seasonal products, accompanied by the local amateur brass band which enthusiastically plays popular music under the falling leaves. Eventually their harmony is rewarded with a hearty meal. Sweet chestnuts predominate, harmonizing with other autumn vegetables. The shiny chestnuts can be found all over the Veluwe. We once collected them diligently. But since the day our whole harvest turned out to be infested by worms we definitely  prefer a can.

Oh yes, if you abhor canned food, you can prepare them yourself, but it is quite a job. First cut a cross in the top, and put them for 15 minutes in an oven preheated at 200˚C. Peel them while warm (the bitter dark skin has to go: difficult!). Thereafter boil in water for 10 minutes. And in this case, finally mash them.

A nice side effect of this dish is that you can put leftover vegetables in it because the above combination is only an idea. After all, every recipe should be open-ended: tastes differ.

Serves two:

• 2 green and 2 red peppers with flat bottoms
• olive oil
• 4 tbsp. chopped onion
• 100 g coarsely chopped walnuts
• 2 ripe tomatoes
• parsley
• sage leaves
• black pepper, salt
• 1 tin/jar white beans, drained weight approx. 250 g
• mint leaves
• dill greens
• paprika powder
• 4 tbsp. sauerkraut

Garnish:

• sprigs of:
• parsley, sage,
• mint and dill

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My version of an Eastern Orthodox fasting dish, which is popular in Lovech on the Ossum River. Devout believers are allowed to eat these Pulneny Piperky in the first half of the week before Easter. After that, they fast completely in the last three days before Easter.

How did the pepper become such a popular ingredient in the Balkans? Because of the Turkish rule. It was not for nothing that the pepper was called Heidenpfeffer in the Habsburg period. Turks were gourmets. The first snobbish Haute Cuisine of Europe can be found with the Romans, the second originated at the court of the Ottoman rulers in Istanbul with the well-known result of an enormous interest in new snacks. In Turkey, people were therefore very early in incorporating American crops. The Ottoman Empire bordered the Iberian Peninsula at the time that Columbus discovered America and so the fruits from that distant land were imported early on via the ports of Spain. And with high-ranking people spread throughout the empire.

For two:

Cheese:

• 225 g halloumi
• olive oil

Leek and pilaf:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 250 g cleaned leek, thickly sliced
• 100 g bulgur
• 300 ml tomato juice
• salt, pepper
• spearmint

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You can visit museums to learn about the history of a country, but you can also sit down for a meal. Take Cyprus, already speaking Greek in the Bronze Age, later indebted to Assyria, Egypt and Persia. All this before the Ottomans took the island in 1571. After their flirtation with the Nazis, they had to give it up again under English rule, but have occupied a third of Cyprus since 1974.

The pourgouri pilaff is Turkish. And Amaranth Sitas writes in Kopiaste (1983) prassa (leek)? that’s what the English eat. The halloumi, on the other hand, is Cypriot: a folded rectangle of sheep/goat cheese, which has been in brine for 40 days. Can be kept for a year without refrigeration. The name is a point of contention.  Charles Perry (The Oxford Companion to Food) sees it as Coptic ialom, but I follow an Ugarit expert (Ugarit is an ancient site in Syria): the origin is halab (milk/cheese: m and b are interchangeable). Halloum is also a product of Syria and Lebanon.

Serves two:

• 1 butternut squash, about 1 kg
• 3 tbsp tahini
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 1 garlic clove, pressed
• 2 tbsp parsley, finely chopped
• salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion in rings
• can chick peas (400 g)
• 2 tbsp pomegranate seeds

To serve:

• roast pitta bread

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Many culinary writers believe that gourds/pumpkins are of American origin. But palaeontologists think that this sustainable species, just as the coconut, has floated from Africa across the ocean to America a long time ago. For example, pollen from the bottle gourd (cucurbita lagenaria siceraria) has been found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II (1200 BC). After patient scraping, the peel was used as a bottle, according to ancient texts from Syria (Ugarit 1300 BC). This type of cheap container is still used in the Middle East. A recently translated Syrian cookbook dating from the Middle Ages (c. 1250 CE) already contains several recipes for bottle gourd.

However, 7.000-year-old remains of the species have since been excavated in Mexico. So if the paleontologists are right, this fruit must have discovered America an extraordinarily long time before Columbus!

Here al-qar’a bi-hummus, a modern Middle Eastern application of the young American pumpkin cross ‘butternut squash’ (cucurbita moschata). Because we humans have never wasted what tastes good. Wherever it came from. And especially not when it also looks like a vessel filled with precious stones from the Aladdin’s cave

Serves four: 

Baking tool:

• casserole with high edge (4 cm)
• greased

Pie:

• 250 g cleaned leek
• (with some green leaves)
• 250 g fresh cheese (ricotta)
• 5 g salt
• 175 fine corn flour
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped dill
• butter
• 100 g grated hard goats or sheep cheese (or parmesan)

Side dish:

• crème fraiche, garlic, salt
• tomato
• lettuce
• cooked green beans

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Albania is one of the poorest countries of Europe, looted by many foreign conquerors. The Albanian cuisine does reflect this history. There are clear Turkish influences (since the Ottoman conquests in the 15^th century) in this predominantly muslim country. But you can also find restaurants with a purely Russian menu, such as Borsjtsj, Blinis and Steak Stroganoff. For centuries, fugitives from Albania have fled to their neighbours in Kosovo and South Italy. American corn reached Middle Europe in the 17^th century during a period of severe famines. It was quickly adopted in Northern Italy as a replacement for spelt porridge. The coarse maize porridge polenta, known as mamaliga in the Balkan, is still a replacement for bread. In the mountains of North Albania, however, a bread is baked from it, as it is in Portugal (Broa). Here an in-between version: Lakror me misri, which shows how a maltreated people can retain its identity through original food.

Currently there is even a movement among chefs to draw attention to the original cuisine. Until recently most people had the idea that foreign food was better. Below is a slightly edited recipe based on Rezepte aus Albanien by Frauengruppe der Deutsch-Albanischen-Freundschaftgesellschaft (1995).

Serves two:

• 2 large ripe conference pears
• 4 soft tortillas (20 cm)
• 2 spring onions, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp. finely chopped parsley
• 150 g Blue Stilton, crumbled
• parsley leaves
• 25 g butter
• sprigs of parsley
• liquid acacia honey

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‘English’ because of the ingredients for the filling. In The Netherlands (I am Dutch) people ask for Conférence peren in a dignified French way, but that turns out to be quite ridiculous. Indeed, most pears, like roses for example, have French names because people in that country (and in what is now called Belgium) started upgrading what were until then rock-hard, stony stewing pears, which you absolutely could not eat raw. However, Thomas Francis Rivers from Herefordshire was rightly awarded a First-class certificate at the National Pear Conference in 1885 for the pear he had bred, which is now number one in the Netherlands and Belgium. So it is a ‘conference pear’.

In the past when thinking of blue cheeses, we in the Low Countries did not think of England immediately. Today you can buy Blue Stilton in most supermarkets. No wonder: this cheese is superb. Add to this the old English saying:

“Drink a pot of ale, eat a scoop of Stilton every day, you will make old bones”

And you know what is good for you. No wonder that this delicacy has now reached Japan and America, the regions where most Stilton is imported.

Serves 6:

• 1 head lettuce,
• coarse outer leaves removed
• 600 g boiled potatoes
• 3 tablespoons oil (approx.)
• 3 tablespoons vinegar (approx.)
• 1 teaspoon ready-made mustard
• pepper, salt
• 1 tart apple
• 1 cooked beetroot
• 150 g cooked peas
• 150 g cooked carrots
• 2 hard-boiled  eggs
• 4 pickled gherkins
• 4 tablespoons cocktail onions
• a lot of mayonaise

Decoration:

• gherkins
• radishes or diced beetroot
• hard-boiled eggs

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Huzarensalade is so very Dutch that you can find a recipe even in the authoritative Van Dale Dutch Dictionary. It is a dish for New Year’s Eve, to be served around twelve o’clock and eaten after New Year’s kissing ceremony. But the Dutch also like to serve this salad on other festive occasions. The name is said to  derive from the fact that hussars, once stationed all over the country, were underfed in their barracks. In desperation they courted the kitchenmaids of wealthy families, who fed them cold left-overs from their master’s kitchens. And apparently did their best to please their heroes …

Serves two:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• waxy potatoes according to needs
• good piece of leek in thin strips
• 1 clove garlic
• canned lentils (net weight 260 g)
• 2  medium-sized ripe mangoes
• 2 tbsp coarsely chopped coriander leaves
• salt

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Mango is the most eaten fruit in the world. And just as with apples the most exiting stories are told about it. The Vedic scriptures of India see the mango as a transformation of the Lord of Creation/Procreation. But we are also told that the doughter of the Sun, married to the king became a lotus flower to escape a wicked witch. The king fell in love with the flower after which the sorceress burned her to ashes. From this ash the mango tree evolved, and when she fell to the ground as a ripe fruit she came to life and the king could embrace his great love again.

In the Philippines too the tree is connected with love. Girls married off to men they did not love, could not live on. From their hearts grew the mango tree with its heart-shaped fruit.

In many countries you can buy the fruit ‘ready to eat’. Then they have to yield to a light pressure and spread a nice perfume. Black spots mean rottenness. When the fruit is still hard you should follow the advice of Madhur Jaffrey, Indian cookery writer: wrap them up in newsprint and put them a few days in a basket.