Fish-scented Mousakas
Until I finally remember to take my camera to the dig, I'm gonna hold off on posting about it (fingers crossed on tomorrow). In the meantime, here is an article that is so Greek I almost exploded when I read it. Fascinating on so many levels...
by Kosmas Vidos (tr. from the Greek), 05/07/2009 in To Vima (newspaper)
The Philippino girls on the ground floor cook using tons of fish sauce, the smell of which rises to our floor, passes surreptitiously under the door and wakes me up from my afternoon nap, making me vomit. There is no more worse smelling thing than fish sauce, the residue from fish and shrimp that many Asians use instead of salt. Especially when you don’t eat fish. The other day (the Philippinos were again cooking) we found Aunt Julia half upset in front of the television. “The heat or the newsman?” I asked her. “This thing that those &%$@& throws in their food!” she answered, annoyed. What can you say to them? Don’t cook your food? “I can’t, my child. When we lived with your uncle in Werzenbrüngen in Bavaria, and I made egglplants with roasted garlic—he really liked it—our landlady cursed us because of the smell, and we called her a nazi. I don’t want the girls to say the same thing about me now.” “What was your job in Werzenbrüngen?” “Where to start…”
She didn’t tell me. Besides, the issue was how we would deal with the Philippino affront, which each afternoon transformed our house into the central fish market of Manila. “I put on an entire bottle of Madame Rochas in the morning and I smell like a fish again!” complained Mrs. Kouloubi-Kokota from the fourth floor. “What do you mean? Is Madame Rochas still on the shelves?” Aunt Julia asked, surprised. “Is this the issue or that we can’t leave our houses with these piranhas stationed on the ground floor?” “Eh, the poor things aren’t piranhas,” my aunt responded, whose anti-racism sometimes took over, “they’re working girls who came here looking for a better future.” “And meanwhile the only thing they have succeeded in doing is to transform our lives into hell. Piranhas, I tell you, my Julia, ready to torment us so and see us react to the poison with which they saturate the air we breathe! Karatzaferis spoke well in wanting all of them outside our borders…”
As the two (irreconcilable) friends tried to decide if Karatzaferis is far-right or a revolutionary model of a capitalist-communist with developed social sensibilities and insensibilities, but also if Mrs. Topaloglou, who rented the studio to the Philippinos, put in the complex two angels (with some displeasing habits) or two devils, they ended up at the same phenomena: the Albanians who sit at the corner below and drink beers all evening, leaving empty bottles on the sidewalk; the Romanian in the underground unit across the street who listens all the time to traditional songs from his country, compelling us to participate in his nostalgia. The black girl on the ground floor next door (she doesn’t have a country, she’s just “the black girl”) who insists on throwing her cleaning water on the street “because, my dear, in the shacks where she grew up, in the dust and droughts, she didn’t learn what a sewage system is!” as Mrs. Kouloubi-Kokota explained to Aunt Julia, while my aunt tried to persuade her that this all was “due to the rituals of the girl’s tribe. I saw it on the internet. They circumcise their boys and then throw water around to chase away evil spirits.” “You mean even now next door they are circumcising?” started Mrs. Kouloubi-Kokota. “Of course.” “Did you mean what you told her?" I asked when her visitor had gone away shocked. “Of course,” she answered, without persuading me at all.
What’s certain is that the multi-culturalism that our neighborhood has acquired the last few years has both its good side (e.g., the ethnic markets) and its bad side. But how good a disposition do the two sides show, we and the “foreigners,” to elide the differences between us and to meet at our similarities. Very little, I fear. In any case Aunt Julia does what she can. Two days ago, when I came home the two Philippinos came out hauling a skillet and pot. “I’m teaching them to cook nice Greek food to rescue us from the fish sauce. Today we had our first lesson: mousaka.” Several days later I met one of them on the street. “How are you?” “Went supermarket, to buy, making mousaga.” In the afternoon the odor of fish sauce again troubled our European noses. “In the end they didn’t prefer your recipe,” I commented, when the bell rang. They had brought her a bite of mousaka to try, to tell them if they had succeeded. “What did you put inside?” my aunt fiercely glared at them, ready to snap. “What you telled,” they looked at her confused. “Just that?” “Just that.” “And fish sauce?” I hastily added. “Fish sauce everything eat, very good health,” they sweetly looked at us. Aunt Julia had had enough. “They put fish in mousaka?” A bit. As the culture they brought with them ordains, which refuses to submit without a fight to the olive oil of Kalamata and the dried eggplants…
by Kosmas Vidos (tr. from the Greek), 05/07/2009 in To Vima (newspaper)
The Philippino girls on the ground floor cook using tons of fish sauce, the smell of which rises to our floor, passes surreptitiously under the door and wakes me up from my afternoon nap, making me vomit. There is no more worse smelling thing than fish sauce, the residue from fish and shrimp that many Asians use instead of salt. Especially when you don’t eat fish. The other day (the Philippinos were again cooking) we found Aunt Julia half upset in front of the television. “The heat or the newsman?” I asked her. “This thing that those &%$@& throws in their food!” she answered, annoyed. What can you say to them? Don’t cook your food? “I can’t, my child. When we lived with your uncle in Werzenbrüngen in Bavaria, and I made egglplants with roasted garlic—he really liked it—our landlady cursed us because of the smell, and we called her a nazi. I don’t want the girls to say the same thing about me now.” “What was your job in Werzenbrüngen?” “Where to start…”
She didn’t tell me. Besides, the issue was how we would deal with the Philippino affront, which each afternoon transformed our house into the central fish market of Manila. “I put on an entire bottle of Madame Rochas in the morning and I smell like a fish again!” complained Mrs. Kouloubi-Kokota from the fourth floor. “What do you mean? Is Madame Rochas still on the shelves?” Aunt Julia asked, surprised. “Is this the issue or that we can’t leave our houses with these piranhas stationed on the ground floor?” “Eh, the poor things aren’t piranhas,” my aunt responded, whose anti-racism sometimes took over, “they’re working girls who came here looking for a better future.” “And meanwhile the only thing they have succeeded in doing is to transform our lives into hell. Piranhas, I tell you, my Julia, ready to torment us so and see us react to the poison with which they saturate the air we breathe! Karatzaferis spoke well in wanting all of them outside our borders…”
As the two (irreconcilable) friends tried to decide if Karatzaferis is far-right or a revolutionary model of a capitalist-communist with developed social sensibilities and insensibilities, but also if Mrs. Topaloglou, who rented the studio to the Philippinos, put in the complex two angels (with some displeasing habits) or two devils, they ended up at the same phenomena: the Albanians who sit at the corner below and drink beers all evening, leaving empty bottles on the sidewalk; the Romanian in the underground unit across the street who listens all the time to traditional songs from his country, compelling us to participate in his nostalgia. The black girl on the ground floor next door (she doesn’t have a country, she’s just “the black girl”) who insists on throwing her cleaning water on the street “because, my dear, in the shacks where she grew up, in the dust and droughts, she didn’t learn what a sewage system is!” as Mrs. Kouloubi-Kokota explained to Aunt Julia, while my aunt tried to persuade her that this all was “due to the rituals of the girl’s tribe. I saw it on the internet. They circumcise their boys and then throw water around to chase away evil spirits.” “You mean even now next door they are circumcising?” started Mrs. Kouloubi-Kokota. “Of course.” “Did you mean what you told her?" I asked when her visitor had gone away shocked. “Of course,” she answered, without persuading me at all.
What’s certain is that the multi-culturalism that our neighborhood has acquired the last few years has both its good side (e.g., the ethnic markets) and its bad side. But how good a disposition do the two sides show, we and the “foreigners,” to elide the differences between us and to meet at our similarities. Very little, I fear. In any case Aunt Julia does what she can. Two days ago, when I came home the two Philippinos came out hauling a skillet and pot. “I’m teaching them to cook nice Greek food to rescue us from the fish sauce. Today we had our first lesson: mousaka.” Several days later I met one of them on the street. “How are you?” “Went supermarket, to buy, making mousaga.” In the afternoon the odor of fish sauce again troubled our European noses. “In the end they didn’t prefer your recipe,” I commented, when the bell rang. They had brought her a bite of mousaka to try, to tell them if they had succeeded. “What did you put inside?” my aunt fiercely glared at them, ready to snap. “What you telled,” they looked at her confused. “Just that?” “Just that.” “And fish sauce?” I hastily added. “Fish sauce everything eat, very good health,” they sweetly looked at us. Aunt Julia had had enough. “They put fish in mousaka?” A bit. As the culture they brought with them ordains, which refuses to submit without a fight to the olive oil of Kalamata and the dried eggplants…
posted by Jeremy LaBuff at 5:42 AM
1 Comments:
Fish sauce is pretty good. But might be a bit much in mousaka...
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