Gathering the Ingredients

by LOUISE

In our cooking module, we applied hands-on experience to cooking key cultural recipes from Taiwan and Brazil under the guidance of Borhan and Talita Alves. Perhaps the hardest part of this module was gathering the ingredients. In the United States, we have international markets here and there to help, but while working in Poland, it was hard to find the ingredients for multiple reasons: 1) time crunch due to work restrictions, 2) language barrier, and 3) not knowing where to look for specialty ingredients. 

Some substitutions were made in the making of various recipes, and some ingredients were not found altogether. Still, it was the most fun I have had in this course because if the way to the heart is through the stomach, understanding the heart of cultures could be found by sharing experiences in the staple and soul foods of Taiwan and Brazil. 

Pictured below is me making the Brigadeiro chocolate balls from Brazil. Seemingly from simple ingredients such as sweetened condensed milk, butter, and cocoa powder, a three-ingredient recipe should not have failed as epically as I failed. After melting the ingredients together, perhaps I did not bring the mixture to a high enough heat before chilling it in the refrigerator. After chilling, the mixture did not firm up enough for the balls to hold their shape once stopped and rolled into a ball shape and coated in chocolate sprinkles.

What should have been a classic and simple sweet treat, easy to pop into one's mouth, came out under my hands to hold more of a pancake form that slipped through your fingers before you could take a single bite. The taste itself was not bad, but it was not extraordinary either. After this round of failures, could I guess that Brazilians may be more patient when it comes to business and cooking than what qualities the upbringing of my culture has equipped me with?