International Kitchen

I’ve always thought of my kitchen as a fairly international kitchen. Having lived in several different countries we gathered recipes as we went. Kent makes a mean Chinese stir-fry. I can mostly cook a decent Spanish tortilla (egg/potato/onion pie-like thing for those who haven’t lived in Spain). So I looked forward to what a kitchen could look like here. What I didn’t expect was that buying ‘local’ often means buying international goods from local merchants instead of ordering them yourself. And buying local is often really difficult or expensive to do. Eggs, for instance, are almost impossible to find from a local farmer. But every Wednesday and Thursday a couple local merchants get huge stacks of them from some international source and supply most of the town with eggs that way.

Anyway, to illustrate the 'hodge podge,' I’ll list some of what we have in our kitchen right now:

honey made in China,

rice from Pakistan,

sugar from India,

flour from Uganda,

locally grown/made peanut butter,

several boxes of Kellogg’s All-Bran from England,

a large jar of Smucker’s Grape Jelly from the US,

ketchup made in Holland,

cans of Tunafisch from Belgium,

and American Garden mayonnaise made in the US, sold in Uganda, and purchased here!

…gives a different meaning to ‘international kitchen’ doesn’t it?