Monday, March 19, 2012

International Officers' Culture Day

The Inter-national Officers culture day is the most anticipated part of the ACSC school year (apart from graduation, of course). There are 76 countries represented here at ACSC from such unexpected places as Moldova, Turkey, Egypt and India and most of them bring their families with them to Alabama while they study for this year. On culture day, each country gets assigned a booth in alphabetical order in a big hangar, decorate it with pictures, maps and flags, dress in their national costume and make delicious food from their home countries. It.Was.Awesome. We'd go from booth to booth and talk about the food or drink that they were sharing. Almost all had some wine, beer or cocktail native to their country. They were so generous...they would scoop huge portions on little tiny plates and watch as you take a taste. If you like it, they want to give you MORE! So many generous people. Needless to say, by Denmark, I was stuffed. And most everybody that drinks was a little tipsy.

There is a Spanish fighter pilot and his wife (and 3 kids) here that Tony has gotten to know really well. We sat with them at the Christmas party and she was telling me that they had to bring a paella pan all the way from Spain for this activity!! (I love paella by the way.) The kids loved the Canadian maple fudge, Sam loved the pickled herring from Norway, and I loved the Greek food and paella, and the feijoada from Portugal. I asked the Portuguese officer (he and Tony chat all the time in Portuguese) if this is what I was going to eating in Brazil next week. He said that, yes, Brazil got feijoada from Portugal. And they ruined it. HA!


I was so proud of the kids...we have some picky palettes at our house and they all were so good about trying new and strange things.

1 comment:

Jeni said...

How fun. I would have loved to have gone to that. Food makes the world go round!
Some of my most wonderful memories in life are with food and traveling. There is nothing like eating French food in cafe in France, or slurping noodles while sitting on the floor in a place in Tokyo, eating Belgium chocolate while standing in a cute store in Belgium, smelling the roasted chesnuts at a Christmas market in Germany, and last year in Korea gaging at the bowl of 1000 tiny fish with eyes looking right at me.... I have an Italian neighbor and this is her first time ever living in the USA. She has been sharing lots of Italian recipes with me and I love that so much.