I'm goin' out for Afghani food...

cavfancier- What a lovely story!

Yay Cavfancier! I wish I had such good connections! I did finally go to the Afghani restaurant near me. It doesn't have a lot on the menu for vegetarians though.

Sounds awsome. I'd love to try it.

Cooking is a universal language. In my country, the charting of the influence and acceptance and embracing of new cultures is a story of changes in cuisine.

And, at last, we have an embracing of indigenous Australian cuisine. Sad, eh?

Well, the most popular food in the Central Asia (and Afghanistan is a part of it) is boiled rice with meat (usually mutton, but poultry can be used too) and vegetables (onion, carrots, garlic) and dried fruit (raisins, apricots). This meal is called pilau, pilaf, plov and the like.

Oh what fun!! You'll have a blast!!
I've found that the love of food is "The great communicator", people with a passion for it just love to share it. And people become especially proud of the foods of their families, which in turn are usually the heritage of their homelands and love to show them off!!

Lil'k... where is it? I'll try anything once.

Deb, please tell me that Oz cuisine is not like the Outback Steakhouse chain we have scattered over the country like rubble...

SP - it's over by the galleria mall.
Helmand Restaurant

By the way, what does Australian cuisine look like? Is this something resembling the American one? (Popular prejudice claims that the central meals of the latter are BBQ and Thanksgiving Day turkey).

Seal - I have heard tell of those horrors!

There may well be some Ozzians whose diet consists of whatever those places sell - steak, mainly, is it?

However - the cuisine most typical of finer Oz is known as "fusion' - a blending, developed first by the wonderful Cheong Liew, of my own fair city, of the finest of European classical cuisine and Asian - using the freshest of Oz ingredients.

Other than that, we, as an immigrant country, like to choose from the many influences forming us. One may eat the odd meat and three veg. from Britain - although the veg will now generally be crisp and lovely - or Italian, Middle Eastern, or Greek, or Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Thai (very influential), Vietnamese, whatever. Personally, I cook a lot of Thai influenced food - or Indian. Italian and Greek are very big - as is Vietnamese, Malaysian and fusion.

OK, but is there any specifically Australian meal (except piece of bread with Vegemite in the morning)?

Jerry, I read Anthony Bourdain's book 'A Cook's Tour in Search of the Perfect Meal'. That's exactly what this book tells. The love of food works great for him all over the world.

So what was the Afghani food like, Cavfancier?

While being in Afghanistan in 1982-86, I used to eat in the Soviet Army canteens, and did not taste the Afghan food. Right now I made a brief Web search and found there a dessert meal that I regret that I have never tasted.
Here is the recipe:

By the way, I think that this recipe is almost dietetic, despite of pertaining to a dessert meal; it contains almost no fat, especially if the low-fat milk is used for its cooking.
The site where this and the other Afghan recipes can be found is as follows:Margarita's Afghani Menu

Thanks, steissd. Very good link. Even if Margarita didn't care much for firnee, I think it sounds delicious.

Toronto's an amazing place for groups of people from differing cultures gathering to go out for meals at an astonishing range of restaurants. Within walking (5 - 10 minutes) distance of my house in a not too posh part of town is a good Ethiopian restaurant, an excellent Thai restaurant, close to a dozen Chinese restaurants of varying quality and style, a Peruvian place, a Macedonian diner, a tandoor house, a Scottish pub, a Polynesian restaurant, a restaurant that seems to be Algerian (still trying to figure that one out) and another dozen or so eating places of various mixed cultures.

I'm in the process of organizing a group of about a dozen to go to the Ethiopian place - our group members include a woman who came here from Kiev about 8 months ago, a friend from Goa, an immigrant from England with her husband and daughter, a friend from Sri Lanka, a Muslim former co-worker from Guyana, a friend from Guyana who has converted from Hinduism to Christianity, a friend from Tobago and a couple of plain ole trontonians (whose parents or grandparents immigrated here). I love the mix of people here, and the willingness of them to mix it up further.

Hey, who is in favour of Bush and Saddam getting together for a private dinner at Nobu to work out their differences instead of this nonsense we are getting now?

Thanks for the dessert recipe. Sounds good.

To be honest, we won't be able to make it out until next month, but I will keep everyone posted.

ehBeth, Toronto does indeed rock when it comes to the wide availibilty of different foods and restaurants, not to mention the wealth of ingredients we have to work with. A true "melting pot", so to speak

Kensington Market rocks!

Cavfancier

What a delightful story!
And yum, I LOVE Afghani food! (what's the name of that delicious yoghurt-based soup, someone?)