Obama food: Will we see more Hawaiian, Kenyan, Indonesian?
Next week's presidential inauguration of Barack Obama will not only be a change in leadership, his diverse background may spark new influences from Hawaii, Kenya and Indonesia on our plates and palates.
If you're watching the inaugural festivities on TV, consider it an opportunity to turn basic dishes into creative multicultural fare.
At Roy's in Buckhead, chef Mac Lynch perks up traditional Southern items with flavors that reflect the restaurant's Hawaiian roots.
"We are a Pacific Rim restaurant, but everything we do has a regional slant," he said. "I may put grits on the menu, but I do them with Asian spices. I also have a version of fish tacos, where we tempura the fish and top it with a citrus Thai sauce with mangoes and spices. We constantly mix and match, which is easy to do because Hawaiian cuisine is influenced by so many others, including Spanish, Portuguese and Asian."
Lynch says the availability of ingredients makes it easier to experiment. "Every time I go to the Publix in my neighborhood, I notice that the ethnic food sections have gotten bigger and bigger." One of the ingredients he uses in stews and sauces is kombu, a dried kelp from Japan. "It used to be hard to find. Now you can get it at Whole Foods.
"The world is getting closer and closer together and that means influences from the Philippines to Ethiopia will continue to grow."
For a taste of Indonesia, Pancha Anugerah, a deacon for the Indonesian Catholic community around Atlanta, suggests making satay with chicken, lamb or beef. "We are known for our satay," he says of his native Surybaya, Indonesia. "We use a lot of peanuts and lemon grass." Anugerah says it's not necessary to make satay sauces from scratch because they have become widely available at area Asian markets. He suggests visiting markets such as Java Indonesian Food Mart and looking for prepared sauces. Anugerah says some commercial Indonesian sauces are "very good, but may not be strong enough for some tastes. You can just keep adding paprika and chile."
Anugerah also suggests making a common Indonesian salad called gado-gado, which is a mix of vegetables sautéed in spicy peanut sauce and garnished with hard-cooked eggs.
"I think that there will be more attention paid to African dishes in the coming years," says Angela Shelf Medearis, author of "The New African-American Kitchen" (Lake Isle Press, $21.95). Medearis puts an ethnic spin on American plates, including sweet potatoes and okra, by re-creating them with pungent flavors from across the continent. Her Kenyan baked fish takes firm white fillets and combines them with tomatoes, onion and coriander, then finishes them with sesame seeds.
"Americans have a tendency to absorb other cultures," Medearis says. "I think that as people discover foods from Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa or wherever, they will realize that these are flavors they have been enjoying all along."
