Friday, July 17, 2009

Cookin' with the 90's

Yesterday I was making placenta with my host mom. Placenta (while spelled the same as certain female parts but really sounds like pla-chen-ta) is a very popular food here in Moldova. I think I've had it at just about every celebration and at every masa. It's quite tasty! Placenta is different depending on who makes it, but generally it is a doughy outside with some sort of filling on the inside, usually fried or baked. The most common thing to put inside placenta is brinza. Brinza is a type of cheese. There are 2 types of cheese in Moldova: Cascaval which is processed cheese you can buy in a store, and Brinza which is homemade. Brinza has a stronger flavor and usually comes from either a cow or goat. Mama gazda taught me how to make placenta the other day, so now I've been making it like a maniac. We cut the pre-made dough into smaller pieces, spread margarine onto the dough, put a brinza/egg mixture onto it, roll it up, and "paint" it in an egg wash. Then we bake it for a while. Not sure how long; it's different everytime. Last night I made some with brinza, some with potatoes, and one with helva (smashed up sunflower seeds and oil) because I was being experimental. The Helva Placenta was surprisingly awesome!
My family has realized that I love to sing and dance, so an English radio station is always on in the kitchen when we are there. I think they think I'm a musical genious because I know every single American song that comes on including all the words and who sings it. However, musical genious I am not. It's that every song is from the 90's! Many of them are Madonna songs. So I get my groove on while cooking/eating/hanging in the kitchen, and hopefully they have just learned to accept it. :)

1 comment:

  1. Miranda this is fantastic! Your family sounds like fun, and I'm glad that they love your singing and dancing antics. It sounds like a movie in which you are the free-spirited American who shakes things up a bit. Now if only that radio station would play some Hanson...

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