Breaking Bread Together

My friend once joked that the people could work to end racism by having more multicultural children. "People will see that if God didn't intend races to mix, he wouldn't make their babies so attractive. World Peace through cute babies." Though I am a major proponent of cute babies, my theory of achieving world peace is through food.

Probably one most unique things I went to at UCLA was a Ramadan breaking fast with members of the Jewish Student Union and Muslim Students Association. It was just nice to see two groups who are probably have the most heated political differences and discussions come together over really good Middle Eastern food. Later down the road, these groups later came together to work on getting Kosher/Halal food in the dining halls for their respective communities.

I randomly thought about this subject because I took a study break today to try my hand at making empanadas. I've been craving them all week after Alex randomly mentioned them and had some dough in my refrigerator, so I thought I'd put my iron chef skills to the test. My little baked pockets of ground turkey, onions, olives, hard boiled eggs and raisins (pictured right) met my roommate's approval so I was happy.

Anyway, making these pockets of goodness made me think about all the other cultures that have similar foods. Indian samosas, Chinese Dumplings, Italian Calzones, Polish Pierogis, and Vietnamese have Ba Te Xo (stolen from the French words Pate Chaud, which also probably means that the French brought these little meat pies in puff pastry during colonization. I don't care, they're still amazing and I made 100+ for my mom's work party last year, left).

Really, it's a brilliant idea. Putting food into these neat, compact, and easy to carry edible pockets. The more ethnic food is different, the more it is the same. And maybe if everyone realized all the similarities there were and how tasty everything is, we'd achieve world peace.