Cimarrón

On Thursday 18th March the superb Colombian joropo band Cimarrón are coming to the Union Chapel in Islington. Performers like this bring back memories for me of my upbringing in Colombia, and in particular the diversity of musical and other cultural experiences which we were able to enjoy. I'm delighted to see troupes like Cimarrón coming to the UK and bringing with them their roots and their culture to share with us. Details of the concert may be found here - we are selling tickets in the restaurant.

In my early teens i became a member of a youth group in my home town Quinchia, in the department of Risaralda in the coffee region of Colombia, this group was set up by university students from our town, that having moved to Pereira, our departmental capital to continue the university studies, realised how little was on offer in our town for young people. The Corporacion Quinchia Nueva was set up, first as an study group, and it developed into a cultural organisation, in the absence of an official cultural organisation in the town. It consisted of various groups, such as sports teams, theatre, band and a dance troupe that was the most successful of the lot. By winning departmental folk dance championships and touring all around the country, this troupe developed to the point that it became the Ballet Michua, the official ballet company of the department of Risaralda. Folk dance had offered me a fantastic outlet in my youth, by learning about the different cultural regions of the country, and offering the opportunity of travel and broadening my horizon. Like the CQN there are many cultural organisations in Colombia, teaching young people about their roots, their communities and most importantly being an active part of the community.

Cimarrón is a seven-piece with spectacular, super-tight performances of joropo music and dance. Hailing from the vast Orinoco plains which stretch from Colombia into Venezuela, joropo is a fast traditional rhythm played on harp, bandola and cuatro accompanied by bass, cajon and maracas. Cimarrón fire up flawless virtuosity with a heart-stopping sense of drama.

Led by harpist Carlos Rojas and based in Colombia, Cimarrón have been experimenting with the music of their homeland for the past two decades, on the search for new musical horizons whilst staying true to their roots.

The mestizo people who inhabit the llanos [plains] on the great Orinoco river are descendants of Spanish settlers, African slaves and Indigenous Indians. This is cattle rearing country where life revolves around country ranches. Music accompanies the daily working tasks such as milking and cattle drives. The word Cimarrón, meaning wild bull, is a symbol of liberty in Los Llanos.

Find out more at http://www.astarmusic.co.uk/?page_id=15 or download their mp3 EP from Amazon.

The Importance of Corn

As part of series of articles on gastronomy which Sabor has been contributing to Express News, we submitted the piece embedded below about corn. Corn was as important to the pre-Colombian inhabitants of the Americas as it is today.

Open publication - Free publishing - More terremoto

Empanada History

If there was one theme which might bring war to Latin America, maybe it would be not football, not global warming, not border disputes, nor the disagreements between Chavez, Uribe and Correa - but the humble empanada.

The empanada can be (and at times has been) the subject of many debates and discussions about which is the best, the most original, the most ancient and most tasty. At the same time, this very dish is one of the elements which demonstrate that, despite borders and differences of names and accents, Latin America is a single entity.

The paisa, saltena, tucumana, llaucha, pucacapa, pastel frito, empanada argentina, pomonha - it doesn't matter where it's eaten, the pastry which

wraps and covers the filling, the secret heart of the empanada, the mix of flavours and the delicacy of the pastry is the same. The ritual of eating it and discovering its entrails is the same as that which allows humanity to discover the world and surprise itself with the true heart of things.

Empanadas in the Middle East
The most ancient references to the empanada are to be found in the very cradle of our civilisation. It's known that a dish very similar to the empanada was enjoyed in Persia centuries before the birth of Christ. Also, ancient Greece was know for its cereal-based pastries which were exported all over the Western world, including Armenia, Morroco and eventually Latin America.

Empanadas in Spain

In Spain, what originally considered an Arabic dish was eventually converted into a popular dish enjoyed by the general public. The delicate and individual Arabic empanada turned into the empanada gallega (Galician empanada), a dish of soft pastry filled with meat or fish.

Many Galicians came to America and brought with them their gods, their fiestas, their religious processions, their traditional dances, their language, their sins and of course their food. In this way, the empanada finally came to America, coming together with local produce and new forms of preparation to create something new and different, uniting what had existed before the arrival of the boats, and all that occurred afterwards.

The Empanada in the UK

The Cornish pasty is a pasty typical of the county of Cornwall, which despite having a history in a country far from those referred to above, has ended up being very similar. This dish has been known in the UK since the twelfth century, and is considered native to Cornwall, however in the present day the filling is typically of beef, onion (native to the Middle East) and potato (native to the Americas). At times though Cornish pasties have been produced with a surprising variety of sweet and savoury products - and sometimes both together.

In summary, the history of empanadas transcends national boundaries and the ages. At Sabor we always have them on our menu, sometimes to a traditional recipe and at other times using recipes which are uniquely our own, so as to prolong their appeal. Generally wheat flour is used, whilst in countries like Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador the pastry is made with cornmeal, which makes them more crunchy, and in the Caribbean they are sometimes made with a black bean pastry.

Generally empanadas are accompanied by a sauce which may be a little hot or spicy, e.g. Colombian aji, which is a mix of tomato, onion, coriander, garlic, vinegar, lemon juice and salt, which gives us a very tasty mix of flavours.

If you would like to share your favourite empanada recipe, you can send it to me at info@sabor.co.uk. If we use your material we would like to invite you for a free dinner for two with cocktails and wine.

Empanadas Express News

We are contributing a regular column to Express News, and this is our article about empanadas.

Open publication - Free publishing - More mandela

Gastronomia Con Sabor

At Sabor we are passionate about South American food and culture, and we like to promote and to share our work with as many people as possible. We have joined forces with Express News, a Spanish-language newspaper for the Latin American community, who are celebrating ten years of publishing in London, to lauch a bi-weekly column called 'Gastronomia Con Sabor'. In this column, we will be covering some of the background to our food, sharing some of the recipes that we use, and giving some tips on entertainment in the Latin American style. Those of you read Spanish may be interested to read this - the first column is reproduced below. Check here for up-to-date content from Express News.

Ferran Adria

Last Monday I went to the Restaurant Show with Rafi and Daz, Sabor head chef and one of his team. Without a doubt the highlight for us was to listen to Ferran Adria, head chef of "El Bulli", which is widely considered the best restaurant in the world (voted as such by the judging panel of Restaurant magazine for the last three years). He was interviewd by the editor of Restaurant magazine, and was there to promote his new book A Day at El Bulli. With the first question the man was off like a rocket to share with us his passion.

There is no easy way to explain the food of Ferran Adria at El Bulli. You need to eat there and that's difficult because his 50 seat restaurant, a two hour drive north of Barcelona in Spain, only takes 8,000 people a year and two million apply for places. Most of us simply won't make it there, not even by having a personal plea to the man himself.

If you've ever wondered why so many restaurants now offer dozens of courses in degustation, it is Adria's influence. If you wonder why chefs are serving ingredients foraged from the seashore - or spices from Africa or flavours from South America that you've never heard of - it is because he started searching for new ingredients and combinations.

It was Adria who first used seaweed extracts to make flavoured, wispy foams, or synthesized spheres of flavour - for instance olive oil balls that taste of the pure essence of olive and that look like olives themselves. He started cooking - or freezing really - in liquid nitrogen at -196°C. He started deconstructing dishes and presenting food as works of art.

Speaking in Spanish through a translator, which was great for me as I did not want to have anything lost in translation, he says that for him "creativity is not copying". What he is interested in is the food and making diners happy rather than business. That is the course he decided to follow in 1994, ten years after he joined El Bulli. It was then that he broke out of the mould of traditional French haute cuisine, established by great chefs such as Auguste Escoffier and Antoine Carême before him.

Ferran Adria's work is labour intensive. He says that in western developed countries it won't be economic to develop avant-garde, high-end cuisine. The manpower required is enormous. Adria has 70 people working in his restaurant to serve just 50 people each night. He said that El Bulli is not a profitable enterprise. It is supported by a range of spin-off businesses and consultancies that in his own words 'bought the freedom for him, to be able to do what he does at El Bulli.

Without a doubt he is the most inspiring person I have come across in the food industry and listening to his philosophy and experiences was a very enlightening experience.

Mercedes Sosa Tribute

Many of us at Sabor were sorry to hear, earlier this week, that Mercedes Sosa, the Argentine folk singer who became a powerful voice of resistance to authoritarian Latin American regimes, died on 4th October in Buenos Aires. A leading light of the "nueva canción" (new song) movement that pushed for social justice in the 1960s and '70s, Sosa was 74.

I grew up listening to her music, as students we always played our favorite songs. She possessed a deep, alto voice and a strong sense of conviction, and had a warm, engaging personality. These qualities helped to make her one of the few Latin American musicians who could, over five decades, command a wide international audience. Described as "the voice of Latin America", she was revered as a commentator on the political and social turmoil that afflicted the region.

Driven into exile in Europe in 1979, Sosa returned to Argentina in 1982 and enjoyed a career renaissance and enormous popularity that endured throughout her life. "La Negra," as she was known, always sang in Spanish. "Her undisputed talent, her honesty and her profound convictions leave a great legacy to future generations," her family said in a statement.

If you're not familiar with Mercedes' work already, do take a look at this video on youtube, an excellent performance of one of her most moving songs.

Thanks to life (Gracias a la Vida)
by Violeta Parra
(translated by Ron Adams, 10/07/09)

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me two bright eyes that, when I open them,
Can perfectly distinguish black from white
And in the distant sky with her starry backdrop,
And from within the multitudes, find the one I love.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me hearing that in all its wide ranging
Records night and day, the rattle of chains and canary songs,
Tyrant shouts, the roar of war, slander, misfortune’s storms,
And the tender, loving song.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me meaning and learning.
From them come the words I’m thinking and now confess:
"Mother," "Friend," "Brother"; and the light shining
On the road of the soul where love travels.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me the strength in my tired feet.
With them I have crossed cities and seas
Valleys and deserts, mountains and plains
To your house, down your street to your heart.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me the passion that shakes my soul
When I see the fruits of real human understanding,
When I see far beyond the bad to the good,
When I look deep into your clear eyes.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me so much laughter and so many tears.
With them I rescue happiness from the crush of pain—
The two materials that form my song,
And your song, that is my song too,
And everyone’s song, that is my special song.
Here’s to the life, which has given me so much.