Category — Street Food

courtesy Gourmet Latino Festival

What do you know about culinary tradition and the power of women in Latin America? Nothing, right? Okay, maybe you do, but I don’t and I would LOVE to.

If, like me, you don’t have enough cash to reach Buenos Aires head instead for the Gourmet Latino Festival, an eight-day celebration of Latin foods, cocktails, wines and coffees that kicks off in New York this weekend. The festival brings together more than 40 of well-known Latin chefs, mixologists and tastemasters from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, México, Perú, Uruguay, and elsewhere.

The festival boasts seminars on rum, agave, coconut. There will be dancing. There will be music. There will be eating. There will be lots of stimulating conversation. All that, and a brunch featuring levantamuertos (awake the dead) food and drink.

And if you see Chef Aaron Sanchez, who’s hosting several events, tell him he’s my dude (you gotta love him. He’s the nice one on Food Network’s “Chopped”) The festival runs June 4-June 12 in New York. See their website for more details and to buy tickets.

Lost in translation? According to the sign, this sandwich at a Starbucks-like coffee shop in Mumabi is a calzone. But it’s not shaped like a calzone, nor are its contents encased in baked pizza dough like a calzone. So….not a calzone. The sign also suggests that it is a “kothambir vadi” — a steamed fritter full of coriander and chilis. Perhaps that’s them stuffed inside. Hard to tell, though I don’t see a lot of coriander. I do see some cheese though….

It’s tough to know what Lays was thinking when they created Magic Masala Potato Chips. They hang at every news stand and every rest stop, there above the bags and boxes of far superior treats, like spicy, oily, chuklee, fried cereal chevida, and flaked rice with chilis. The Indians have the best snack food in the world. Why, oh why, would we try to colonize their palates with a potato chip? Don’t get me wrong — I love potato chips. But this is one food migration that should be moving in the opposite direction.