Global Cuisine - Venezuela

Here is our menu for our Venezuelan Cuisine.

Ok, so since I don't take pics of my kids faces (see why here), I had to figure out a creative way to get a picture of their costume.  I tried a profile pic here.  I only captured the boys for this meal because the girls were still showering and getting dressed and then our guests arrived.  For their costumes, we used kangas from Kenya, a sombrero from Mexico, and for some reason, my daughter chose to get T-Man an Australian outback hat.  I didn't say anything though because she tried! HA.

Ok, so before we delve too deep into this global cuisine tradition, I would like to throw out a disclaimer that we usually don't buy any clothes/accessories for our dinners.  We simply use what we have at home to try to recreate the outfits the best we can.  So, I hope we don't offend anyone that may be reading from a particular country!  That is not our intention.

The table is a great example of how we improvise.  A lady I used to work with is from Guatemala and gave me this table runner.  I decided to use it for Venezuela since it looked close enough!

 Our dinner started with Venezuelan Pan de Jamon as an appetizer.  My husband knows that I'm not a fan of olives, so he left those out of this.  He only put raisins and ham.  He also burned the palm sugar and opted to use maple syrup as a substitute.  The kids came running into the kitchen and told him enthusiastically that something was burning!  It was his palm sugar!!  He still pulled it off and it was a huge hit!

 

Our really good friends and our son, Bubs' Godparents, came over for dinner.  They brought the traditional Venezuelan rice drink called Chicha.  It was delicious.  She added ice, the drink, cinnamon, and a cinnamon stick for added flavor and for stirring.  Apparently, this drink was made by mothers and given to their kids after school to hold them over until dinnertime.  

Here is a picture of the rest of the meal.  It included Venezuelan Sweet Plantains, Pabellon Criollo (shredded skirt steak), Bollos Pelones (ground beef dumpling with leeks, olives, capers, and many other ingredients), Venezuelan beans and rice, and a cilantro mojo sauce to put on pretty much anything.

Dessert was a Chocolate Marquesa.  It is a layered cake with maria cookies and premium baking chocolate.  Let me just tell you that my darling husband makes great desserts, but the kitchen looked like a bomb went off after this.  My kitchen aid mixer was covered with cocoa powder, smeared butter residue, drippings of dried sweet condensed milk, and a dusting of powdered sugar!  I guess it was worth it in the end.  

I attempted to cut it nicely for a picture, but it sort of fell apart.  Not sure that it set for the 8 hr in the fridge.  It still tasted delicious.

The kids ran out of time to perform their song, but I did get books from the library and the older ones read about Venezuela.  Every week doesn't quite go as planned, but we always have a great time and love listening to the different music from each country.  The main point is that we are building a tradition of having dinner as a family on Sundays and exposing our children to different cultures.