What The Flog? – Foreign Food Flog

What are these people doing?

Flog = Food Blog. This flog is the documenting and sharing of the whimsical pursuit of a small group of hungry friends eating our way around the world, trying out national cuisines, in alphabetical order.

The following posts will each tell of a single dinner we cooked and ate, which dishes came out well, which didn’t quite work… We’ll link the recipes we used, and share any diversions we took from those originals (out of laziness, arrogance, or a shortage of exotic ingredients) – together with full disclosure of the results.

You may notice that some of the earlier posts are a bit sparse in detail and photos. That’s because we only decided to write about this culinary adventure when we were already half-way through the alphabet… We started it only as a fun little activity for ourselves, an excuse to meet & eat; but by the M dinner we saw that we are onto something a bit special here, worth keeping a record of. And as this is the age of the Internet – documenting almost automatically means sharing.

So here we are. I’ve reconstructed the earlier dinners from my memory and by scavenging through Dorottya and Bernhard’s minds, trawling our phones for photos we took for our own amusement, and by ransacking our browsing histories for recipe links.

From Monaco onwards, however, these posts will go out live, following the preparation and execution of each dinner.

I hope you enjoy following us, and that if you’re inspired to cook any of these dishes yourselves, you’ll let us know how they turned out! (and send pics!!)

Thank you & bon appetit,

Arianna

November 2015: How did this all begin?

Well, without me, for a start. Dorottya and Bernhard were dating (off Guardian Soulmates, if memory serves), and I was blissfully unaware of either’s existence. Dorottya, easily the disciplined one among us, found the idea online and suggested they frame their dates around that. Hence followed hunting down of London restaurants which served food from Algir, Brazil, Croatia… you get the idea. Some were harder to find, or entirely absent (they had to cook Dominican and Omani food themselves. And one other – but I’ll come to that later).

In Feb 2016 Dorottya dumped Bernhard (she’s a woman of discerning taste), but they decided to keep up the International alphabetical dinners. I still wasn’t in the picture (I was in another picture all of my own, married to someone else. But that’s a different story). On went the parade of regional cuisines of varied quality: Ghanese, Hongkong (not strictly a country – Dorottya was not pleased), Indonesian, Japanese, Khazkhi…

Bernhard and I met on Tinder (yup, really) in November 2018 (I was unmarried by then). I first became aware of this project when he asked me (an Israeli, and apparently the closest thing he had to a genuine mediterranian) what the hell does one eat in a Yemeni restaurant. I suggested they order Malauah with various toppings (reportedly it was very tasty).

Then it was time for the last letter, and last cuisine: Zimbabwe (we’re in Jan 2019 now). Apparently there are no restaurants dedicated to that country in London, so it was to be a third home-cooked meal, hosted by Bernhard. I was invited to join, along with Dorrotya’s new(ish) boyfriend. Dorottya brought the goat meat, out came spices, rice… The food was delicious (albeit a bit boney) and the drink and conversation flowed. It was brilliant; a delightful finale for a fun, successful project… so much more chilled than going to a restaurant.

The credit goes to Bernhard for suggesting we restart the culinary Alphabet, this time fatto-in-casa. We were to take turns hosting and cooking these meals, each in their kitchen.