The Idea: My Culinary Journey

The idea is simple; select a country at random and then research and recreate national dishes from said country. Try to use as many traditional cooking and preparation methods as possible and strive for authenticity within my means. Let's be real, I'm on a budget so sometimes I can't really go out and buy an additional 6 spices that I may never use again. However, if my research turns up certain key elements that is culturally deemed "necessary" or "can't be authentic without", well... then it's my duty to honor that or pick a different recipe entirely. That being said, I'm not above building an entire tandoor oven just to get the taste I think I can only achieve by doing so.

How did we get here though? For now, the simple answer is travel. I've travelled around enough to know that I'm missing out on some seriously delicious cuisine from around the world. I can't possibly go to every country, so why not bring the country to me? With the ease of access to information via the internet, it could be just as simple as researching it and trying it. Right? I don't really know, but I'm looking to find out for myself. Come along if you want.

The Scoop:

My girlfriend Leah is the official country picker for this operation, kinda. She uses a random country generator that chooses from 199 countries. This keeps us unbiased in our selection.
Because of the magnitude of this endeavor, I will skip duplicate countries until each country has been represented once. And I do intend on representing all 199 countries.
I always reserve the right to skip a country for various reasons. At this point I can speculate on the potential for resource scarcity when it comes to a lot of the smaller undeveloped countries. I also live in a remote part of Southern Colorado, so I don't have access to many foreign ingredients. I may have to bookmark the country and circle back when I am able to fulfil the recipe needs.
Although this has changed already, I now try to make 2 main dishes and a desert from each country.

Throughout this journey I will document anything I think is worth remembering or sharing. This blog is mostly a digital notebook for me to keep track of all the things in. A consolidation of my personal notebooks, online journals, handwritten recipes and other food favorites. I will be detailing a large portion of what I attempt to make, not just dishes for my culinary journey, but anything really.

Who am I?

I'm just your average home cook I suppose. Son, father, shitty boyfriend, veteran, mercenary, veterinary assistant. I never really did much cooking through the years, but once my girlfriend got pregnant, I started taking over the cooking in order to lighten the burden on her. I found that I kind of liked it, and now I cook whatever I can. I've also leeched into the baking world thanks to my former roommate who was a professional baker/bakery owner for decades. I have no training, and the overwhelming majority of things I cook (both foreign and domestic) are first times for me.

I get my interest in cooking, or food in general, from many places and people that I've encountered across the years. From my ethnic backgrounds (Swedish, Japanese), to when I lived in Belgium (including all surrounding countries), to my time in the military and as a mercenary (Iraq, Kuwait, Poland, Ukraine). Let's not forget the plethora of cooking shows, both informational and competition. I guess when it comes to the culinary world, I know enough to know that I know too little. I want to fix that.