Around the World in the Hetzel Kitchen

(Originally posted here. ) Antigua and Barbuda Spanish for "Ancient" and "Bearded" Between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean Size : 442.6 sq miles Population : About 87,000 91% black Tourism dominates their economy The recession hit them quite hard Bah, isn't a break supposed to be restful?  I was going to write this during that time.  Instead, Christmas was skiing, skating, wrapping, and a lot of shopping.  Oh well, better late than never. Originally I was worried about finding a recipe for this small island nation.  The problem?  I don't like seafood.  That can be an issue when you are talking about a nation that is surrounded by water.  Especially one that personally I had never heard of before and therefore I figured was more secluded.  However, I didn't have to look very long . For those of you who didn't actually click the link: Pork Chops with Bacon and Bananas!  Holy crap.  Could there be a mor...

(Originally posted here. ) Angola  Rebuilding after a 27 year civil war that ended in 2002. Gained independence from Portugal in 1975. Size : Over 1.2 sq km, 23rd largest in the world, slightly less than twice the size of Texas Water : 0 sq km Location : South Africa, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean Population : Over 13 million Second-highest death-rate in the world Religious followings : 47% indigenous Literacy rate : 52% for women Angola started out very promising.  I was able to find a large number of recipes.  After going through a lot of websites and a lot of different stuff, I settled on this one for  Chicken Muamba. It seemed fairly simple while using stuff that I wouldn't normally used.  Besides, I also found it on other sites as well.  Seems like a recipe for success, right? I went ahead and made a list and went to the store.  Chicken?  Check.  Tomatoes?  Check.  Okra?  Wait a minute.  No...

(Original post here. ) Andorra History: From 1278 to 1993 Andorra was co-ruled by leaders from Spain and France.  In 1993 it switched to parliamentary rule but retains the Spanish and French rulers. Economy : 80% tourism Size : 468 sq miles, 2.5 times the size of DC Population : 84,500 Literacy rate : 100% They do not have a military, and defense is the responsibility of France and Spain. Andorra was...difficult.  They are so small that their recipes don't proliferate very much.  I looked for quite a while.  In fact, in my looking, I found other people complaining about the same thing.  Apparently this is not untreaded territory.  I was a little sad not to be unique.  But oh well.  This is about experiencing it, right? Eventually, I found my way to the Andorran website.  The one ran by at least 1/84,500th of their population.  And there were recipes.  Perfect, right? Not really.  A lot of them were veal.  W...

(Originally posted here. ) No last minute runs to Whole Foods this time.  Hah!  I win! Algeria Gained independence from France in 1962. Borders the Mediterranean Sea. 11th biggest country for land area, second largest in Africa. Only 3.17% of their land is arable and .28% is permanent crops. 34.5 million in population. 99% Sunni Muslim There are 90,000 refugees from Western Sahara in Algeria. Cuisine : Fusion of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influences. National Dish : Couscous Sources: CIA Factbook and Algeria.com I was really hoping that my international cookbook would have a recipe for Algeria, since it has "Northern Africa" as an area for recipes.  Nothing there, though.  I'll let you know how the cookbook works when I can use it. Instead, I decided that wanted to make something with couscous since that was the Algerian national dish.  So I started looking.  I ran into some of the same problems as last time: I would find the exact...