The Delegates Lounge

Dining with a Dozen Diplomats, A Culinary Holiday Special: Part One

• The Delegates Lounge LLC • Season 1 • Episode 11

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Embark on a culinary exploration with us as we uncover the cherished comfort foods and cultural tales shared by diplomats from an assortment of countries. These twelve diplomats offer insights into how food can serve as a bridge between peoples both past and present.

For the “Dining with a Dozen Diplomats” culinary special episode, our host J. Alex Tarquinio chatted with foreign ministers, with permanent representatives, so-called because they lead their country’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, and with the president of the United Nations Delegations Spouse’s Club. 

Contributors:

The Delegates Lounge

J. Alex Tarquinio (host). @alextarquinio of @delegateslounge

Australia

H.E. Rebecca Bryant, Deputy Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations. @BecsBry   @AustraliaUN

Brazil

The Consulate General of Brazil in New York. @Itamaraty_EN 

Cyprus

H.E. Maria Michail, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Cyprus to the United Nations. @MichailmariaCY   @CyprusinUN

The Czech Republic (Czechia)

H.E. Martin Dvořák, Minister for European Affairs of the Czech Republic. @_MartinDvorak   @CzechMFA

Estonia

H.E. Margus Tsahkna, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia. @Tsahkna   @MFAestonia

Finland

H.E. Elina Valtonen, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland. @elinavaltonen   @Ulkoministerio 

Malta

H.E. Vanessa Frazier, Permanent Representative of Malta to the United Nations. @_VanessaFrazier @MaltaUNMission

Portugal

H.E. Rui Vinhas, Permanent Representative of Portugal to the United Nations.

Slovenia

Mr. Klemen Ponikvar, Political Coordinator of the Permanent Mission of Slovenia to the United Nations. @SLOtoUN 

Switzerland

H.E. Pascale Baeriswyl, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the United Nations. @SwissAmbUN_NY   @swiss_un

United States

H.E. Robert A. Wood, Alternate Representative of the United States of America for Special Political Affairs in the United Nations. @USUN

Zambia

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo, President of the United Nations Delegations Spouse’s Club and of the United Nations African Ambassadors Spouses Group; spouse of H.E. Dr. Chola Milambo, Permanent Representative of Zambia to the United Nations. https://www.facebook.com/UNDWCNewyork/

References: 

My Foreign Policy essay about Slovenia’s campaign for an elected seat on the United Nations Security Council.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/09/belarus-slovenia-russia-united-nations-security-council-rotating-seat/

Recipes referred to can be found on our website: https://thedelegateslounge.com/

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Welcome to the Delegates Lounge. Pull up a chair. I'm Alex Tarquinio, a journalist based at the United Nations here in New York City and your emcee for this podcast featuring some of the most influential minds in the world today. Settle in for some riveting tete-a-tete, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

H.E. Elina Valtonen:

Almost 20 hours of you know light sunlight during the day. It makes those berries, especially the wild ones, very, very tasty.

H.E. Margus Tsahkna:

Blood sausage. So we are using the blood and then we make sausages from that. If I'm going to explain how we do that, though, I think nobody wants to eat that.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

There's one that we call rep, which I would liken to collard greens, kale, chamomile, spinach and many others. We take pride in drying food when we have it in abundance.

H.E. Rui Vinhas:

Rabanadas are the proof that nothing goes to waste in Portuguese cuisine, because you can use bread leftovers in this dessert.

H.E. Pascale Baeriswyl:

Its history is linked to shepherds who spent long hours in the mountains. Legend has it that one of them got tired of the usual bread and cheese.

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

It's a real favourite and it's messy, but it's delicious in both summer and the winter.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Prickly pears are everywhere, everywhere. Another thing that you pick when you're walking as well, as long as you have some gloves.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Welcome to our special podcast, dining with Diplomats. In this episode, part one, you'll hear about the childhood memories and secret treats of government ministers and ambassadors. In part two, you'll hear them open up about the intricacies of diplomatic dinners, the near misses and the value of gastro-diplomacy. Although diplomatic dining evokes grand feasts where multiple courses are served up on fine porcelain emblazoned with the nation's crest, as you've just heard, when asked about their favorite dishes, the diplomats often chose comfort food. It's quite a Proustian turn from adult worries to our deepest bonds with food that we formed as a child. Food is quite literally the most essential requirement of our existence. Food is quite literally the most essential requirement of our existence. A handful of skipped meals is all it takes for our survival instinct to kick in. The UN is obviously involved in food security, but the many conflicts in the world today, compounded by droughts and rising sea levels from climate change, is leading to increased food precarity. Some of the ambassadors had that in mind when the recipes they suggested included a note about reducing food waste Throughout history, as soon as a society secured a diverse supply of foodstuffs in a sufficient quantity, it set about creating a complex array of rituals concerning the preparation and serving of meals. Some comestibles were deemed gross, while others became a source of community pride. Friendly food rivalries emerged between nearby nations, and sometimes not so friendly. Even today, an entire people can be reduced to a slur based on their national dish, and spats over the origin story of a common dish are well common, so sure. There may be dishes described here that make some listeners a bit queasy. In that case, don't try them, but try to understand the culture and conditions that gave rise to these dishes, whether that's the climate, the crops or the native wildlife.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

For Dining with Diplomats. We've spoken with foreign ministers, with permanent representatives so-called, because they lead their country's permanent mission to the United Nations, with their deputies, and with an ambassador's spouse. We're offering up a smorgasbord of recipes from Australia, brazil, cyprus, the Czech Republic, estonia, finland, malta, portugal, slovenia, switzerland, the United States and Zambia. The National Cuisine often serves as a springboard to discuss the wider culture and history. For example, stick around until the end of part one to hear the Maltese ambassador's fascinating description of the Knights of Malta. We started chatting with diplomats about their national cuisine in September, when world leaders inevitably beat a path to the United Nations headquarters in New York and kept going right up until a few days before Christmas. Here are some traditional Christmas dishes suggested by the UN ambassadors representing Switzerland and Portugal

H.E. Pascale Baeriswyl:

raclette- the name comes from the French verb raclette, which means to scrape.

H.E. Pascale Baeriswyl:

The base of this dish is a half wheel of cheese heated in a specially designed oven. Once the top is melted, it is scraped over potatoes. It is often served with pickled onions, cornichons, gherkins and tea or white wine, but there are many variations and each family has their own way of serving it. It is eaten all year round, but is especially many variations and each family has their own way of serving it. It is eaten all year round, but is especially appreciated during the festive season as it is a very convivial dish. So here in New York I often serve it to my colleagues during winter receptions or we enjoy it during our traditional Christmas team party.

H.E. Pascale Baeriswyl:

The dish is originally from the Swiss canton of Valais. Its history is linked to shepherds who spent long hours in the mountains. Legend has it that one of them got tired of the usual bread and cheese. He wanted something warm, but without any utensils he could only melt the cheese directly over the fire. Raclette was born Today. It is linked to many aspects of our work as diplomats. Apart from the nice way it brings people together, the cheese is, for instance, also an AOP, a protected designation of origin, which guarantees that everything from the raw materials to the production process comes from a clearly defined region of origin. This is dealt with at the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, and the World Trade Organization, wto. There is also plenty of sustainable development goals in the dish. Swiss innovation is playing a major role, helping the cheesemakers and farmers to implement the 2030 agenda with new production techniques that, for example, help to produce with a reduced water footprint. I hope you will enjoy the raclette and, in any case, best wishes for the holiday season and Bon Appetit.

H.E. Rui Vinhas:

Hello, I am Ambassador Rui Vinhas, Permanent Representative of Portugal to the UN, and I am very pleased to share with you one of the most traditional Portuguese sweets for Christmas. It's called Rabanadas Natalícias. Rabanadas are the proof that nothing goes to waste in Portuguese cuisine, because you can use bread leftovers in this dessert To frame it in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. With this Christmas dish, we fulfill target 12.3 to have per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses.

H.E. Rui Vinhas:

Rabanadas natalícias, also called golden slices, are a typical Christmas Eve sweet in Portugal. It dates back to the 15th century. The recipe passed down from generation to generation with few alterations along the way. The recipe usually includes milk, a stick of stale bread, egg sugar, lemon and cinnamon bread, egg, sugar, lemon and cinnamon. They are always present at the Christmas table, reminding us of our childhood and traditional holidays dinners. Cinnamon-flavored treats are everything during the festive season.

H.E. Rui Vinhas:

There are also sorts of ways of enjoying these amazing spices, and in Portugal that means making plenty of rabanadas to snack on or to enjoy as a simple dessert. They are crispy and sweet slices of toasted French bread and go really well with a hot drink on the side. It's a great way to make use of any stale bread you might have left over in the pantry. So definitely give this recipe a try. The trick is to dip the slices of bread in milk and eggs and guess what? Yes, fry them in butter. After frying, they are immersed in brown sugar and cinnamon. Don't forget to try it with porto wine. Merry Christmas and seasoned greetings for all and greetings for all From Prague.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

We received recommendations for traditional Czech Christmas recipes, one savory and one sweet. The Czech Republic's Minister for European Affairs, martin Dvorak, said that personally he would serve the traditional Czech kuba with the Christmas dinner. Kuba is made with pearl barley mushrooms and plenty of garlic. He described it as a simple, flavorful meal with deep roots in Czech history, traditionally prepared during Christmas as a meat-free option. Minister Dvorak said that for him it's not just about tradition but about values. We should honor more today that for him it's not just about tradition but about values. We should honor more today, using local ingredients, reducing waste and embracing sustainability. And of course, they would have to be chukrovi, classic Czech Christmas cookies.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

These traditional Czech holiday cookies reminded me of a recipe that we made every year at Christmas Mandelkränchen. It's a simple family recipe that calls for beating together egg yolks, creamed butter, sugar and flour. You would spread a bit of the beaten egg whites with a pinch of tartar on the cookies and top them with finely chopped almonds and red and green colored sugar before baking them in a slow oven. Them in a slow oven. In September, the recommendations were evidently geared more towards late summer and harvest time. Here's Finland's Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen and Ambassador Robert Wood, who has often represented the United States in Security Council meetings, but first Estonian Foreign Minister Margus TSahkna, whose story really resonated with me.

H.E. Margus Tsahkna:

We n ormally have very traditional dishes and it's very similar to like the German cuisine, but there's one specific thing. This is the blood sausage. So we are using the blood and then we make sausages from that. If I'm going to explain how we do that, though, I think nobody wants to eat that, but this is a traditional thing, so my mother can do it very well. Normally, of course, today's people, they are buying them from the shop, but it is something very specific for Estonia. When I was younger and a student beginning of 90s, when we had nothing after the collapse of Soviet Union, we got during the restoration of the private property. We got back our farms and lands and actually my family. We had the you know animals and we did everything ourselves. So I have been the farm country boy. I know everything. I can do the blood sausages from the beginning.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

How long do you have to cure? Do you have to cure the blood sausage?

H.E. Margus Tsahkna:

It takes, you put it on the oven, maybe like half an hour.

H.E. Elina Valtonen:

Well, I think at this stage I would have to say that my favorite dish is the carrot pie that my daughter bakes. It's a carrot pie which my daughter bakes Not sure whether that's so fantastically traditionally Finnish, but at least she makes her Finnish version of it.

H.E. Elina Valtonen:

Very Finnish are fresh berries, say strawberries and blueberries because of the very, very long days in the summer. Well, we have a short summer in comparison, but we have almost 20 hours of you know light sunlight during the day. It makes those berries, especially the wild ones, very, very tasty. When I give those berries to my foreign friends, they're like well, either this tastes like childhood or Do you prepare them somewhere this tastes like childhood or Do you prepare them in some way?

J. Alex Tarquinio:

You don't have to prepare a?

H.E. Elina Valtonen:

traditional dish from berries. You just put the berries and pour some milk on it, perhaps some sugar, but typically you don't even need the sugar because they are sweet.

H.E. Robert A. Wood:

I mean, one of my favorite dishes and it is a very multicultural dish is eggplant parmesan, and I know there are many countries that kind of claim ownership of this dish. It is my favorite when I go back to Washington on the weekends, my wife and I let me be honest, my wife prepares it for me. She's a wonderful, wonderful cook and the type of mozzarella cheese she uses and the type of eggplants are just wonderful, and I do help her from time to time make it with a little pasta on the side and it's just something that I enjoy thoroughly and it relaxes me quite a bit to have that along with a little glass of wine.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Slovenia is perhaps best known to many Americans as the native country of their once and future first lady, melania Trump. It's a mountainous land on the Adriatic coast that was ruled by the Habsburgs until the end of the First World War. It became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991. Traditional folk recipes could be a sign of cultural survival. Potica, which is known colloquially as the queen of desserts in Slovenia, is one such folk dish. As a side note, I wrote about Slovenia's interesting campaign to join the UN Security Council for Foreign Policy and I'll include the link to that article in the show notes. The UN holds annual elections for five member states to two-year terms sitting alongside the Council's five permanent members, and Slovenia is in the middle of its two-year term. The Security Council Presidency rotates monthly among the 15 members. During Slovenia's Presidency, they always had potica on the table in the sunny Security Council Presidency's office and served it during meetings.

Mr. Klemen Ponikvar:

Security Council Presidency's office and served it during meetings. My name is Clement Ponikvar. I'm the political coordinator here at the Mission of Slovenia. It means that I'm merging different roles. One role is taking care of the cabinet here of the ambassador, so internally trying to manage the staff. And then externally I'm part of the group of 15 members of the Security Council who are responsible to setting up the stage for our ambassadors to have meaningful conversations with each other. First, references to Putica in really old, like first Slovenian books.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Basically, oh, really, really yeah, 15th 16th century, 15th 16th century Okay.

Mr. Klemen Ponikvar:

Slovenia was a land of peasants. It was made of things that people had at the time eggs, flour, yeast. That is needed for this. So how is it served? So, a very classic one would be a round one, and you make it in this clay pot and, yeah, once you roll it, you put it in this clay pot, it grows. It's a couple of rounds that you're basically making with this, because you need to take into account the room temperature.

Mr. Klemen Ponikvar:

You know how it is with yeast and these tissues that are a little bit more complicated. So you need to have everything sorted before sorted, uh, before uh endeavoring into, into making a pizza, but it's um, at the end, you know, you put it in the, in the oven, you bake it around an hour or so and then you take it out, you cover it, you let it rest a little bit, um, and you put some sugar, powdered sugar, over it.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Then the powdered sugar.

Mr. Klemen Ponikvar:

That sounds delicious. Since it's so heavy, people usually drink a glass of milk or a glass of tea with it. I think the two most typical holidays when this dish would be eaten is indeed Christmas and Easter. During the Easter it's still pretty cold around Slovenia. It's a sweet dish. Sometimes you can also make it salty, but it's a cake or a loaf which is rolled and it comes in different tastes, I mean depending on what you actually put in the dough it's. I think it shows a little bit also the spirit of Slovenians, because it's quite a complex dish to make. Hours and hours of work are put into this. It's also, you know, slovenians are very proud of their own recipes of this, so they're going from one generation into another generation and it usually takes more than one person to do it, so it's kind of a social thing also. We're a country that stretches around the mountains, so sometimes people wouldn't have that much in common with each other on different sides of mountains. But this is, I think, something that always connected them this love for, for this dish.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Did the different historical influences affect the cuisine and the culture? I mean, you have the history of the Habsburg Empire. You're so close to Italy. Is there an Italian influence on the cuisine?

Mr. Klemen Ponikvar:

We are, as you said, on the crossroads. I mean, there's been influences from all over Europe, from the south, from the north I mean part of the Habsburg Empire, you know. I think this might be also the reason why potica is so close to Slovenian hearts, is that this is something that was kept entirely Slovenian, like really, really Slovenian. You know, with these developments that people had certain access to certain new products that would enable them to maybe, you know, push the limits of the taste of putiza. I don't know, these days I think I've heard around that people are even doing poppy seed with modern twist, but but yeah, I think it's something which is seen as a very, very traditional dish.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Rebecca Bryant, australia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, spoke eloquently about the hardiness of the foodstuffs in the land down under. In her many foreign postings she has served her favorite Australian dessert pavlova a sophisticated dish that requires patience and skill to make. Food, like language, often requires translation as we venture across the globe. Tell me a little bit about your favorite dish and why you feel that represents the Australian culture so much.

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

Thanks so much, alex, and it's really great to be on your podcast here in the Delegates' Lounge. I'm going to be cheeky and choose two dishes. It won't be a surprise to anyone that I choose the pavlova, which is a quintessential Australian dessert. Egg whites and sugar whipped together for a long time to form this amazing, you know thick kind of meringue-like dessert that you then bake in a circle and then, once it's cooked, you pile it with cream and fruit or chocolate, whatever you sort of taste you're looking for. We serve pavlova in my house on all special occasions birthdays, christmas. It's a real favourite and it's messy, but it's delicious in both summer and the winter.

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

The origins of pavlova are interesting. The Australian folklore suggests that a chef in Melbourne cooked it to celebrate Anna Pavlova, the ballerina's first visit to Australia in the mid-1940s. But the New Zealanders claim the origin story of Pavlova as well. So it's you know, it's a little bit of fun rivalry between Australia and New Zealand, our Tasman neighbours. The other dish that I would talk about is one that's not culturally significant, but it's important to me. I grew up with eight older brothers and sisters, so we had a big table and my mum's way of feeding us all was with bulk supplies of staples, lots of cabbage and lots of potato. And potato bake, cooked by my mum, was, you know, thinly sliced potatoes layered with cream and nutmeg, salt and pepper and butter. It was rich, it was delicious, fantastic in winter, wonderful with a barbecue and great to feed the masses. So my kids, today, when they're feeling a little bit down and need some self-care, they'll make themselves a little potato bake, just as my mom used to make it. So it's a real family favorite.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

That sounds like an excellent side dish to have at the holidays when you have a lot of people around the table. Pavlova is it relatively easy for a home cook to make for the first time. If you don't get them just so, sometimes they can be a little bit unforgiving if you don't get them just so sometimes they can be a little bit unforgiving.

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I've lived all around the world and everywhere I go I make pavlova, often because I'm hosting and I want to share with people one of my favorite dishes. And it's different everywhere you cook it. So when I was living in the Pacific, I found that the meringue was quite a different quality, possibly because of the quality of the eggs. I actually think they're much fresher.

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

In the Pacific You're getting them directly from farmers. But you know, in urban areas your eggs are older and they've come through suppliers and so maybe they're you know two weeks or a month out of the chicken and so maybe they're you know two weeks or a month out of the chicken. And I think the fresher the eggs, the harder it is to get that real marshmallow consistency on the inside of the pavlova. The real trick with a pavlova is to create this beautiful hard crust or shell on the outside, but this delicious fluffy meringue on the inside. On the outside, but this delicious fluffy meringue on the inside. But yeah, it's not always possible to get that consistency, depending on whether your eggs are room temperature or how fresh or old they are.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

And how do you whip it? Is it an electric whipper or do you have to just beat really hard? I mean, is there a special way to whip it to get that consistency?

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

Yeah, it's funny. When I was living in Solomon Islands, the first time I made it I didn't have an electric blender or whipper, and so I was doing it with one of those rotary blenders and it took a very, very long time. You have to whip those eggs for quite a long time to get that beautiful texture, so very good to do it with an electric mixer.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

So where you were based in the Pacific was Solomon Islands, and anywhere else where you represented Australia.

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

I lived in Solomon Islands for three years, but I've also spent quite a lot of time in Papua New Guinea and Fiji a beautiful part of the world.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Were they familiar with pavlova and did they have their own variations?

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

Yeah, and because they have all the beautiful fresh tropical fruits. So in the beautiful house that I lived in in Honiara, views of the ocean, mango trees everywhere, so the pavlovas were always decorated with tropical fruits, but it was sometimes difficult to get the fresh cream that you really need to make pavlova special, so you know it. When we were able to make it, it really was a special occasion and usually we would have large groups and everybody loved it. So, uh, sharing food is a is a real pacific cultural thing. I know it is the world over, but uh, it's a special time in the Pacific when all the Wontok can come together. Wontok means one family and everyone would come together and share food. It's fantastic.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

It sounds absolutely delicious. Especially desserts are always fun to discuss. I did actually want to ask you about one other Australian dessert, lamingtons, which I think is known throughout Australia but is particularly famous in Queensland. Can you tell us a little bit about the history and how those are made?

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

Yeah, I mean lamingtons were a really prominent part of my childhood. We used to use lamingtons for sports, fundraising and things. We had lamington drives and we would sell packets of 12 Lamingtons to raise money for sporting teams. I mean, the origin story of Lamingtons is a little clearer. As I understand it, it was created by Lord Lamington, who was governor of Queensland from about 1896 to the early 1900s, and the story goes that his French chef, when caught at late notice about a morning tea for the ladies in the local area, he grabbed a day-old sponge to dress it up to make a nice-looking cake. He dipped it in chocolate and then rolled it in coconut so that they could eat it without creating a mess. So that's the origin story, you know. I guess lamingtons today have been adapted by people. Some people cut them in half and fill them with cream and jam, but the traditional lamington is a very basic sponge dipped in chocolate and rolled in coconut. Not my favorite thing, I'll be honest. They're a bit dry for me, but quintessentially Australian for sure.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

I did find them a little bit dry myself too, because they are a day-old sponge cake, but the chocolate and, if you like, coconut with chocolate, it's a nice mix. Also, adding a little bit of jam would be nice. It's interesting much as Australia has a unique ecosystem plants and animals, of course the marsupials, but also foods, weetabix, vegemite why is it that you think Australia has such unique foodstuffs?

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

I mean, my best guess is that because Australia is so vast and the population is relatively small, the distances between communities and shops were very long, and you know. So I think that a lot of our staples are hardy and they last a long time. You know, if you're only going to the shops once a month or once a fortnight, then you know it's good to buy in bulk. And Wheat Bix could honestly last through a nuclear holocaust. I think they're very stable food and Vegemite as well. I brought over to the United States with me jars of Vegemite that had been in my pantry for a couple of years and they're still fine. They never you know, I think it's all the yeast in it they never get moldy or they never go off. So you know a lot of our staples, they're comfort foods, they're hearty, they last a long time and you know, I think that's just the nature of living in Australia, where you know it can be four, five, six hours drive to the nearest shopping center.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

And I've grown to really like Vegemite. It is an acquired taste. I didn't obviously grow up with it, but if it's really crispy, crispy toast and plenty of butter, that's the thing you do need butter with Vegemite, I think, and then the nice spread of Vegemite and it's tasty and good for you. It has all those vitamins. Now, another interesting thing is that you, of course, celebrate Christmas and New Year's, what we think of as the winter holidays in the Northern Hemisphere. You celebrate them in your summer and I wonder if there's a little bit of incongruity. Do you watch the Christmas movies from the Northern Hemisphere and see all of the snow and you're out by the Barbies celebrating in hot, hot weather? I mean, how does that work?

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

Yeah, I mean, our Christmas traditions are informed by the US and Europe, of course, but we have adapted them to suit the weather. You know summer in Australia is highly variable. These days, you know, it can be a cool day, it can be, you know, 20 degrees Celsius, and that's lovely to have a hot meal. But if you happen to get a 36 or 37 or 38 degree summer's day, on Christmas Day the last thing you want to be eating is a roast turkey. So we do tend to adapt our Christmas meal to suit the climate.

H.E. Rebecca Bryant:

We sometimes have seafood, cold roast chickens, delicious salads. Our desserts are, you know, there's always a Christmas pudding with custard, but you know, more commonly it's pavlova, it's ice cream cake, big fruit salads with cream, that type of thing. You know the kids will, everybody will eat lunch. We will, all you know, get a food coma in the afternoon. The kids will play outside. Sometimes we have Christmas by the beach. It's really wonderful and you know it's great to be here in New York and I'm looking forward to spending Christmas here this year. But I will be thinking about Australia and my family on a hot summer's afternoon resting after a delicious Christmas lunch.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

The Consulate General in Brazil in New York suggested a traditional starter course that Brazilians often enjoy while their festive Christmas or New Year's dinners are sizzling away in the oven. In Brazil, food is more than nourishment it's a celebration of community culture and tradition. One dish that they say perfectly embodies this spirit is pão de queijo, their beloved cheese bread, a staple in Brazilian homes, bakeries and cafes. Pão de queijo, their beloved cheese bread, a staple in Brazilian homes, bakeries and cafes. Pão de Queijo is more than just a snack. It's a symbol of hospitality and the comforting flavors of the Brazilian dairy farming region where it originated, which is known as Minas Gerais. Pão de Queijo is naturally gluten-free, made with tapioca flour, cheese, eggs, milk and oil. Its unique texture a crisp exterior with a soft chewy interior sets it apart from other breads. The use of tapioca flour, derived from the cassava root, reflects Brazil's indigenous culinary traditions. The traditional recipe uses Minas cheese, which was added to UNESCO's global list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity just in time for the Christmas holiday season in 2024. Pão de queijo pairs beautifully with coffee or tea, making it also a popular choice for breakfast or an afternoon snack. This dish also tells a story of resilience and adaptation. This dish also tells a story of resilience and adaptation. Cassava, the key ingredient, was a staple for indigenous Brazilians long before Portuguese colonization. Over time, european influences introduced dairy, combining local and foreign elements into the Pão de Queijo we know today that captures the heart of Brazilian cuisine, a fusion of flavors, cultures and history.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

In New York and many other big cities, you can find pão de queijo served fresh at Brazilian restaurants or, if you prefer, to bake it at home. Many grocery stores and Brazilian markets sell frozen pão de queijo. Just pop them in the oven and enjoy the authentic taste of Brazil in minutes. If you'd like to make them from scratch, you'll find a link to the recipe in our show notes, along with recipes for many of the dishes described in this episode. For home cooks, pão de queijo is surprisingly simple to prepare. The ingredients are blended to create a batter which is then baked in small, round portions on a tray. The result is a delightful, bite-sized treat, perfect for sharing with friends. For those who like to experiment, it is common to slice the pound de caju after it is ready and add fillings like shredded chicken or pork, some extra cheese or, for the sweet lovers, dulce de leche or Nutella.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

We recently spoke with Cecilia Malambo, the wife of Zambia's UN ambassador and president of the United Nations Delegations Spouses Club, giving her a unique position to describe the spouse's role in diplomatic dining in the second part of this special. It's a flat, landlocked country south of the equatorial zone with three distinct seasons that affect agriculture and diet, and there are varying culinary traditions in the regions. Christmas falls within their hot, rainy summer. As a former British colony until 1964, zambians share the English language and a love of afternoon tea. Welcome, cecilia. Thank you for joining us today for our special episode called Dining with Diplomats.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Thank you, Alex, for having me on your wonderful podcast. My name is Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo. I am from Lusaka, Zambia. I am the spouse of the permanent representative to the United Nations for Zambia, Dr Chola Milambo.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

First, I did want to ask if your country has something you would consider a national dish that you would like to see served, perhaps, at the United Nations to represent your country, and why it is of importance to your culture.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Absolutely so. Zambia does have a staple food called nshima. Basically, this is made from cornmeal, mixing water and cornmeal. A taste for those that have never had it before would be likened to white rice and it goes with a variety of dishes. Likened to white rice and it goes with a variety of dishes. Now, nshima is what we call it in Zambia, and other countries serve it as well. South Africa calls it pap, zimbabwe calls it saza, and I know that Kenya has it as well. Or the eastern part of Africa they call it ugali. So it would be great to have it as a step of food at the UN, seeing that many African countries do serve it and those that would taste it for the first time actually enjoy it and ask for it many times when they visit Zambia or here at our residence.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Does this have a distinct flavor? Your cornmeal dish?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

It's like rice plain, white rice.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

So you add the meat and the vegetables for the flavor.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Yes, that is why it's so popular. It's so easy to make and blends with almost anything. Then we have our own relish. So we say relish Shima is a carbohydrate, and the way we serve it it has to go with a vegetable and a protein in order to have a balanced meal. So we have a variety of vegetables in Zambia okra, collard greens there's one that we call rep, which I would liken to collard greens, kale, chamomile, spinach and many others. We take pride in drying food. When we have it in abundance, we dry it, salt it and sun-dried so that we can enjoy these meals in the seasons that these vegetables are not available. And then we have certain regions or provinces that do cattle ranching. For example, my husband is from the southern part of the country and they take pride in cattle ranching, so we know where to go for beef steak.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

That's a really well-rounded diet and the vegetables sound delicious. Those are all obviously warm weather vegetables I'm thinking okra and collard greens, and I do know you have some seasonality there. Do you have vegetables that don't grow in your winter?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

So our cold season will be likened to spring weather here, but we Zambians consider that as our cold season. We'll bring out our coats and whatnot, but the cold cannot be compared to the snow or the coldest season here in the US. So yes, in lieu of not having those vegetables in that season, come the dry ones that I talked about earlier. How we preserve those is we boil them, we salt them and put them out in the sun Such that when you boil them in those seasons they become fresh again. And one of the favorite delicacies is mixing it with pounded groundnuts Peanuts here, Blend them or pound them with a mortar and pestle sieve them, and that powder, when mixed with most of these vegetables, is so delicious and that is another popular delicacy. So that's what we prepare most of these dry vegetables with.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

In the Northern Hemisphere we use a lot of nuts around Christmas and obviously traditionally it was cold and not much was growing in the far northern hemisphere in Christmas, so you'd have a lot of dried and cured things at Christmas, but you still have hot weather at Christmas. Are there special dishes you have there, or do you go with the big, you know heavy Christmas dinner even though it's hot out?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

So Christmas for us? Chicken and rice. So rice in the time of my grandparents and parents was a luxury. People would only have it on Christmas Day. In most Zambian homes it'll be chicken and rice on Christmas Day.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

And is the chicken stuffed?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Ours is not stuffed. We cut it up in pieces and boil it Very basic tomato, onion and salt and cooking oil. You know, brown it and that's with very thick gravy.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

But do you brown it after you boil it? So you boil it first and then brown it.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

I boil it. When the water drains, you reserve some which is like a broth. Put the broth aside, you fry it in the oil, or even its own oil, because chicken has some oil. My paternal grandmother was a domestic science teacher in her day, and when she retired and moved to the village in her little hut she made the best chicken gravy. Up to now, I've never eaten such delicious chicken like she did, and she used the actual animal fat. It was so delicious and that's the tradition that we've continued, though we use modern-day cooking oil. It could be vegetable oil, olive oil or any of these that are available.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

So, if I understand right, you boil it first and then you drain all but a little bit of water, and what would you add to the water to create the gravy?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Okay, so when you drain chicken, you put your oil, if the chicken doesn't have enough animal fat, and you fry it, and then you add your tomatoes, your onions and the broth that you had before.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

And for about how long do you boil it before frying it?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

You have to keep an eye on it and unfortunately there are no recipes written down. So you boil that the blood drains and the soup or the broth will start to thicken, so that's what preserves the flavor. And then you brown it, mix that broth that you had tomatoes, onions, salt, others add curry or any other modern spices these days Do you need a?

J. Alex Tarquinio:

thickener Like do you use the cornmeal to thicken it or you just let it thicken from the fat?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

It thickens on its own.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

I'm also curious that rice was a specialty at Christmas because it was relatively scarce, and I'm wondering if rice does not grow as well in your country because of the climate, or is it just that it wasn't there to begin with as a tradition and was a more recent import?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

So it's not the step of food. So rice was a luxury. But we do have two regions that have historically grown rice. One of them is in Mongul, in the Western province. This rice from Mongul is more for a dessert Rice puddings. It's very soft and has a wonderful aroma. Oh my goodness, you cannot resist it when you smell it. And because it's in the swampy region, they're able to grow that. Then there's another region, which is partially in Tanzania and Zambia, called Nakonde. So we have Nakonde rice. Those are the two prominent regions, but the rest we all do cornmeal and we prefer cornmeal over rice in most cases. And what about fruit? The first one is mango, delicious.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

A lot of people's favorite fruit.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Absolutely. It's a tropical fruit and, again, each region has a different taste of the mango.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Oh, so there is some regionality or different varieties.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Absolutely so. Some of the mangoes that you would get from Mongo wouldn't taste the same as those in Lusaka, but all of them are delicious. It just depends on your taste buds. We have big mango, which is like what you would find in most stores here. The most delicious, though, is the small mango. Oh, my goodness. This mango has a lot of juice, such that most of us, of course, we do this in the privacy of our backyards we prefer to eat it from the hand, such that even the juice from the mango is dripping down your hand. There's something about that. It's a cultural thing in some families that we have, of course, oranges, lemons. There's a certain region in Zambia, in Muinilunga, Northwestern province, where they have endless pineapples. Most of the food is organic.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Well, with the heat, I'm certain it's very refreshing.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Absolutely.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

You know, I was also curious because you have just amazing diversity within the country and I'm wondering if that also affects the cuisine.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Yes, so we have a total of 72 tribes. Actually English happens to be the official language because we're a British colony, so these 72 tribes originate from 10 provinces. Each province or region has a delicacy. You are right, alex, it does that it boasts about. I told you already about my husband's region, who take pride in cattle ranching, and so we know they have the beef. In my province I'm from Eastern province there's one popular delicacy which is a special type of rodent called mbeba. Oh, my goodness, I never hear the end of it. We're told. You know many people look down on that, but it's actually delicious.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Is it farmed or hunted?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

It's hunted. You have to dig holes in the ground. You know it's a whole spectacular. Do you find it in burrows? They do burrows. They smoke them out and you see them jumping out of holes. You know it's all spectacular and you know it's like you went hunting. You know you come back as a hero.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Oh really Is there a special hunting season and hunting parties go out season and hunting parties go out.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Yes, there's seasons when you can hunt them out. So you know it's exciting for us. We're looking at our men from Eastern Province. They are our heroes.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

They brought us food and other tribes are making fun of us. Oh, there is a rivalry and you see that everywhere. It's funny how food is. Well, it's. One of the most basic things to human survival is food and drink. But as soon as people differentiate in their diets, they start to get competitive about who has the better food.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

They make fun of it, but I think secretly wish they could have it. It is tasty, very healthy too.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Is it? Oh good, it has good nutrition.

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Yeah, there's one popular tradition called matebeto. So when one is about to get married, the bride-to-be, with her family, cooks all the dishes possible from her tribe, eat the groom and all his family and friends. Basically, the reason for that tradition is to say, in their future home, this will be some of the dishes that will be prepared that should be accepted and not treated as foreign foods. Mateveto, the bride and her family cook at their family home. So the bride's mother chooses trusted friends, otherwise women that are there to ensure the food is cooked properly and on time. Sometimes it's overnight cooking and there's drums playing, there's music, there's singing, there's dancing and about 11, 12, all the food is loaded into trucks and taken to the grooms. So he's there as well with his people, the food is taken and they show them dish by dish. This is this, this is that. Don't be afraid, you can have some rodent, I'm kidding. And once they finish showing them the food, the bride's family leaves.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

You comment on the fact that English is a common language because it's a post-colonial country. It was a British colony until 1964. So is there still any influence of British cookery?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

The most influence we have, I would say, is the tea. Still do the afternoon tea. We take pride in that at 16 hours, which is for people Okay.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

No, that's pretty traditional, and is this something you do at home with your family, or do you also observe it if you're working?

Mrs. Cecilia Kanyangwa Milambo:

Oh, yes, yes, Even at work, when I used to work, I needed to have my tea, you know, in my little drawer, so that I could have my tea at 4 pm. So it's a tradition that we've all gotten accustomed to. Especially in my grandparents' time, my parents' time, the four o'clock tea was very important.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

I was delighted to receive a recipe for a traditional olive pastry from the permanent representative of the Republic of Cyprus to the United Nations, maria Mikhail. I was fortunate to cover Cyprus years ago when I received a fellowship from the German Marshall Fund of the United States GMF-US to support the stories that I contributed from Cyprus to the International Herald Tribune. Although many years have passed since I lived in Cyprus to the International Herald Tribune, although many years have passed since I lived in Cyprus, images of the island's sunny olive groves are etched on my memory. This traditional Cypriot olive pie or loaf is often shared with guests or nibbled on shaded verandas while sipping a cup of strong Cypriot coffee. The ambassador's recipe for this traditional Cypriot delicacy is simple to make. The ingredients are vegan and the result is delicious. You start by rubbing flour and olive oil together until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Then you add baking powder and orange juice and knead the dough. While the dough is resting, you blend together olives, fresh coriander, fresh spring onions and spearmint into a smooth paste. You roll out the dough as thinly as possible and spread the olive paste evenly across the dough. Then you tightly roll up the dough so the olive paste forms a spiral and sprinkle the loaf with sesame seeds, line a baking tray with parchment paper and bake the olive pie roll for 40 minutes or until nicely golden. Although slices of this treat can be enjoyed during the midday heat in Cyprus, they can also be savored by a crackling fireplace in cooler climates. Like the Brazilian Pão de Queijo, this could be a tasty starter course for a festive dinner.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Malta is a unique culture tucked into a tiny archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. We spoke with the country's UN ambassador, vanessa Fraser, about its cuisine, which evolved from traditions dating back to the era when the islands were ruled by the Knights of Malta. But don't try addressing your correspondence with the Knights to her office. The Republic of Malta and the sovereign military order of the Knights are her office. The Republic of Malta and the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights are now separate entities. The Knights, who are focused on humanitarian assistance these days, spoke in a Security Council meeting while Malta held the Council Presidency. We recently sat down with Ambassador Fraser in her office near the UN headquarters as she was preparing to conclude her Security Council term. Ambassador Fraser, thanks so much for making time for us today, so let's begin by you describing a favorite dish that you would like to see represent your country.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

So I'm really torn between two favorite dishes. We are, of course, an island, so fish has to feature. But we have a very special fish called lampuki, and lampuki is a mahi-mahi. It starts in the Maltese waters in August and our season goes on until December. The lampuki, when it's in Maltese waters, is very small and then it swims through the Mediterranean courses, into the Atlantic Ocean, through the Straits of Gibraltar and eventually reaches the American shores and becomes mahi-mahi and massive right and flattens its face because of its swimming in the ocean. So it is something that links more to the United States also. But I love this fish.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

It is a really important staple in our diet we have. As I said, its season is from August to December and it is extremely delicate and sweet. It's white fish and it doesn't have bones it has one spine, basically. So we feed it to children. So from when we're young we eat this fish and we cook it in various ways, and the most simple way is that we just cut it up in thick wedges, cover it in flour and fry it with a lot of garlic, and it's great because you can actually eat it raw. So really all you need is to have it crispy, you know.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

So you fry it just till it gets a little bit crispy and I suppose good malty olive oil yes, good olive oil, great garlic, and you just cut it up into chunks and and fry it until you see that the skin is all nice and crispy. And we eat it immediately hot, or you can have it cold on salads. But then we also make lampuki pie, oh wow yeah, okay.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

So you said you can eat it raw if you wait. I mean that's your favorite dish? Absolutely the fish and then they just put a little citrus but that's you know but the lampuki pie sounds fascinating. How do you make?

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

that fantastical, so so do you actually bake the fish. Yes, we bake it in the pot. So when it is Obviously in the beginning of the season, it is small, less than a foot, and very tender and very expensive. But later in the season, when it grows to about a foot and a half or two feet and it's also much thicker and it is abundant in the heavy season. So it's a very cheap meal we would buy it.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

So, if I understand right, lampuki are basically baby mahi mahi. So they start in your waters and do they have to be a certain size before you can eat them? Like, are you restricted from eating them when they're too small? I?

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

wouldn't be able to, I would have to throw them back in, so they would. And then according to their sizes, when, and then according to their sizes, when the lampuki season will be announced. But when they are in full season, then we buy, you know, many of them, and we just use the meat and make it into a pie, and it really depends on the family recipes.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

But we bake it also Roughly. How do you make it? It sounds like a seasonal dish, and would you make that around this time of year, around December?

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Yes, so it's almost a holiday dish yes, but we wouldn't serve it in christmas because, then christmas is traditional turkey they were very british right and we need, you know, the turkey and with with all the fixings, very similar to turkey, but no cranberries oh no.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Right, so you've got parsnips.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Yes, but no fruit with our meat. That's not for us at all. Very, very, very British with our Christmas bread. But lampouki pie is very, very Maltese and you can, you know, chunks of it after being fried. You just can't put it between two nice pieces of. Maltese bread, which is the best bread in the world Right? San just arrived from Maltese on Sunday and he brought me two loaves, so we're like yes.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Is it like a French bread or a sourdough bread? It's a sourdough bread.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Oh, I love sourdough bread, very similar to what you would find in the Puglia region, and we love our bread. And, oh my gosh, fried lampuqui in between two crusts of our bread is the best sandwich you can have with our fantastic tomatoes.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Would that be a lunchtime dish, something you might have by the beach?

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Sure, you can give to the kids for school. We also bake lampuqui in a very Maltese way with a lot of capers and olives Okay, capers is perfect.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Capers is another thing. And is that how you put it in the pie? Or you said it depends on the family recipe.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Yes, you, would put capers in the recipe. Capers is another staple in the Maltese dishes. So I remember walking around the island, you know, with my family. We would pick capers and then dry them in the garden, soil them, eat them. It's something. Capers are wild.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

They grow all over the countryside. It's fascinating because I've used capers with fish and to me they come in a bottle.

H.E. Elina Valtonen:

You know, like olives come in a bottle capers come in a bottle.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

What do they look like? Do they grow on bushes?

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Yes, they're bushes, so so like blackberries. Exactly, it's capers, it's a beautiful plant because a caper, if you don't pick it, blossoms into a beautiful flower which has white petals and violet tentacles inside. It's actually a very beautiful flower and they grow wild on the stone walls that divide the fields in the countryside.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

you know, basically there are the stone walls and we have a particular type of wall in in our fields, where the, the stones are placed one on top of the other but are not plastered. And this is because we have we are an arid island waters. Water is very difficult for us. We don't have a lot of our water by reverse osmosis, so when it rains we try to use the water as much as possible, and so our fields are terraced.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

And they have these cobblestone kind of walls and with, you know, maltese limestone placed on top of each other so that the water can seep through the stone from one field to the other. And there, in between the stones, the caper plant is rampant. It grows, and can you go wild.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Like you can take the children and go picking wild capers. Oh yeah, that's what we do.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

We take these long walks plastic bags, ziplock bags and picking them and it's fun. I remember picking wild blackberries where I grew up. These wolves also have wild asparagus you pick up the wild asparagus on the capers and it's very nice. So that is for me, lampuki. I love being in Malta in August and I try to you know if I'm on a holiday.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

And coming back to my posting, I try to wait till the 4th, 5th September so I could eat Lampuki.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

So you time your vacations home around the.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Lampuki season, Because for me it's something I love.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

I have not had Maltese wine, so I imagine it's only sold in a few countries, maybe perhaps even in Europe. But what kind of wine is it? Do you primarily produce red wine? Are there certain varieties?

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

They have europe, but what?

J. Alex Tarquinio:

kind of wine is it? Do you primarily produce red wine? Are there certain varieties? Okay, and white wine?

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

certain varieties do. They do better because there's a hot arid, which is great, because, um, vines need to struggle right in order to be very good. So they grow on rocks, and it's great we have it's for it. Our soil is salty. Our wine has a great taste because of our terrain. We like our white wine in summer, of course, but our red wine is also very heavy and full-bodied. We also have a liquor which we make, which is you know, everybody knows Limoncello, right. We do something very similar. We have prickly pears. Call it prickly pears, oh, prickly pears, it's called baitra. So the fruit, the prickly pear, we call it baitra, and the liqueur is called baitra. And it's lovely, you can have it.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

you can drink it straight up, very cold, or you can mix it with very dry sparkling wine, or I like to make pitches, kind of like pims, with it and serve it as cocktails like that, and this is baitra. The prickly pear tree is another tree that you find everywhere in malta because it protects the feeds, so the prickly pears are everywhere everywhere another thing that you pick when you're walking, as well, as long as you have some gloves. Then another dish I really love and it is our national dish is rabbit. I know that the Americans get a bit queasy. I love to fry it in a lot of garlic.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

It sounds like that's the olive oil garlic.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

That is your fry-out Dip the bread in the garlic and the juices and it's delicious. We also use the bony parts, so the ribs and maybe the neck, whatever, but the bony parts of the rabbit would then be made into a stew and you would start with pasta with the stew sauce on it, and then you would have the fried rabbit. You would start with oh you sauce on it and then you would have the fried rabbits.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

You would start with oh, oh, you mean when you did, when you played it up, you play it. Yes, you put the spaghetti.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Normally it was b and you can either eat, I mean you can make, so you can use the bony parts to make a pasta sauce with tomatoes. So it's's served with pasta and the sauce and the bony parts would be fried up in garlic and tomatoes and put on top of the sauce.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Or you can use more you know you can and then you fry the meaty parts, or you can use the entire rabbit and make a stew Olives, capers, tomatoes in a stew and then you would eat some on the pasta and some then as a stew Okay, olives, capers, tomatoes in a stew and then you would eat some on the pasta and some then as a stew, with red and the sauce that goes between the pasta and the bony parts.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Would that be sort of a traditional marinara?

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

sauce, it's a tomato. Imagine a bolognese sauce, but instead of minced meat it would be fried rabbit. Okay, okay.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

I can picture that. No, that sounds absolutely delicious.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

But the rabbit, that is actually a national dish, national dish is very strange, but we were, you know, in the times of the knights from the knights of malta were in malta, they would hunt a lot for these hunting lodges of the knights and they wear a lot of wild hair malta and they would hunt them because they were, were noble.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Of course they also exercised the sports of nobility, hunting being one of them. And this is how the rabbit then became part of our cuisine. Now we don't hunt it, of course it is raised, but it is our national dish and we have the national dog which we call kelp, tal fenec, and fenec is rabbit in M rabbit and maltese, oh, so they're rabbit hunters and the kelp is the dog, so it's the dog of the rabbit, whatever. So it's the, the specific dog. It's a pointer breed, um, so it looks kind of like a greyhound, very half-arse uh dog and can see in the dark. So was you, you know, has like kind of like cat eyes, so it was used, you know, as I kind of like cut eyes, so it was used for hunting.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

And it was a dog Hunting rabbits at night or at dusk.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Hunting rabbits. It was a dog for rabbits. It's the official name of Maltese. It's Kereptal Fenech. It's our national dog, and combines with our national dish. We don't need a dog, though.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

No, I did actually want to ask you about the maltese knights. Sadly, I've never actually been to malta, at least not yet.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Um, I did spend some time in cyprus, actually as a journalist some years ago, but I do remember, uh, their knights yes, so there's a great tradition between the knights of malta and malta, so we consider them a separate country and we exchange ambassadors. We recognize them as sovereign. In fact, the Knights of Malta is their short name.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Their official name is the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights Hospitaller and then it's of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, but everybody just calls them the Knights of Malta, and there's a lot of of, even here at the UN. I invariably receive letters on their behalf, and they mine also, and people don't understand that we are different. I mean, it really is for us another country so they have.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

If they have their own sovereignty, do they have a territory they do have?

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

territory in Rome. Their headquarters in Rome is sovereign territory Within Vatican City. No, it's actually in Rome and their palace is sovereign territory Very much where it's visiting the family trees of some of the knights when they were incredible. Do they have?

J. Alex Tarquinio:

representation. They do, they have observers, they have observers, they are great humanitarians and they have remained.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

This was have observer status. They have great humanitarians and they have, you know, remained. This was their original cause. So they were set up. They were established in order to assist the pilgrims during the Crusades Christian pilgrims who were going to the Holy Lands during the Crusades and so they were hospiters. In fact, they are the Knights, hospitallers, the sovereign order, and that is their core vocation and they remain till today.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

They're called because they run hospitals, blood banks, they do a lot of humanitarian work. We did hear them in the council, in fact, yesterday, briefing on the humanitarian whether they carry out, and we had our presidency. We also asked them to brief on their work in syria, on the humanitarian work that they carry out. But at the time they were in Malta, which was from 1535 to 1798, they ruled Malta, and they come from eight what they called longs, which is why they have an eight-pointed cross. And at the time these longs, which in French translates as languages, they were different countries, but now some of them are in the same country. So you have Castile Aragon, espagne or Spain, for example, and they really were different.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

long at the time they were different languages. Now they've merged into Spanish and French, but the regional dialects were very important.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

And they're very noble because they were the second sons of noble families and had to have three generations of nobility from both the mother and the father's side. So very, very noble. And they would take the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience which, when their inheritance, went to the order. And they left a great heritage, cultural heritage. In malta, um, we have, you know, the most beautiful caravaggio in the world which was commissioned for their patron church, um, in when the capital city was built.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

Valetta, our capital city, was built during the time of the knights in Malta and was named after the grandmaster at the time, who was La Vallette, and we have many Mattia Preti, for example. The most great painters of the era were commissioned and we have the most beautiful, beautiful churches filled with incredible art by these artists. And they left a very, very important cultural heritage in Malta. We have a very important archive of the Knights, also in Malta. They left not only a cultural heritage but also education and the Catholic tradition. We were already Catholic. In fact, we were given to Malta by Charles V, who was the emperor of the two Sicilies, but he was a Holy Roman emperor and we were given to them because often the Turks had ousted the knights. First from Jerusalem they went to Rhodes and then from Rhodes they were ousted again by the Turks. They spent, I believe, 17 years at sea and the Holy Roman Emperor gave them Malta to have territory. And this is when they were given Malta for one falconer, which then leads to the oldest story about the.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

Maltese falcon.

H.E. Vanessa Frazier:

They really did. The knights really did have to give the emperor a falconer, but not a bejeweled. But it makes a great movie. But that's because falconry, of course, was a very important sport at the time. We still have Maltese falcons in Malta. They were considered prestigious, so it was and you know it was an important payment. The Maltese falcon actually in falconry sport was a prestigious animal. Is the sport of falconry still practiced? Not really, but you can go to the Maltese falcon center and you can see and learn more about falcons.

J. Alex Tarquinio:

And those falcons may be descendants from the falcons that were used in falconry in medieval times, used in falconry and in medieval dynasties.

Frank Radford:

And that's it from the Delegates Lounge. We'd like to thank our esteemed guests, who've graciously allowed us to share their hard-earned insights into what really matters. And then there's you, our listeners, who we hope are sufficiently edified to clamor for more of the same. Do drop in for a weekly episode on Thursday, or, from time to time if we're on the road, for special events, in which case there'll be a bonus episode. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and, if you like what you've heard, please take a moment to rate or review the show, as it helps others who share your abiding interest in world affairs to find their way to the Delegates Lounge. You can connect with us on many popular social media platforms or reach out to us directly at infothedelicatesloungecom. We're a small team so we can't respond to every message, but we will read them. Our show this week was written and produced by the host and by yours truly executive producer, frank Radford. Until next time, keep calm and curious, thank you.