THE TASTE OF HOME, with a few twists

The title of this blog is a little aspirational, I will admit. The title character in the story moved his entire life, including a new bride he barely knew, halfway around the world, permanently, without the kind of connectivity with his former life that I have even on a bad day.  The short story of my life would be a lot less poignant, but hey, that's why man invented literature, right? It's by nature aspirational.

Some days, though, I do feel like I’m breaking new ground and experiencing a little bit of what it’s like to move across the world with just a few belongings, your personal history and cultural background, and build something new.

Not long after I got here, I saw that we had a TON of zucchini from our garden, and was inspired to try to bring one of my dearest and favorite family traditions: my grandmother’s zucchini bread (for those not familiar, it’s not dissimilar from Banana bread but with everyone’s favorite green squash.  Trust me, it works. . . recipe below).

Obstacles that stood between me and the delicious taste of home were the following:

• The flour I tried to use first was littered through and through with larvae and beetles.   Maybe at home I’d just toss it, but here, when resources are scarce and overpriced, I gave it the old college try and tried to sift them out, but the larvae kept slipping through in greater numbers than could be justified by a "protein deficit".  So I tossed the flour and tried a new bag.
• I had to figure out how many millileters to the cup so I could use our single measuring cup without internet access in the kitchen for a quick web search or anything with a functioning device with the appropriate app.   I tried to turn on my American cell phone to use the conversion tool on there, but no luck for that particular conversion.   Had to go across the way for Internet to find out that it’s around 236.  Maybe unnecessary, but I’m not a natural cook so have to do these things for fear of a total kitchen trainwreck.  And again, lack of resources means that I didn’t want to waste everything I had. Failure was not an option. 
• The past couple years of Zucchinifest (my annual tradition of making a huge batch with my sister) had involved lots of substitutions to make the delicious dish I like to eat by the pound (or kilo, as I’m trying to think in the metric system) a little healthier (read, less guilty). . . applesauce, whole grain flour, not in the pantry, not in a store around the corner.  So back to the traditional, white-flour delicious full-oil, slightly reduced sugar recipe. 

In the end, SUCCESS.  The community loved it.  I’m not sure Grandma ever imagined I would be doing it with Ugandan flour and Zucchini grown in our garden in South Sudan (which wasn’t even a country until so recently), But it happened.  She’s no longer alive for me to be able to tell her that, but can hope she somehow knows and consider the feat a delicious toast (pun not intended) to my family history, and the human ability to adapt and thrive wherever we find ourselves, even 3 continents from home


My Grandma's Zucchini Bread (original recipe)
3 eggs beaten              1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups sugar              ½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup cooking oil              1 teaspoon salt
2 cups grated zucchini              1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla              ½ cup chopped nuts
3 cups sifted flour

 Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour two loaf pans. Beat eggs and sugar. Then add oil, grated zucchini and vanilla. Cream together. Sift together dry ingredients. Add to creamed mixture and blend thoroughly.

Add nuts and bake for one hour or until done.