A story about cultural differences

As you may or may not know, I love to cook. I also love Mexican food and have learned to make a few dishes that I am quite proud of. My favorite is probably carnitas which is pork shoulder braised in beer and chicken stock for a long time. Carnitas is usually put in a tacos with onions, cilantro and guacamole.

When I first moved to Dublin, I was determined to cook Mexican food for my roommates. I was a little worried about not finding the right ingredients even though carnitas is fairly simple. So at first I froze the pork while I looked for the right ingredients. After deciding on a date to make it, I put the pork in the fridge to defrost. However, I cannot make carnitas or guacamole without cilantro, it is ABSOLUTELY essential and I could not find in anywhere! I even looked up Indian and Thai food markets on the internet because it is used in those cuisines also. Whenever I asked about cilantro however (at 5+ supermarkets and "specialty" markets), I was looked at like I was crazy! I was beginning to give up home of making an authentic Mexican meal.

So I decided to look up cilantro on Wikipedia. I admit Wikipedia is a guilty pleasure of mine and I know how much the academic world despises it but it is a very handy source of information and many things are cited dirrectly on the web. I came to find out that cilantro is only know as cilantro in the United States and Latin America. To the rest of the world, cilantro is coriander, a very popular spice found at all the major grocery stores I had already been to. At this point I felt like an idiot for not looking this up first but I got a laugh out of the whole situation; me at supermarkets asking for something that was literally right under my nose!

In the end, the meal was delicious, even with Irish ingredients. It turns out, guacamole and carnitas both taste really good with coriander. My roommates Hakon and Raoul loved the carnitas and my Mexican food craving was satisfied, proof that home is never far away. Most importantely, I got to share a little bit of my culture (Ok, so I'm not Mexican but Mexican food is a big part of my life and hey, I made it) with my roommates. Maybe I will think of opening up a Mexican restaurant in Dublin called Cilantro someday...