Clip: Special | 3m 25s | Video has closed captioning.
At a Washington D.C. restaurant, Lidia organizes a potluck-style meal, where immigrants share food that is meaningful to them. The dishes on the table are from Africa, the Middle East, South America, Asia and the Caribbean, as well as Lidia’s Italian Bean Soup. Lidia calls it, a ‘table of the world’, and it’s a true representation of the cuisines and culture that make up the American melting pot.
Aired: 05/30/23
- I traveled to our nation's capital, home to more than one and a half million immigrants, to sample even more cuisines.
With a potluck-style dinner at a restaurant called Immigrant Food.
New friends offer to share the dishes that are meaningful to them.
Flavors from Africa.
- My name is Eric Adjepong and I brought Chichinga.
It is the national dish from Ghana.
- My name is Toyin Alli and I brought chicken and beef sausage gumbo which blends my heritage, Nigerian and Southern roots.
- [Lidia] The Middle East.
- My name is Kazi Mannan.
I brought this wonderful dish lentil called Daal Tarka in India and Pakistan.
- I'm Nazanin Ash, and I've made Persian Baklava.
- [Lidia] South America.
- My name is Mile Montezuma and I brought Venezuelan Ceviche.
- [Lidia] Asia.
- My name is Kevin Tien.
I brought scallion biscuits because it's a true representation of South Louisiana and South Vietnam.
- [Lidia] And the Caribbean.
- My name is Jeanine Prime.
I'm from Trinidad and Tobago.
I brought paratha bread with curries.
- I of course, brought an Italian dish, escarole fagioli soup, bean soup.
It's our family favorite and I know everybody will love it at today's table.
(speaking in foreign language) Welcome, welcome to this wonderful table of the world.
(gentle music) Thinking about the cultures that I visited and then the cultures at the table, it just gave me this wide view, shall I say, of America.
And thank you to each one of you for bringing your culture, your food, your flavors, and your story to this table.
And it was so colorful, so wonderful, so many different aromas.
- So that is a combination of potato, curry potato and chickpeas.
- All right.
And then you just kind of go in there.
- You're eating it exactly the way you should.
- Just like that.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- [Person] We call it here yellow lentil.
- It has a nice spice to it.
- So I brought my mom recipe.
- And we stew it down almost like our version of a marinara sauce.
The sauce that this kebab is used with is kind of like the mother sauce for us as well.
- It's usually a street food thing that you can find at the beach.
So everyone get this and share it when they are there.
- There's okra in there.
There's- - They were all so excited and trying to explain to me what was in their dish because the dishes that they brought, they were sentimental to them, to their story, to who they are culturally.
- Yeah, I like to say I'm like the Cajun Asian or Cajun.
(all laughing) - And sharing that with all of us was quite moving.
I think I'll go for the pistachio.
- Yes.
- Tasting all this thing, it was like a lot of syncopation by whole different flavors jumping in your mouth.
It was great.
At this table, we do have the world represented and that's what America is all about.
It's about different cultures coming together and making this great country.
So thank you very much all for being here and as we say in Italian, (speaking in foreign language).
Cheers.
(gentle music) (glass clicking)
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To celebrate and the adventures she had making 'Flavors That Define Us', Lidia organizes a potluck-style meal, in Washington D.C., where immigrants, now new friends, share food that is meaningful to them.
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