Could you be a Papantla Flyer in Mexico?

by Jessica Festa on

Do you think you could handle having one leg tied to the top of a shaky 30 meter pole while you hang limply from the top? How about then being quickly spun in circles as you slowly fall to the ground?

The feat is known as the Danza de los Voladores de Papantla, or Dance of the Flyers. The ritual, which is thought to have been used to call on the gods during times of drought, is best associated with the town of Papantla, Veracruz in Mexico, where it still takes place. There are five people who take part in the dance, including four flyers and one person who stands at the top of the tall pole dancing and playing a flute and drum.

We’ve seen the thrill seeking travelers of Fuel TV‘s “Strangers in Danger“, Mike “Rooftop” Escamilla and Zach “Catfish” Yankush eat live octopus in Korea, and tonight we’ll get to watch as they do the Dance of the Flyers, a feat which seems to scare them even more. Check out a clip of what you can expect here or watch the full episode tonight (and every Tuesday) at 10:30 E/P.

The sport you probably haven’t heard of: Rutabaga Curling

by Jessica Festa on

While many people use rutabagas as food, there are some that like to use them for sport. Wooden planks make up the “field” for playing the game, with the pitch being around 79 feet and a circular target at the end. The game involves throwing your rutabaga towards the other end of the field and trying to knock opponents vegetables out of the way. And if you’re thinking about using unconventional methods to try to win, think again. In the official rules, it clearly states that “steroids are prohibited and any such use will subject the rutabaga to immediate withdrawal”.

In Ithaca, New York, in particular, Rutabaga Curling is an annual tradition that marks the end of the market season. Since 1996, the town has been playing with rutabagas, although the first official Rutabaga Curl was held in 1998. Why rutabagas? They are just about the only vegetable left in the market that time of year. And, no one wants to eat them.

To see this intense sport for yourself, as well as hear the melodic rutabaga choir, head over to Ithaca on December 17, 2011 and attend the 14th Annual Rutabaga Curling Championship. Or, if you can’t make it in person, check out this video:


Walking on the wild side of Paris

by David Downie on

The good news is Paris‘ kaleidoscopic, multiple-choice future is playing today not in a theater near you but in the Oberkampf, Ménilmontant and Belleville neighborhoods. That’s where Algiers meets Caracas and Istanbul via Zanzibar. Despite occasional intrusions by fanatics, the inhabitants here and in Paris’ many other ethnic enclaves seem to get along like traditional French peas in the pod.

Never heard of Oberkampf, Ménilmontant or Belleville? That’s not surprising. Outlying, in the north-by-northeastern sector of town, they’re not chic. They have no claims to fame other than as the home to Père-Lachaise Cemetery and the birthplace of Edith Piaf, the raucous crooner of “La Vie en Rose” and yesteryear’s hits.

For 20 years I rented an office in the Ménilmontant district. My desk now overlooks the Place de la Bastille and Marais. But I’m still a regular to my old haunts: the cemetery is Paris’ most atmospheric hideaway, if you ask me. And there’s no better place to get a haircut, eat as if you were on the Bosporus, or pick up spiky, smelly, scary specialty foods.

Why the haircut? My barber for years was affable Monsieur David-pronounced Dah-veed-a Moroccan who wore a Star of David and a beret and ate baguette sandwiches filled with many things, from many animals, including the kind that provide ham and bacon.

Nowadays it’s Mustafa or Ali who snip at the graying tufts still clinging to my scalp. Like Monsieur Daveed, when Mustafa and Ali work my head over they cut back and forth between French and other languages, their jaws moving like well-oiled scissors.

All three barbers favor Radio Nostalgie and Radio Montmartre, with tunes from Piaf’s heyday. Like them she was supremely French: a foundling whose parents and grandparents were immigrants-in Piaf’s case they came from the French provinces, Italy and North Africa.Walk down the Boulevard de Ménilmontant-the dividing line between the homely 11th and gritty 20th arrondissements-and meet Madame Chung. She sells Chinese cabbage and Tiger Balm. They are meant to be consumed separately, she jokes. Neither goes well with the plantains or pungent durian she hawks to her kaleidoscopic clientele.

Across the street a Berber baker makes flatbread from the deserts and mountains of Algeria. It’s the same kind Piaf’s Berber ancestors baked. The baguette is particularly crisp. Berber baguettes are also bigger and cheaper than the ones sold by “real” French bakers. The desserts come from the heartland of France: cream-filled millefeuille and flaky palmier cookies. Gigantic and sweet, they’re as cloyingly irresistible as the colorful pastries sold a few doors down. All are designed to be eaten with glasses of burning-hot mint tea, another specialty of the neighborhood.

Amble a few doors down toward the cemetery from my barber and see the bobos with pale Parisian skin, porcupine stubble, hand-held devices and catwalk clothes slumming at La Mère Lachaise. This hipster café-restaurant with a clever name serves faux French classics and what might just be Paris’ best hamburger, the beef ground fresh, the buns remarkable. Buns are definitely part of the program.

One of the waiters, a runway veteran by the looks of him, purrs with a Latin American accent. The kitchen crew is African from above or below the Sahara or Tamil from South India and Sri Lanka. French? Absolutely!

Abutting Ménilmontant on the south and to the west are Oberkampf and Belleville. Equally unprepossessing to the eye and hard-driven underfoot, the ethnic mix is different in each, a twist and turn of the kaleidoscope.

Oberkampf was colonized early on by a certain French star architect and his swirling solar system of sycophants. So the density of self-adoring poseurs packing the faux-everything cafes, restaurants and boutiques here-many of them in former print-shops, hardware stores, machine-tool factories and suchlike-takes the breath away. Actually, it’s the clouds of cigarette smoke that take the breath away. Visit Oberkampf to see how clever real French men and women can be when it comes to breaking the smoking ban.
Oberkampf’s nicotine-arugula-and-balsamic trendies live side by side with Paris’ authentic Little Turkey-not Thanksgiving turkey, but the Bosporus variety.

To the north of Boulevard de Ménilmontant and Boulevard de Belleville, the former village of Belleville scales the heights where Piaf was deposited on a doorstep nearly a century ago. The air no longer rings with the sound of accordions. It is scented by lacquered duck, spicy Laotian and Cambodian prawns with coconut milk, or steamed dumplings. Chinese rock blares. Imams call to prayers. Temples, synagogues and mosques share room with an empty church or two. There’s room for freethinkers in between, and it’s hard to imagine any of these people throwing fire bombs about cartoons of Mohammed.

At the top of the hill where Ménilmontant and Belleville merge is one of Paris’ best-loved bread bakeries. Many locals, including Monsieur David and Madame Chung, consider the “flute Ganachaud” the best baguette-like French bread anywhere. I would not dare to disagree, nor would I spread a Ganachaud bread with Tiger Balm. But it goes pretty well with just about everything else consumed in this lively, benignly globalized part of Paris.

Author and guide David Downie’s latest books are the critically acclaimed “Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light” and “Quiet Corners of Rome.” His websites are www.davidddownie.com, www.parisparistours.com and http://wanderingliguria.com, dedicated to the Italian Riviera.

[Flickr image via carac3]

American students bring Thanksgiving’s message of coexistence to the Middle East

by Jessica Festa on

This Thanksgiving, holiday traditions and messages are going farther than the family dinner table. In fact, they are going all the way to the Middle East as American young adults spending time abroad will be spreading the message of coexistence throughout diverse communities by recreating the Thanksgiving feast from their childhood.

Masa Israel Journey, a project of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israeli Government, sends more than 6,000 young Americans to Israel each year to study, intern, and volunteer, as well as spread a peaceful and harmonious message. Diverse groups of people such as Arabs, Israeli Jews, Palestinians, Europeans, and American peers are all positively affected by the introduction and blending of Thanksgiving traditions.

Some examples of how American young adults have spread their traditions and the message of coexistence include:

  • Abra Berkowitz, a Boston-native who studied at Masa Israel’s Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, shared a potluck dinner with other students from Jordan, Isreael, the Palestinian Territories, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. A blending of cultures could be seen by a turkey seasoned with zaatar and a side dish of tahini stuffing.
  • Detroit-born Josh Kanter, who enrolled in Masa Israel’s Career Israel internship program, celebrated Thanksgiving at a Herbrew University-sponsored dinner with other international students from Argentina, Uruguay, Guatemala, Israel, and the United States. While there was turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, hummus was also a big hit at the table.
  • Jessica Simon from Philadelphia, who studied at Masa Israel’s Pardes Institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, was also volunteering at Jerusalem Open House, the organization that supports LGBT people and their allies in Jerusalem. She planned a Thanksgiving potluck and read from a gay friendly prayer book with Hebrew explanations about Thanksgiving to the Israeli attendees. Because sweet potatoes were not available, Simon substituted them with carrot soup.

For information on Masa Israel Journey and how they help spread the message of coexistence, click here.

Eating historically in New York’s Chinatown and Little Italy

by Jessica Festa on

As a native New Yorker, I’ve spent many afternoons wandering the streets of Chinatown and Little Italy, stopping to get some dumplings or some pasta and wine. While I had always kind of thought of these places as tourist hubs with delicious food, I never realized just how much history belongs to these areas, and how much of this history is still alive today.

After going on a walking tour with Ahoy New York Tours and Tasting, I now look at Chinatown and Little Italy with a new appreciation. Alana, the tour guide, led the group through each area, speaking about how the regions came to be and letting everyone sample from historical eateries.

As Alana likes to say, “If a restaurant has been around for 40 years or more, you know it’s good because it has stood the test of time.”

Around the time of the United States‘ Industrial Revolution, southern Italians began coming over to get away from high taxes and low wages. In order to help ease their culture shock they began importing foods from their homeland and opening restaurants that reflected their heritage. Lucky for us, a lot of what was created back then is still around today.The first stop on the tour was Alleva Dairy to sample prosciutto and homemade mozzarella. Opened in 1892 by the same family that runs it now, this is the oldest Italian cheese shop in America. Fun Fact: Mozzarella originated in Naples, Italy, when a monk accidentally dropped a cheese curd into a pail of hot water.

Ferrara Bakery & Cafe was the next stop, where the group got to taste their world famous cannolis. My grandmother, who is from southern Italy, actually used to swear by these, and my father still refuses to eat cannolis from any other bakery. This eatery was opened in 1892, and during WWII many Italian families would purchase Torrone, a nougat confection, from here to send to their loved ones who were fighting because the treat wouldn’t spoil.

After our sugar indulgence, the group traveled to another continent and headed over to New York’s Chinatown. People first started to notice the Chinese coming into the United States in the 1840’s. While they first tried to settle in California, they were not socially accepted there and so they came to New York in an attempt to better assimilate. While the original Chinatown was made up of only 3 streets (Mott, Doyers, and Pell) and consisted of mostly immigrants from southern China, today the area has grown to encompass 2 square miles and 200,000 Chinese-Americans from diverse backgrounds.

A family-style lunch at Pongrsi Thai Restaurant, the oldest family-run and operated Thai restaurant in New York City, allowed the group to sample 40 years of delicious hard work with rice, Orange Chicken, Pad see ew, and a spicy Chicken Pra Ramm.

In order to let the group digest, Alana took us to visit Columbus Park, a cultural hub for the Asian community where people go to play Mahjong and checkers, practice Tai Chi, and relax. Standing there today, you would never know that the area was once considered the worst slum in the history of the U.S., and possibly even the world.

No tour of Chinatown would be complete without eating some dumplings. What many people don’t realize is that dumplings aren’t just delicious, they’re an important part of the Chinese New Year as they symbolize wealth with their ancient silver and gold ingot shape. If you’re looking for taste, try Tasty Dumpling on 54 Mulberry Street. However, if you want a front-row view of how they are made, go to Fried Dumpling on 106 Mosco Street. Hint: It’s actually a lot more complex than you probably think.

To end the tour, the group was taken to a place that isn’t known for its history but for its flavor. Everything Frosted sells cupcakes with an Asian flair with choices like Lychee, Red Bean, Jasmine Tea, and Black Sesame.

While the tour tells a lot about food and its historical significance, you will also see a lot of other notable points of interest, such as the Transfiguration Church, which services the most Chinese-Americans than any other church in U.S., the former Bloody Angle, which is said to be where the most murders in America have ever occurred, and the oldest tenement building in New York at 65 Mott Street.

For more information or to make a booking with Ahoy NY Tours & Tasting, click here.