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This month you can impress your friends with a feast of more unusual dishes, including Venezuela’s favourite snack that’s surprisingly similar to an Aussie sandwich.
Venezuelan food is not part of most Australians’ culinary vocabulary, something Reveka Hurtado knows well. Her new Footscray restaurant Papelon is the first Venezuelan eatery to open in Melbourne in 10 years. Plus, this month, she’s the first Latin American migrant to design a menu for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre’s annual fundraiser, Feast For Freedom.
People sign up to host a dinner party in their home or an event at their workplace or organisation, cooking recipes chosen by asylum seekers who are among the 7000 people supported by the ASRC when they arrive in Australia.
“Preparing those recipes is a form of acknowledging that we’re here,” says Hurtado, who came to Australia four years ago due to political repression in Venezuela that put her at risk as a journalist.
Signing up to host a Feast for Freedom event is a way to learn new dishes or try food that may be less familiar, such as Hortado’s tostones (fried plantain) topped with a brightly coloured coleslaw, or sweet curdled milk, similar to ricotta but sweetened by sugarcane and spiced with cinnamon.
But Hurtado is quick to point out recognisable elements in her recipes. Arepas, palm-sized corn bread pockets, come up great when cooked in an Airfryer, she says. A popular Venezuelan filling, reina pepiada, is also a popular Aussie sandwich filling: chicken and avocado.
“There is where I think people can start to mix the cultures. Imagine an arepa with butter and Vegemite!” she says
The ASRC says that more than $1.6 million has been raised by the campaign in the past four years, with more than 3500 people across Australia hosting a Feast for Freedom.
From Malaysia, Harchana Perumal is the other creator of this year’s menus. She’s chosen four dishes that represent Malaysian cooking’s love of spice, particularly fresh galangal and turmeric, including a chicken sambal dish and stuffed tofu.
Registrations to host a feast close on March 31, but you have until April 30 to hold your dinner party.
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Emma Breheny – Emma is Good Food’s Melbourne-based reporter and co-editor of The Age Good Food Guide 2024.From our partners
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