Recently, a salesperson I was on the phone with asked me, making small talk, where I was from. When I said "Romania," he retorted quickly and quite confidently: "Ah, that's in Asia, isn't it?" Well, almost...
For most international students, incidents like this are nothing rare, though we may forget at times that our countries and cultures are very little known to the public at large. Fortunately, programs such as the Cosmopolitan Club's International Dinners help to remedy the situation, and on a campus with a large international student population like the U of I's, this is essential.
On September 10th, members of the Romanian Student Club (RSC) put on the first International Evening and Dinner of the semester. The menu, cooked by Adelina Paunescu, Doina Costescu, Elvira Badica, Tudor Stanescu, Ruxandra Costescu, Ana-Maria Popa, Ileana Costescu, Ciprian Demeter, and Adrian Iordache consisted of white bean paste and tomatoes filled with cheese as appetizers, sour vegetable soup as a first course, stuffed peppers (with meat and vegetarian) as a second course, and apple strudel and "halva" for dessert.
It might be interesting to point out a few things about the menu. The high vegetarian-to-non-vegetarian ratio of these dishes was due in part to an effort to accommodate the diets of as many people as possible, in part to the fact that some members of the group are vegetarian themselves, and finally also to the fact that traditional Romanian cuisine incorporates a large number of Lenten, strictly vegetarian dishes. All of the dishes on the menu were chosen because the cooks agreed unanimously (with a few hesitations here and there) that they represented Romanian cuisine very well. The sour soup incorporates an ingredient called "bors"-a liquid made of fermented wheat bran-which is not found in the U.S. (We had to use the powdered form, brought the previous month all the way from Romania.) The "halva" is a dessert fairly common in Romania, but of Turkish provenance.
The evening's presentation consisted of a slide show of folk costumes from various regions of Romania and was given by Ioana Zafiu, herself wearing the RSC's own costume, from the Vrancea district in Moldova (eastern Romania). This slide show can also be found on the Club's Web page, at:
http://www.uiuc.edu/ro/RomClub/resources.html
The audience, made up of about 50 people, had a chance, before and after the presentation and in-between mingling sessions, to browse through some Romanian cards, photos, calendars, books, and artifacts brought by RSC members.
After all, what better way of learning things about another culture than through food and pictures, and doing it alongside with others? Thankfully, Cosmo Club has International Dinners every month.
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| Ioana Zafiu, our presenter. | RSC president and her sister, running away with the soup. |
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| The dinner and the servers.… |