City of Women - Exchange

Thanks for the support of the IFA (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)

Collectives in the Kitchen:

Condô Cultural is an association of people interested in discussing ways and potentialities of living together, with a focus on valuing a daily life rich in encounters and exchanges.
From a space of coexistence and dialog between artists, cultural agents and the community, we exercise an expanded understanding of art, in which art and culture are deeply intertwined with life: it is also an artist who bakes bread, makes lunch, waters the plants and paints the walls.

Matriarchal Common Kitchen was founded at the Women's City* action in Esslingen, Germany, by Surja Ahmed, Sabrina Schray, Kristina Fritz, Marcela Majchrzak and Jessica Lipp. Since 2018 it has held various actions around the kitchen, dinners and conversations in which guests discuss the economic, social and political dimensions of food distribution and preparation and the invisible "care work" while cooking and eating together.

Pamonha recipe

Classic street and road food is a regular feature at June festivals. It's not a Brazilian privilege. The whole of Latin America is used to eating this wrapped corn dough. The principle of the dishes is similar, since corn was one of the staples of the Native American diet before the arrival of the Europeans. Pamonha, tamales and humitas are very similar, but each one has its own particularities. The dough can be sweet or savory; made from grated corn (like Brazilian pamonha and Mexican and Peruvian humitas); or from dried corn flour (as is the case with Mexican tamales).

Ingredients to make approximately 5 units:

- 6 ears of green corn

- 1 cup sugar

- Salt

- Pieces of firm cheese (e.g. minas cheese)

- Corn stalks

- Elastic, thread or ribbons made from the straw to tie it together

- For savory pamonhas, you can use salami, piquinho peppers, spring onions...

Directions:

1. choose the right corn. Not too soft and white, not too hard and yellow. The hair needs to be stuck to the ear of corn; if it comes off easily, it's past the point.

2. Cut off the ends of the cob and pick out the straw. Discard the outer straw and those that are too close to the cob. It's best to select large straws to make the cups.

3. Remove the hair. This can be done with an ordinary toothpick, but you need to remove the hair from the corn.

4. Grate and grind the corn. The traditional grater in the interior of Brazil is made with a nail and a sheet of zinc. The foil is turned upside down and nailed to a wooden board. You can also remove the corn kernels with a knife and beat them in a blender with a little water.

5. Strain. You need to strain it through a fine sieve to avoid corn husks in the dough. This step is optional and depends on the tradition of each region.

6. Season. For each recipe, add 1 cup of sugar and a pinch of salt - taste and adjust the flavor. Mix well, you can also add grated coconut at this point. The dough should be a little sweeter because it loses some of its flavor when cooked in water. The pinch of salt is to emphasize the sweetness of the pamonha. You can also season with a pinch of sugar and a teaspoon of salt to make the recipe salty. Some people add a tablespoon of butter to the dough for both savory and sweet recipes.

7. Make cups, fill and tie. Boil the straws to soften them. Twist the straw around three or four fingers and leave a little left over. Fold the end up. The dough should be below the mouth of the cup. Fill with a slice of minas cheese. Repeat the procedure with the top straw: go around and fold over. Tie it well so it doesn't leak.

8. Cook over high heat for an hour. Don't stir the pamonhas while they are cooking in the pan, or the batter will leak out. Put straws and corn cobs over them to cover.

Kartoffelpuffer mit Apfelmus // Potato pancakes with apple compote

Ingredients for approximately 3 people:

- 1 kg of potatoes

- 1 onion

- 2 eggs

- 2 tablespoons of flour

- Salt

- Pepper and nutmeg to taste

- Frying oil

Directions:

1. For the pancakes, the first step is, of course, to peel the potatoes. To do this, we take the peeler, peel the potatoes and put them in a bowl of water. This will remove any remaining peel. We remove the skins from the onions too.

2. Once everything is peeled, grate the potatoes as finely as possible in a bowl using a grater or a food processor. Grate the onion as well. Once everything has been grated, place the potatoes with the onion on a clean tea towel and squeeze to remove as much liquid as possible from the potatoes. This will ensure that the pancakes are nice and crispy.

3. Now put enough oil to fry the pancakes in a pan with high edges to heat it up. While the oil is heating up, put the potatoes back in the bowl and add the eggs and flour. Then season the batter with salt, pepper and nutmeg and stir everything to combine.

4. Take some of the batter and carefully press it together with your hands to form a pancake and fry it over a slightly lower heat until the edges are golden brown. Turn the pancake over in the pan to fry on both sides. Continue this process until the batter is used up and all the pancakes are crispy and delicious. Now the only question is: do you serve your potato pancakes savory or sweet?

Apple jam

Ingredients:

- 1 kg of apples

- 100ml of water

- A squeeze of lemon

- Cloves, cinnamon sticks, vanilla or other spices to taste

Directions:

1. Peel and core the apple and cut into small pieces. You can also process the apples without peeling them, this not only avoids waste but also makes your recipe healthier. Most of the vitamins and minerals are found in the peel.

2. Place the apples in a bowl of water. You can also add the juice of half a lemon to prevent the apples from turning brown. Bring everything to the boil and leave the apples on a low/medium heat for 20 minutes. Now you can mash the apples coarsely, so you have a homemade apple compote, or you can mash them a lot and turn them into a puree. If you want it a little creamier, add a little water.