aris shukuroglou
aris(tidis) shukuroglou, from cyprus.
in my family food has always been used to illustrate where we come from. the way one cooks a certain dish may bring strangers together and drive families apart. the choice of seasoning that goes into a dish defines your heritage.
my paternal grandfather comes from adana turkey where he arrived in cyprus as a refugee in the 1920s. at the time refugees arriving were taunted as ‘tourkospori’ (turkish seeds). the fact that these orthodox christians lived under the turkish state made their loyalty to orthodoxy suspect. after so many years you can still track these 'exchanged' people either by their surnames or food. after marrying my danish grandmother, his ottoman tales accompanied by my grans schnitzel at the dinner table made the stories behind migration, and subsequently food, even more intriguing.
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during the holidays i would join my maternal grandmother in making different cypriot dishes like flaounes and kourapiedes, while my grandfather, himself a refugee from lapithos, would gossip and rate our politicians depending on what food they ate behind the cameras. he would also carry around with him salt and grew chili peppers right next to the diy shower he had built next to the kitchen sink. in other words, we spent most of our time in the kitchen.
all measurements are weighed by the eye. add or remove anything according to your preferences.
aris(tidis) lapithis, my maternal grandfather of who i am named after
1. a kiofte: who is a kiofte?
ingredients:
eggs
potatoes
mince pork
mince beef
olive oil
salt-Pepper
fresh parsley
dried mint
chilli flakes
paprika
onions
garlic
cumin
cinnamon
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special thanks to themis georgiou for helping me cook, and philippos chrysostomou for the music
flavours tell stories of previous worlds and map the interconnectivity of empires, culture, people and trade.
2. makaronia tou fournou: reloaded
special thanks to themis georgiou for helping me cook. thanks to lia lapithi (mum) yiannis shukuroglou (dad), eva and niki lapithi (sisters) and nikos kouroussis for the stories. music produced by philoppos chrysostomou (cousin)
ingredients:
for the makaroni:
phat macaroni like bucatini or something
hallumi
salt-pepper
olive oil
mint
cinnamon
for the bechamel:
milk
coconut flour
butter
eggs
hallumi
nutmeg
salt-pepper
for the mice-meat:
onions
parsley
tomatoes
mince meat pork/beef
olive oil
salt-pepper
reproducing recipes as a dogma isolates. the fight over the creation and mastering of a dish is a nationalist myth.
3. souvlakia: empire to now
ingredients:
pork/beef/chicken/lamb cubes
cinnamon
lemon
yoghurt
olive oil
mastiha
onion
mint
tursi peppers
tomatoes
special thanks to philoppos chrysostomou for producing the music and for helping me cook
the ingestion of food tells a story of who your friends are/were and who exchanged cuisine according to the particularities and modalities of a given time. it is a biological narration beyond the current nation-state’s hegemony.
yasser arafat (left) and archbishop makarios (right)
4. koupep(k)ia: embrace tradition reject modernity
special thanks to petrol lapithis for the lecture. music production philippos chrysostomou
ingredients:
vine leaves
peppers
tomatoes
onion
walnuts
raisins
rice
thyme
mint
cumin
cinnamon
sumac
salt-pepper
lemon
olive oil
i see the kitchen as a focal point for the creation of a new future based upon taste, history and climate. food is the tangible fuel of all of civilisations, of all history.
nicosia old town/city centre
5. falafex*: tension in the east-med
special thanks to lia lapithi, greg economidis, nefeli kentoni, philippos chrysostomou and yannis komodromos for the conversation. and philippos chrysostomou for the music production
*in cyprus the addition of the 'x' at the end of a word means an approximation of the word/object at hand
ingredients:
chickpeas
lentils
bulgur
beatroot
lemon
cashews
walnuts
seeds
godji beri
onion
mushroom
sumac
paprika
cayen chili
garlic powder
thyme
mint
cumin
salt-pepper
cinnamon
flour
olive oil
everything is cake, even lenin
the kitchen is where you collectively produce and reproduce your body’s history and identity; the bathroom its private filtration. shit, an abstract mass, the outcome of all foods, understood only through its history (i.e. what you last ate) is the systematic filtration of all history and ideology.
6. ayrani sour: the kemalist hangover
ingredients:
erdogan's ayrani:
yogurt
water
salt
ataturk's sour:
bourbon
syrup
lemon
special thanks to lia lapithi. this video was part of her video performance 'sailing to my nearest neighbours'
recipes are used as points of references and for historical understanding. in other words yes, recipes are empirical data, the dish a case study and the kitchen an arena of praxis.
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan flexing his pasta
7. cuba libre: communism when?
ingredients:
rum
coke
more limes than you can handle
special thanks to lia lapithi. this video was part of her video performance 'sailing to my nearest neighbours'
