Cooking a dish from every country, A to Z: One Astorian's intense hobby

Boza: a Bulgarian fermented wheat beverage. Eze: a hot sauce popular in Bhutan. Bogobe: sorghum porridge from Botswana.

Image source: Mark Rinaldi of Cooked Earth

Astoria resident Mark Rinaldi has not only eaten them all, he’s made them all from scratch in his kitchen. Apparently, cooking is just an intense hobby for him, and he’s documenting his efforts on his blog, Cooked Earth. The goal is to cook something from every single country in the world (including places that might not be widely recognized as countries, like Abkhazia). He’s going alphabetically, and is currently on the letter B.

It’s certainly not going to be easy or quick, and that seems to be the point for Rinaldi, whose blog doesn’t gloss over the challenges of finding rare ingredients, getting food to come out right, and even stomaching strange tastes. Nancy Ruhling recently profiled him in her Astoria Characters column, where he describes himself as “a researcher at heart,” and says he “really love[s] excavating the recipes.”

A lot of Rinaldi’s sources are right in the diverse neighborhood – he mentions finding the Bulgarian cheese, sirene, at Parrot Coffee on Ditmars Boulevard; and enjoying Balkan somun bread at Ukus on 30th Avenue. He completes most recipes with ingredients from around NYC, although sometimes has to resort to ordering something online.

Taking into account the level of thoroughness he seems to demand of himself, and the fact that he often makes multiple dishes for each country, it might be several years before he makes it through the alphabet. Follow along with Rinaldi’s worldly food-preparation adventures to find out: Cooked Earth: The world in my stomach, from A to Z.