Dear London Town

The Big Lunch is an annual event that takes place across the country. I was unable to participate last year, so I was excited to be involved this time around. The website helps locate lunches in your neighborhood. You can start one if you feel there is a gap, or join someone else nearby. I joined a group called Latitudinal Cuisine, a supper club that prepares foods based on a latitude marker.

Longitude 199 East means we’re about to enter our third century of scans, and feels like we’re already racing back home to 0. The stream of local latitudinal fare’s still way non-mainstream; We start our cooking trail at the Cook Islands, 15 tiny volcanic islands and atolls covering 2.2million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean. Mangaia is notable for its abundance of coconuts (zzz) and pupu (sic) – the snail shells painstakingly threaded into its famous ‘eis’ neckbands, while pukapuka, like our group, is renowned for its beautiful girls No kidding: the US once claimed sovereignty over many of the islands under its 1857 guano act – paraphraseable, pre-Rumsfield, as ‘your shit is my shit.’

Further North Jarvis island was mined for just this poopoo prize. Its sole resident committed suicide in 1883 and the island is now uninhabited, “unincorporated and unorganised.” The adjacent Line Islands stretch over 2,000 km from the confetti of Kiribati (or Gilberts) in the West towards Hawaii. Kiribati has its own London & Poland on Christmas Island Though one of the world’s poorest countries and dependent on exports of fish and coconut, the former has also been home to all sorts of hi-tech developments, from the laying of the Pacific cable to Japan’s current development of a Spaceport. J. Maarten Troost wrote the autobiographical “The Sex Lives of Cannibals” here. Smiling whilst dancing is generally considered vulgar here.

And then, at last, as we alight on mainland Alaska, we find our 2nd US state: the nineteen moments of Hawaii (once Sandwich), where everyone greets each other with love and their traditional feast is called a luau. Like so many of these gorgeous Pacific islands, Hawaii seems to exemplify our Latitudinal travels, blending tourism and agriculture, its islands awash with macadamia, papaya, coffee beans and drinkers. Martha says she’ll join us with her hula later.

Avarua or Arorangi, Hanapepe or Honolulu, Kekaha or Kilauea, who’s hitching a Shoreditch ride with us?

So there I was at Shoreditch Church and enjoying a beautiful day of sunshine and a whole lot of strangers – the nicest strangers ever. While they weren’t all from my neighborhood, they were all frequent participants in the Latitudinal dining scheme. Everyone brought a dish inspired by one of the countries on the 199 marker, which meant lots of fish, fruit, salad … and a surprising lack of SPAM! Each person had an opportunity to talk about what they brought, ingredients, cooking methods, etc. Everything was good, but my vote goes for the slow cooked chicken legs. Tasty!

Photo via Latitudinal Cuisine

I made an ‘Alaskan’ salmon and dill dip, which I spread over some salad leaves, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and served with lemon on the side. The dip is quite good and easy to make. The recipe follows:

1 (14 3/4 oz.) can salmon, drained <- I had fresh packaged smoked salmon from M&S
1 c. dairy sour cream
3 tbsp. green onions, chopped
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. dill weed
1/4 tsp. salt
Dash bottled hot pepper sauce <- I did not add this because I did not have any on hand

Photo via Latitudinal Cuisine

I also made Hawaiian nut loaf. It took a bit more than the 50-60 minutes it stated on the recipe, but other than it being quite crumbly, the taste was good.

Ingredients
* 2 eggs
* 1/2 cup butter, softened
* 1 cup white sugar
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1 (15 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
* 1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together eggs, butter and sugar. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.
Stir the flour mixture into the egg mixture. Fold in the pineapple and nuts. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

There were a lot of wonderful dishes to try and everyone was so nice. It really is a great event and such a nice way to meet other people. I hope to meet up with the Latitudinal group again as they continue to travel the world culinarily.