I attended a potluck dinner many years ago in Romania.
As a matter of fact, we stayed in Transylvania to celebrate my godson’s wedding.
The couple, working in Romania at the time, provided us with detailed instructions of what we would do during the week-long festivities.
Included in that list were several dining opportunities.
One of the nights, they asked guests to put together a potluck meal.
They asked several Americans to bring food peculiar to our country to surprise the Moldovan and Romanian guests.
The groom’s mother misunderstood the directions and brought a case of Peeps in the shape of Christmas trees, along with several packages of the classic bird.
Some of the Romanian guests loved Peeps.
I carried a pound of peanut butter M&Ms in my luggage for part of my potluck contribution.
Dinner needs and a Potluck cooking challenge
Our party–16 Americans and three Moldovans– spent five nights at a hotel in the medieval walled city of Brasov.
Romanian friends also joined us during the festivities.
This particular hotel featured small suites with a bedroom, kitchenette, and bathroom. We rented almost all the rooms in the hotel.
On party day, many of us wandered down the street to the open-air market attached to a local grocery store.
I needed several eggs for my potluck contribution.
Because I love prowling stores overseas, I jumped at an opportunity to shop in Brasov’s market.
It’s always fun to see familiar items and not-so-familiar items for sale, not to mention the different ways/forms you purchase food.
Packaging often looks different, and I see food I don’t even recognize.
It’s an adventure.
Several people made fruit salads from fresh fruit purchased in the open-air market.
Someone made a potato salad and another a green salad.
Vegetables were a must, too, along with the local sausages.
We returned to our hotel ready to cook.
I brought a brownie mix for my traditional American potluck contribution.
Unfortunately, I’d forgotten the challenge of baking in Europe. None of our kitchenettes had an oven–but they all came with stoves and a microwave.
The Internet saved the day.
By setting a drinking glass upside down in a glass pie pan, I baked brownies in the microwave in under ten minutes.
What did we eat?
By the time we were done preparing the potluck, the table groaned and eventually, so did we.
You always get sausage in central Europe, and it’s usually delicious.
Someone found corn chips, but I don’t remember if they made salsa or not.
You certainly couldn’t get Mexican chiles in Romania, but substitutions can go a long way.
Nothing tasted the way I expected it to–particularly the brownies–but the fun was sampling so many different foods.
The Moldovans had never been outside of their neighboring country before. They’d never heard of a brownie.
So, they had no idea they weren’t supposed to look like a flat thick cookie with a hole in the middle (similar to a flat angel food cake).
They loved them.
The Americans all laughed.
Between us, we ate the entire case of Peeps by the end of the night!
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