Sounds tasty

From www.visitaruba.com

Giambo (Okra Soup/Gumbo) and
Funchi (Corn-Meal Mush) Serves 6-8

This dish is another typically Aruban dish: Giambo (pronounced ghee-yam-bo) is the Antillean gumbo, a thick, hearty soup. The pur?d okra gives it a slippery consistency.

Soak overnight:

1/2 lb. salted beef
Discard water. Place the beef in a heavy kettle with:

2 quarts fresh water
1 ham hock
1 or 2 onions
a few sprigs of parsley
1 or 2 carrots
1 bay leaf
1 celery stalk
Bring to a brisk boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about one and a half
hours, or until meat is tender.
Place in the simmering kettle.

1 lb. red snapper fillets
After a few minutes test the fish with the tines of a fork, and remove from
the broth when it flakes easily. Make a bite-size chunks of the fillets. Remove
the beef from the broth, cube and set aside with the fish. Strain the broth
and return it to the fire. Discard the ham hock and vegetables.
To the simmering broth add:

2 lbs. okra, washed and sliced
A few sprigs crushed yerba di hole, or fresh basil
1/2 tsp. black pepper
Simmer until the okra is tender. With a lele stick, or its equivalent, a wire
whisk, reduce the okra to a pur?. Return the cubed beef and red snapper
pieces to the kettle. Heat thoroughly and adjust seasonings.
Garnish giambo with:

1/4 lb. cooked shrimp


Funchi (Corn-Meal Mush) Serves 6

Funchi is a must with this delicious soup and we have therefore included the recipe as well:

Funchi, the Antillean staple, is a simple corn-meal preparation. It must be
vigorously stirred while cooking and to the rhytm of these rotations
old-time cooks repeated. Un pa mi, un pa bo, un pe. Funchi was then
scooped from the kettle with a little round calabash, and the "funchi ball"
was placed on each individual plate - "One for me, one for you, one for him".

Mix in heavy saucepan:

1 1/4 cups cold water
1 1/2 cups corn-meal
1 tsp. salt
Stir in:

1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 tbs. butter
Bring to a brisk boil over high heat and cook for three minutes. Continue
cooking an additional three minutes, stirring the funchi vigorously with a
wooden spoon or palu di funchi. When the mixture is very stiff and pulls
away from the sides of the pan, remove from the fire. Turn out in to a deep,
well-buttered bowl and cover with a plate. Now shake the funchi down in
the bowl, then invert it on a serving platter.


For a special Sunday breakfast fry sliced funchi in butter and serve with
crisp bacon and scrambled eggs.

Aruba

"At the foot of these fairy mountains [the Catskills of New York], the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among the trees ... a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the province ..." -- Irving, Rip Van Winkle.

Few are the reminders today that the plucky and late-forming nation of The Netherlands once had an empire in the New World. New Yorkers know it, for their great city began as a Dutch project. And down in the warm Caribbean Sea, a chain of islands still holds ties to the faraway land of tulips and windmills.

One of those islands is called Aruba and in the waning days of September, it will be my geographic study, as I revive this long-suffering project. Technically, it is not an independent nation, it is autonomous but still part of the Netherlands. There are many places such as this in the world, either by choice or by force.

Aruba is a speck in the sea, a mere 19.6 miles long and 6 miles wide, crammed with 90,500 people, but it enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean. Of course the official language is Dutch, though the native language is something called Papiamento.

When I have more time, I will upload a picture of the island's distinctive divi-divi trees.