Traditional foods to sustain culture, build cultural center
A little Portuguese flavor here, a little Creole flavor there, a splash of African spices, and you've got traditional Cape Verdean foods.
If you weren't at the Oak Grove Cape Verdean Cultural Center picnic and dance fundraiser on Sunday, you missed out on some good homemade food.
Jag, linguica, gufungo, and catchupa were all on the menu, along with hot dogs and hamburgers.
Unfamiliar with the foods? Here's a little bit about each:
- Jag is a rice and beans dish flavored with onions, paprika, bay leaves, salt and pepper. To learn how to make it, click here.
- Linguica is a Portuguese sausage and an item served in many restaurants in the area, often with eggs.
- Gufungo is a sweet, fried, bread-like treat.
- Catchupa (or Gatchupa in some places), often referred to as the national dish of Cape Verde, can include many things and can be served in many ways. Dry or soupy, with fish or with meat, simple or filled with ingredients. It's a stew of coursy ground corn, called hominy, and beans with fish or meat.
In addition to the food, the picnic and dance fundraiser featured a gathering of familiar faces and greetings of hugs and kisses.
In attendance were 93-year old Mary Paulette and 101-year old Mary Veira Rose.
Rose, the Cultural Center's historian, recalled her childhood growing up in Onset and her education in a segregated school on Onset Avenue.
She and Paulette, along with board members of the center and members of the community, are gathering funds to build a cultural center at the location of that very school. All the proceeds from the fundraiser, which included bouncy houses for children and traditional Cape Verdean music from a Cape Verdean band, went toward funds for the construction of the building.
Read more about Rose and the efforts to create a cultural center here.
The cultural center still has a long way to go to reach their goal, and all donations are welcome. To donate, please visit the center's website at http://www.oakgrovecvcc.com/home.html. Checks can also be mailed to P.O. Box 1100, Onset, MA 02558.
