This year my Musica Donavania events have been a little different. "Frog Night" featured all French music, as usual, but the cuisine was all from France's nearly forgotten West African Empire. The next was "Brit Night", which featured all English music, but the cuisine was all from England's nearly forgotten West African Empire.

The October event, was "Kraut Night", with all German music, and the cuisine was all from German East Africa, now known as Tanzania. The food got rave reviews as usual.

Kraut Night Menu

My next will be a Russian Winter event in December. We don't have Winter here, so we have to celebrate the season vicariously, and there's nowhere more "wintery" than Russia. In keeping with the previous events, the "Rusky" event will feature cuisine from Russia's former Central Asian Empire, "The Stans" (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan).

Interestingly, Uzbekistan includes significant Jewish and Korean influences. How the Jews got there is not clear, but Stalin exiled a half million Koreans to the region. Upon the fall of the Soviet Union, nearly all the Jews left for Israel and the U.S., but most of the Koreans are still there. Korean salads are popular and very much seen in the markets.

One problem for authenticity of my menu is that I won't be able to get horse meat, much used in the region, unless I smuggle it from Mexico. Even Congress realized the ban on horse meat was disastrous, but the do-gooders and the horsey set are still fighting to prevent it being available. Of course neither of those groups is at all interested in feeding many thousands of unwanted horses, so they get packed into 18 wheelers and sent to Mexico.

. . wear my Luftwaffe Soldier** Officer's Jacket (tropical, Africa Corps).

And I did play a few minutes of the Host Wessel Song to mark the end of the Romantic era and dominance of Germany and Austria in music. It was an old rendition sung by genuine Nazis. This was followed by music of the post-war era (Carl Orff, Catulli Carmina).

Playlist

** Luftwaffe Soldier - The Luftwaffe owned all the FLAK guns, including the famous 88s (FLAK-18 / FLAK-36) so the guys manning those guys were separate from the Wehrmacht soldiers, even when using the FLAK-36 against tanks. In North Africa, where they were first used against tanks, one British captive complained to his capturing officer that it was "very unfair to use FLAK guns against tanks".

That was Trader Joe's, many, many years ago. I tried it and found it to be horrid. Then the LA Times test kitchen tried it, and declared it inedible.

In the Russian Far East, bordering China, this was a convenient repository for Jews. At its peak, there were nearly 50,000 Jews, but upon the fall of the Soviet Union most of them emigrated. In 2010 there were only 1,628 left (less than 1% of the population), and there are probably a lot fewer now.

There was a lot of adjustment in Central Asia and far flung parts of Russia at the fall of the Soviet Union. Tatars, Ukrainians, Volga Germans and other eths who had been exiled returned to their homelands. The Jews also left, primarily for Israel and the United States, but also to other countries. A lot of Koreans seem to be OK with Central Asia, though - probably heard it gets real cold in Korea. Korean soups and salads have become quite popular in Uzbekistan.