Maddogs of Diego - Mauritian Theatre at the San Francisco Fringe Festival !
As every year is the tradition, we celebrate the Mauritius Independance day amongs all the Mauritians in the San Francisco Bay Area and this year, we had a record turnout of over 70 Mauritians.
It was a great awesome crowd with tons and tons of food as is the case with any Mauritian gathering. We had so much variety and so much food that I did not get to even try all of it. Many new Mauritians showed up this year following the successes from our previous gatherings.
This year, we also had a silent auction and raffle to benefit a non-profit organization helping the less fortunate in Mauritius and we got a decent amount collected to send to the organization.
I've posted a few pictures of the different foods we have. Just to name a few of the foods that I can remember - we had, amongst others, Briani, Napolitaine, Gato Arouille, Gato Pima, Dipain Frire, Badia, Mine Frire, Carri Poule, Wantan, Lumpia, Sipec, Farata, Salade Mangue, Salade Laitue, Chatini Cotomili, Mazavarou, Roti Poulet, Poudine Mais, Mauritian Flag Black Forrest Cake, Dahi Wada, Baguette Fromage, Poudine Dipain, Carri Zac dans Massalla, Gratin Sousou, Chatini Coco, Rougaille etc..
Yesterday, we had a potluck to celebrate the Independance day of Mauritius for the Mauritians living in the bay area. I decided to cook something easy - sweet polenta pudding. It's a very common traditional sweet snack in Mauritius. Usually we don't add color to it, and it's yellow and plain. I decided to make it in the colors of our Mauritian flag. Making the pudding is very easy. Basically, boil some cornmeal, add some milk to it until it reaches a good thick consitency, then just add sugar, coconut and soaked raisins to it and let it set.
Mauritian National Anthem
Glory to thee, MotherlandO Motherland of mine.Sweet is thy beauty,Sweet is thy fragrance,Around thee we gatherAs one people, As one nation,In peace, justice and liberty.Beloved Country,May God bless theeFor ever and ever.March 12th 2010 is the Mauritian Independance Day Anniversary (42nd Anniversary). We celebrated it in the Bay Area today with a pot luck lunch and gathering of all the Mauritians of the Bay Area.
We had some 40 Mauritians from all over the Bay Area - San Francisco, San Jose, Hayward, Fremont, Sunnyvale etc.. Always great as usual to meet up with all the good friends and share good foods and laughter. This time, we had some pretty good Mauritian Food - Anju and Mrs Rajkoomar had bothed cooked Vegetarian Briani !! That was so delicious and one of the most popular dishes in Mauritius. It's a major pain to prepare due to the extensive preparation stage. It was great to have some of that hard work they put into making it. We also had the usual Gato Arouille (Grated Taro Cakes) and Achard Legumes from Yvette, Gato Piment from Aruna and multitude of cakes/deserts and other food by everybody else. Had a very wonderful time in good company and this time we had 3 new families that joined the party for the first time ! We finished off by singing the Mauritian National Anthem. Here are some pics of the delicious food and company that we had :)
As usual Caroline organized a dinner to celebrate the New Year for the Mauritian Community in the bay area. We had all voted for Indian Food in the South Bay and we picked Turmeric in Sunnyvale. It was a buffet and had great food. I loved their Goat Curry with bones, Malabar Fish Curry and all the other delicacies. They had so much food, that I did not even try it all out. We had a good turnout - about 30 Mauritians - this time though lots of kids ! It was great catching up with all the Mauritian folks !