Rena Sindi, a young Manhattan socialite known for her party-giving prowess, has this sage advice for home entertainers: “Theme parties yield the highest chance for success, and ethnic is the easiest way to go.” Her own repertoire includes parties with Vietnamese, Mexican, Hawaiian, Middle Eastern and Chinese themes, which have proved so successful that she has a newly released book for do-it-yourselfers: “Be My Guest: Theme Party Savoir-Faire” (Assouline, $34.95).
Colin Cowie, party planner to the stars, agrees with Sindi: “People are always looking for something new to hold their interest, and ethnic dining is a good way to do this. We’re always trying to find an ethnic area we haven’t explored.”
In his case, the diversity of his homeland, South Africa, gives him plenty of ground to cover. “The cuisine embraces Portuguese, Dutch, English, Indian, German, Indonesian and tribal influences,” he says. This theme, and many more such as Cuban, Moroccan, Mexican and Indian, are documented in his latest book on soirees, “Dinner After Dark” (Clarkson Potter, $40).
Ethnic fare has become big business–we eat it in restaurants, bring it home, watch how it’s made on TV, buy books on it and cook it at home–and its popularity is growing. “We get letters from our viewers regarding this all the time,” says Bob Tuschman, the Food Network’s vice president of programming and production. “They’re interested in hearing about ethnic cooking with respect to a wide variety of cuisines.” Programs such as “Melting Pot,” “Food Nation with Bobby Flay” and the network’s newest addition last year, “My Country, My Kitchen,” have been developed to cater to this niche.
Books on international cuisines also are proliferating. “We started publishing international cookbooks about a decade ago, but right now it’s a really huge area–especially anything about Asian cuisine, because now you can find all the ingredients in grocery stores,” says Rod Hansen, a spokesman for Tuttle Publishing, the American arm of the Singapore-based company Periplus. The firm produces more than 60 titles in this category.
Even specialty publishers, such as Chicago-based Surrey Books, are stirring the pot. A specialist in low-fat, low-calorie and special-diet cuisines, Surrey recently released books that combine these topics with international and ethnic fare, such as “The Vegetarian Gourmet’s Easy International Recipes” by Bobbie Hinman ($19.95) and “Skinny Mexican Cooking” by Sue Spitler ($12.95).
The grocery industry has become involved in perhaps the biggest way. “So many of the items you could find only in ethnic grocery stores just a few years ago are now at the mainstream chains,” says Evelyn Thompson, head of Chicago Ethnic Cuisine, a company that gives personalized tours of ethnic grocery stores. She founded her business in 1995, after noticing that “suddenly, everyone wanted to cook ethnic, but they didn’t know where to go for the ingredients.”
The best part of this trend is that it holds something for everyone. It’s easy to pull together an interesting, relatively authentic and delicious meal with almost any ethnic theme.
Though the interest in ethnic cuisine has been growing in recent years, “it’s not a new thing,” points out Jeffery Steingarten, food critic for Vogue magazine and author of “The Man Who Ate Everything” (Vintage Books, $14). He notes that the 14-volume “Foods of the World” series, published by Time-Life Books from 1968-70, inspired enthusiasts across the country to form clubs that produced themed dinner parties on a regular basis.
“The notion of ethnic dining has been with us for a considerable amount of time,” adds Gary Alan Fine, a sociology professor at Northwestern University in Evanston. “In the first half of the century, we saw the rise of Chinese and Italian restaurants, then in the last half, Mexican. It’s become standard American cuisine; but we’re tired of it, so we’re looking for the exotic, rarer strains,” he points out. “Cuisines that capture the moment, whether [they] be time-saving, healthful or a cultural trend, take off.”
Travel also has driven the trend. “Thanks to globalization, people are going to different places, trying new cuisines and bringing them home,” notes Ross Koppel, an adjunct professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It’s all part of the need to find something new and impress others, he says. Fine agrees: “To say that we’re eating Nigerian or Sri Lankan food is to say that we’re knowledgeable about that culture. In this day and age, that’s an elite orientation.”
There’s another attraction. For the host, ethnic entertaining can simplify the process. If you don’t feel like getting all the right ingredients and mastering new dishes, you can supplement the menu with takeout from the many ethnic restaurants and groceries in the city. Or you can stage your dinner party at an ethnic restaurant, which in many cases will feed and entertain you at bargain prices.
A sampling of authentic eateries is on page 18, and a listing of some favorite sources for ethnic entertaining begins on page 24.
