SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
United Nations has 193 member states. A group of cooks that calls themselves United Noshes aims to re-create meals from all of them alphabetically as a series of dinner parties. Reporter Deena Prichep stopped by during the preparation of a recent meal to see what you can learn from cooking your way around the world.
DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: Jesse Friedman is pounding roasted eggplants with fish sauce in an enormous mortar and pestle.
JESSE FRIEDMAN: I'm going to throw the shallots in.
PRICHEP: Friedman is preparing recipes from Laos, a landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It's the 92nd country in the UN's roster, which means it's the 92nd United Noshes dinner. Friedman and his wife started the project three years ago. They've held dinners at their dining room table and large banquet halls with ingredients ranging from cashew juice to French charcuterie to fermented corn flour.
FRIEDMAN: One time I walked into an African market and the person behind the counter asked me so where do you do Peace Corps? (Laughter) It's the only time a non-African would come into their store.
PRICHEP: In addition to exploring the world's culinary diversity, Friedman was also happy to cook for people which doesn't always happen in New York City.
FRIEDMAN: And then from there, we decided to make it a fundraiser to fight hunger because we felt we had to acknowledge the fact that many people couldn't even enjoy the sorts of foods that we were celebrating from their own country.
PRICHEP: Diners give a small donation, and so far the project has raised over $20,000 - first for the U.N.'s world food program, and now for Mercy Corps, an international relief and development organization based in Friedman's new home of Portland, Oregon. In addition to learning about the culinary holdovers of colonialism and several dozen very distinct ways to cook rice, it's been a way for Friedman and his wife, Laura Hadden, to discover places with surprising food ways like the African islands of Comoros.
LAURA HADDEN: It was a lobster with a creme fraiche sauce - a vanilla creme fraiche sauce.
PRICHEP: Which, after months of fufu and collard greens, was a welcome change.
HADDEN: There's a lot of Central African countries that start with the letter C, so we were just kind of like OK, another one of these meals. And then we discovered this really great cuisine and learned a lot about the country through that cuisine.
PRICHEP: Of course, there have been meals that were less successful.
HADDEN: Which was the one we did with the yak butter?
FRIEDMAN: Bhutan.
HADDEN: Bhutan.
(LAUGHTER)
FRIEDMAN: The yak butter.
HADDEN: It was bad. It was bad.
FRIEDMAN: Butter soup, butter soup.
PRICHEP: About a dozen people are here sharing the meal from Laos. Some have taken part in other noshes, like the infamous Bhutan. But tonight's meal, with its aromatic sticky rice and piles of fresh herbs, is a bit more popular. Chris Tebben and her husband Cam are at their first nosh.
CHRIS TEBBEN: I especially liked the rice salad - I don't think that's the right name for it - with the sausage, which was really fantastic. He liked the Beerlao.
CAM TEBBEN: Yes, I like the Beerlao.
PRICHEP: But United Noshes' isn't just the money being raised. Friedman and Hadden say it's the connections that happen when you share a meal with the world - both at the table and beyond.
HADDEN: I had a cab driver in D.C. He's from Burkina Faso. And I said oh, I've had food from Burkina Faso. And he was like no, you haven't. And I was like yes, I have. So - and I told him the name of these little donuts, and he was like, oh my God, I used to sell those in the market with my mom when I was a kid.
PRICHEP: Uniting Noshes should be halfway through their project in a few weeks with a meal from Libya. For NPR News, I'm Deena Prichep in Portland, Oregon.