A gift of fire

In this week's poetry shot, we explore food, flags and friendship

Dutch kale mash (boerenkoolstamppot) with sausage and Fatalii pepper hot sauce.

Fire captured like a
genie, from peppers coloured
like my hometown flag. 

There are not many countries in the world, in which the seat of government is not the same as the capital. That is only one of the reasons my hometown The Hague is special. Another reason is that because it was the seat of government, many people who arrived in The Netherlands from the former colonies made it their home, bringing with them, among many other things, their food. Food that is flavoured with spices and… peppers.

I am also partially a product of the colonial past of The Netherlands, from which I inherited a love for spicy food. And peppers. Where part of my roots lie in the East, some of the best peppers come from the food culture of the West. In the Surinamese cuisine, you will find a spicy condiment called sambal. It’s made of a yellow pepper that looks like a very cute, tiny bell pepper. It isn’t. Don’t eat it raw. Please. If used in the right, tiny, quantity, it’s a delicious condiment, but if you get too much, these cute little peppers known as Madame Jeanette, will burn you very badly.

Late last year, I saw a post from a chef in Los Angeles. He had scored a nice supply of beautiful peppers and had made a special hot sauce from that. He had posted a photo as NFT and collectors of the NFT were entered into a draw. The prize: a bottle of said hot sauce. I was intrigued. Food, peppers, NFTs. Three things I love. So, I entered the draw and… won. The bottle of the hot sauce was mine. It had to travel from LA to Paris, and it did so very well. The sauce is made from the Fatalii pepper. The taste is like the taste of the Madame Jeanette. The Fatalii even looks a bit like the Mademe Jeanette. But the Fatalii is not just yellow. It’s yellow and green. The colours of my hometown’s flag.

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Poésie de la vie

Talking about city flags, I really liked this video about the design of flags:

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Poetry elsewhere

Where is home when you are constantly on the move, when you are a nomad?

Reena Kapoor

explores this magnificently in the poem Heart’s hometown:

Heart’s hometown

What is the connection between brothers and sisters, between a mother, father and their child? In her poem CORD, Ana Maria Caballero brilliantly explores these connections, specifically from a mother’s perspective. And uniquely, this poem is inscribed on a Bitcoin, and on auction at Sotheby’s. Enjoy CORD by Ana Maria Caballero.

In her poem 33,

Julia Fae

remembers the time she went home to say goodbye. A beautiful piece of poetry.

A Poetic Share