Side Dish Recipes From Around the World.

Calling these dishes sides is a habit most of the world does not share. The plate divided into a protein centerpiece with a supporting cast is one culinary model among many, and plenty of cuisines invert it entirely: Ethiopian meals are built on injera, with the stews spooned over it as accompaniment; a Korean table treats rice and banchan as the structure and the grilled meat as one more element among them; across South Asia the dal and the pickle are eaten every single day, and the meat is the occasional visitor. So the dishes here carry more weight than the category label suggests. Serbian ajvar, roasted and reduced for hours each autumn, is a preserving project the whole household takes part in. Kimchi is a fermentation tradition with regional dialects and a seasonal calendar. Mexican refried beans, Indian raita, Greek horta, Levantine pickled turnips and Japanese tsukemono all exist to do a specific job at the table — cooling, acidifying, adding funk, or resetting the palate between bites — and the meal falls apart without them. Read this collection as the load-bearing part of a cuisine rather than the garnish. Pick the sides first and let the main follow; that is the order in which much of the world decides what to cook.

114 recipes on this route