Author: John Fladd

Fest features African-Caribbean and Latin communities

The We Are One Festival is something of a legacy for Sudi Lett, and like all legacies it comes at a cost.

“I’m excited to do it, “ he said. “It’s one of those things that I feel good about doing, but it is work and it takes a lot of time. We’ve been going at this since April. So I’m excited.”

The We Are One Festival got its start more than 20 years ago by Lett’s parents.

“My folks organized the first African Caribbean celebration back in 2001,” he said. “We initially started [the Festival] with this Haitian woman named Marcy Boucher. She was talking about that there wasn’t really anything for Caribbean people in terms of cuisine or entertainment or anything. And so they really went out of their way to kind of create this space for people in Manchester and in New Hampshire.”

Since then, the Festival has grown. Fifteen years ago, it joined with Manchester’s Latino Festival, making it the oldest Latino-and-African-centered cultural festival in New Hampshire, with the goal of reducing feelings of social isolation among Manchester’s Black and Spanish-speaking communities. A big part of that is the food.

“There’s a lot of overlap between African-Caribbean and Latin cuisine.” Lett said. “I think the common thread is that these cuisines, even though they overlap with each other, are really new food for this area of New England. A lot of the cultures here are not as familiar with things like goat meat and oxtail and even things like sweet plantains for that matter.”

Working with Manchester Caribbean restaurants, like La Fierra (521 Wilson St., 518-5644) and Don Quijote (362 Union St., 622-2246, donquijoteunion.com), Lett hopes to present new foods to some of the city’s residents, and give a taste of home to others.

“We have oxtail, African rice, [Caribbean] curry chicken and fried chicken,” he said. Other restaurants will serve chicharron — crispy, fried pork skin — stewed chicken, rice and beans, empanadas and pastelitos. “Every year so many people I see in the park, they always come out and say, ‘Hey, Sudi, we’re here for the food!’ I think that’s awesome.”

In addition to the food, We Are One will feature music, dancing and other expressions of Caribbean and Latin American culture. Master percussionist Theo Martley of the Akwaaba Ensemble (akwaabaensemble.com) will perform, as will the band Tuca del Norte.

After all these years, Lett is still excited about We Are One.

“The festival combines obviously African, as well as African American culture, music, food, as well as Latino and Latino American culture, music and food,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity. We’re hoping to get some really good weather because we go rain or shine. Some years, we’ve had unbelievably great weather. And I mean unbelievably great, like 71 to 75. But also weather, where it’s rained or it’s been 92 and it’s just so hot outside. It’s a great thing for me because it really just kind of shows a little bit about life, like the years come and go. Some years are better than others, some years are great.”

Lett says that regardless of the weather, the food will be spectacular.

”You can’t argue taste, man. You can’t argue taste.”

We Are One Festival
Saturday, Aug. 17, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Veterans Memorial Park, 723 Elm St., Manchester
Admission is free.
Visit manchesterproud.org/the-event/we-are-one-festival.

Lebanese food is on the menu for the annual fest at Our Lady of the Cedars

“Mahrajan” — pronounced “MAR-john” — is an Arabic word that carries meanings of “festival” or “celebration.” For more than 50 years, Our Lady of the Cedars Church in Manchester has been throwing a mahrajan for the community every summer to share Lebanese food and culture with its neighbors.

“The food is Lebanese,” the Rev. Thomas Steinmetz, the Church’s pastor, said. “The parish itself was founded by people from Lebanon. And now, we have a real mix of Lebanese people and everybody else here. The Lebanese [parishioners] have taught a lot of the other people how to do [this type of] cooking too.”

Lebanese cooking has many similarities to the foods from other Mediterranean countries. A Greek or Israeli visitor to the Mahrajan Festival would feel very much at home.

“We call it a Middle Eastern food festival,” said Nikki Bullock, one of the parishioners responsible for the food, “but the emphasis is really on Lebanese specialties. We do have the classics — the lamb kebab and the chicken kebabs and the grape leaves are a big favorite — but we also have some things that maybe you can’t get as easily in this state. So we have our lamb shawarma and we have freshly made falafel, which is my favorite part of the festival.”

Unlike many food festival coordinators, who are so busy that they don’t have an opportunity to actually eat any of the food, Bullock is happy to work right next to the falafel ladies. ”So there’s crunchy, fresh falafel balls all weekend, so that’s great,” she said. “There’s just lots of home food for people who grew up with it, but also, because there’s not really many places to get it around here, it’s definitely exciting for us to be able to share it.”

Almost no Middle Eastern party would consider itself a proper mahrajan without lamb.

“Well, of course, I think the lamb is always a big hit,” Steinmetz said, “and we have that in two forms. One is the [charcoal-grilled] lamb kebabs, which is traditional, and the other is lamb shawarma.” This is a cone of thinly sliced meat that is roasted on a slow-turning vertical spit. “We also have chicken kebabs and chicken shawarma. But along with that, it’s a lot of the typical Arabic, Middle Eastern, Lebanese fare. What comes to mind is the stuffed grape leaves, which are very popular.”

The stuffed grape leaves are a good example of the attention the cooks behind the Festival bring to the details of each dish.

“We try to make everything that we can ourselves,” Bullock said. “You know, the grape leaves? Those leaves are picked from our vines. The whole church goes and picks their grape leaves. Our vine is my great-grandmother’s grape vine, so it’s special. It’s really wonderful because it is sort of this family affair, whether we’re related by blood or not.”

Guests can look forward to other Lebanese specialties like hummus, tabbouleh and kibbeh, but for many of the regulars the highlight of the Festival is the desserts, particularly the baklawa. “We call it ‘bet-LAY-wah’ in Lebanese,” Bullock said, explaining that there will be several varieties of the pastry. “We have walnut, we have pistachio, and we have a chocolate-hazelnut version. And you can buy a mix of those, which is great. And the Lebanese baklawa is a little lighter than the Greek, because It has a simple syrup versus the honey.”

This year’s festival is bittersweet for Bullock. Her mother, Marylou Lazos, whom she lost recently, was the long-time co-chair of the Festival. “She was the heart of our kitchen,” said Bullock. “All the things I know, I learned from her; our food definitely started with her in her heart.”

The from-the-heart aspect is the whole point, said Steinmetz, and something that makes him proud. “We want this to be a good kind of family-oriented event for people. We get to enjoy having people here enjoying the event. That’s a pleasure for us as well.”

Mahrajan Middle Eastern Food Festival
Our Lady of the Cedars Melkite Church, 140 Mitchell St., Manchester
Friday, Aug. 16, from 5 to 10 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 17, from noon to 10 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 18, from noon to 5 p.m.
Admission is free. Visit bestfestnh.com.