Eat Matters

New Year's Recipe

                                                                                                   
Take twelve fine, full-grown months; see that these are thoroughly free from old memories of bitterness, rancor and hate, cleanse them completely from every clinging spite; pick off all specks of pettiness and littleness; in short, see that these months are freed from all the past—have them fresh and clean as when they first came   from the great storehouse of Time. Cut these months into thirty or thirty-one equal parts. Do not attempt to make up the whole batch at one time (so many persons spoil the entire  lot this way) but prepare one day at a time.

Into each day put equal parts of faith, patience, courage, work (some people omit this ingredient and so spoil the flavor of the rest), hope, fidelity, liberality, kindness, rest (leaving this out is like leaving the oil out of the salad dressing— don’t do it), prayer, meditation, and one well-selected resolution. Put in about one teaspoonful of good spirits, a dash of fun, a pinch of folly, a sprinkling of play, and a heaping cupful of good humor.
                                                                                             -Anonymous

                                             HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

 

My Kind of Xmas Candy

What would be Christmas like without candies? I couldn't imagine. It is just like asking what would Christmas be without Santa Claus?  That would be the season without its zing.

My favorite kind of Christmas candy is not chocolate. Don't get me wrong. I do like chocolate. I crave for it like any other sweet-toothed person on the planet.  Chocolates are the given sweetener of  celebrations, hands down. On Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Halloween, you name it, chocolates are always present and never fail to inspire the lingering feeling of a celebrated moment. Love, romance, friendship, appreciation, bonding -- they seem to melt, or thrive, in the sweet, and brooding, chocolate concoction. There is something mysterious and seductive in the dark flavors of chocolate.  It melts any resistance. It is possessive in a cuddly, comfy way.

For  Christmas, my palate seeks something sweet and playful, a hint that reminds me of childhood and childish pranks, of songs and games, innocent laughter and boisterous fun, something that is balmy and lights up the spirit. For this craving, nothing gratifies more than the taste of peppermint which is the flavor of the Christmas taffy.

No wonder my four year old and I can eat tons of  the chewy Christmas taffies. I could have collected the wrappers to evidence our candy eating compulsion. I just love Christmas taffies. Simple joys. Bad for the molars but what the heck when they lift the spirit.

Christmas taffies are the seasonal version of the saltwater taffy which originally came from the resort town of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Salt water taffies were first sold as homemade candy in the beach on the boardwalk in a variety of flavors and colors any kid can think of at the tail end of the 19th century. They are made by boiling sugar, corn syrup, and the flavors until the mixture reaches about 270F or the soft-crack stage. Once cooled, it undergoes a pulling process.The pieces made from the mixture are then wrapped in wax paper to preserve the "chewiness." I haven't tried making it but here is the recipe if you are up to it.

The method of making taffy reminds me of the indigenous confection popular in the sugar producing towns of Panay and Negros. It is called  Butong-butong (pull-pull). In Luzon, it is called Tira-tira. Butong-butong is made of sugar cane juice and coconut milk processed by pulling to a solid, sticky consistency. Eating this brown and snake-like candy is an enjoyable challenge to the mandible.

The name Salt Water Taffy  is ironic as the candy is not made by brining in a saline solution. Salt has nothing to do with its name except in the legend attached to it. "The most popular, although probably apocryphal, story concerns a candy-store owner whose shop was flooded during a major storm in 1883. His entire stock of taffy was soaked with salty Atlantic Ocean water. When a customer asked if he had any taffy for sale, he is said to have offered some "salt water taffy" (wikipedia.org).

 

 

 

Don't Steal My Stollen

I was on the last stretch of my grocery shopping  a few  days before Christmas when I stumbled upon this curious looking   bread. It looked like a deformed loaf bathed in confectioners sugar. I  examined its red  box  which  read: Marzipanstollen. Because curiosity shielded my eyes from the price tag, , it landed  in  my grocery cart. It  turned out to be  Stollen, a German  holiday cake that adorns  many a German's Christmas table.

Stollen is a  much lighter, paler version of fruitcake ( more cake, less candied fruit) with a marzipan filling in the middle.

Stollen is a bread-like cake traditionally made in Germany, usually eaten during the Christmas season as Weihnachtsstollen or Christstollen. Stollen (originally Striezel) was created in Dresden in around 1450, and the most famous Stollen is still the Dresdner Stollen, sold, among other places, at the local Striezelmarkt Christmas market.

 

Stollen is a light airy fruitcake made with yeast, water and flour, and usually dried citrus peel, dried fruit, almonds, and spices such as     cardamom and cinnamon; the dough is quite low in sugar. The finished cake is sprinkled with icing sugar. The traditional weight is 2kg, but smaller sizes are now available. (wikepedia.org)

My little snooping revealed that this loaf of a cake is steeped in German history and tradition. The evolution of its flavor  owes much to religious norms and clerical accommodations.

The old name Striezel was from strüzel or stroczel, "awaken" (Old Prussian: troskeilis), which came to mean "loaf of bread". The shape of the cake was originally meant to represent the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes, and was one of a number of baked goods created to represent aspects of the Crucifixion: the pretzel represented Jesus' bonds, and the (hole-less) donut (Pfannkuchen) represented the sponge given to Jesus on the cross. However, the Stollen reminded Erzgebirge miners of the entrance to a mine tunnel, which is the literal meaning of Stollen, and they renamed it.

When Stollen was first baked, the ingredients were very different. The Advent season was a time of fasting, and bakers were not allowed to use butter, only oil, so the cake was tasteless and hard. In 1647, Prince Elector Ernst and his brother Duke Albrecht decided to remedy this by writing to the then Pope, Pope Innocent X. They explained that Saxon1691 others were also permitted to use butter, but with the condition of having to pay annually 1/20th of a gold Gulden to support the building of the Freiberg Cathedral. The ban on butter was removed when SaxonyProtestant. bakers needed to use butter as oil was so expensive and hard to come by, and had to be made from turnips, which was unhealthy. The Pope granted the use of butter without having to pay a fine - but only for the Prince-Elector and his family and household. In  became

Over the centuries the cake changed from being a simple, fairly tasteless "bread" to a sweeter cake with richer ingredients such as marzipan, although the traditional Stollen is today still not as sweet as the copies made around the world.   (www.wikipedia..org)

Stollen is  a  prized German pastry that its  production is  regulated.

The true Dresden Stollen, however, is produced in the city and distinguished by a special seal depicting the city's famous king, August the Strong. This "official" Stollen is produced by only  150 bakers.
                                                                                                       (www.wikipedia.org)

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
                                                                                                                       Calvin Coolidge


           Have a HAPPY & MEANINGFUL CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Shopping

I hate to say it but  there seems to be no cure for this pocket-draining ailment that gets critical during the Holidays. Buy, Buy, Buy, said in many ways, disguised in many fashions that tickles the consumers mind.

Over consumption rhymes with hypertension. Obesity is now a  community threat. Forest covers are sacrificed to  feed the buying  frenzy.  Gluttony is a human right.  The spirit of giving  is an able excuse for buying--- MORE.You don't feel good if you can't catch that sale in the mall. Right? You think its crazy? No. You're only crazy if you act like Mr. Scrooge.

My Sunday school  teachers said : Jesus was God's greatest gift to humanity. I think they  were wrong. The  credit and debit cards are  the greatest gifts. No piety  needed to attain happiness. God is with us.  The Holy Book is right. HE is with us in the wallet all the time. In plastic.Wal-Mart and Old Navy are the Holy Grounds.  Sell to the world the Lord is come Ad gurus sing. The ONE who  was born in a manger is the ultimate  sales icon. Name brands bow to him and make him their fashion model. Don't believe me. I am just kidding. Don't worry I'm Baptist. We don't ex communicate.

Ah, It's Christmas, almost so I'll stop ranting. But still am plain curious  about the habits of Canadians when it comes to  their  Christmas shopping.  I am also interested on how effective were the advertising and retail gimmicks used to lure consumers  to splurge their hard earned Canadian $$$.

Yiling Zhang of the Distributive  Trades Division  of Statistics Canada has this to say in  a report, Consumer Holiday Patterns :

The traditional last-minute Christmas shopping spree may not be so last-minute as you think. True, many consumers make an 11th hour rush to the local mall to fill up those Christmas stockings. But analysis of retail sales shows there is a tad more method to shoppers’ madness.

 

Data show, in effect, that consumers start buying big-ticket items, such as furniture, electronic equipment and appliances, in November. But they wait until December to buy less expensive Christmas gifts.

There  is a method in  consumer  madness after all.  That is wonderful to hear. Indirectly shows we still know how to use our brains. Thank God.

Food for the Gods

There were five kinds of  home baked goodies  that we threw in our  Christmas gift baskets for  this year. In the basket were chewy Food for the Gods, Wedding Balls,  Nut and Fruit Clusters, Creamy Fudge and Sugar Cookies.

These were all  baked  by  my wife who has  patience  with weights and measures. Baking for me is very rudimentary.  I am  one  passionate cook  who does not  have a feel  for pastry and cake making because of  their demands for exactness.  I hate to measure . I do not submit  to recipe rules.  Bakingwise, the results would  always end up as  disastrous masterpieces.

It's the rebel in me I guess who always finds dissent a self-fulfilling pleasure. I have a growing collection of cookbooks with the recipes ready for deconstruction. I read them as trivia, history  and inspirational fiction rather than as a bible inciting to religion. I believe cookbook writers doesn't  excellent preachers  make.

First to bake was Food for the Gods. This dark buttery  and chewy  squares  filled with  chopped pitted dates and walnuts  hover strongest in my  memories of  childhood holiday binging. I remember this to be  a consistent  gift of an aunt  at  Christmas. It would always come in a white box with each  square wrapped in either red or green cellophane. It has a stiff cake-like  texture with a hint of  either rum or brandy on it. I love to nibble on the darker  crusty portion where the flavor is strongest and slightly  bittersweet.

The Food for the Gods  we baked was the chewy version with a consistency similar to Butterscotch.It was based  on a recipe published by  Junjun De Guzman and Adoree Uy in their Manila Bulletin  column  Baking 101. The taste was different from my childhood version. It was probably the absence of  the  rum or brandy or, perhaps it is only in the imagination that a definite flavor is preserved. The Food  for  the Gods of the now held its own. It was worth the challenges in dealing with the dates. They stick on the oiled  knife's edge and require more effort to chop.Tricky and frustrating as it  is rewarding   when it  didn't  disappoint the sweet tooth. It offered new nuances  to the palate  as it connived with other pleasures that will   as well  become memories.

Heres the recipe from Junjun de Guzman and Adoree Uy:

                            
                 Food for the Gods (Chewy Version)

                        1 cup all-purpose flour
                        ¼ tsp. salt
                        1 tsp. baking powder
                        1 cup pitted dates, chopped
                        1 cup butter, melted
                        1 cup brown sugar
                        2/3 cup sugar
                        1 tbsp. honey or light molasses
                        ½ tsp. vanilla extract
                        2 eggs
                        1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
                        
                        Procedure:
                        1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 9" x 13" rectangular
                        pan OR 2 – 8" square pans with aluminum foil. Set aside.

                        2. Sift the all-purpose flour, salt and baking powder
                        together. Divide this mixture into two. Use one-half to
                        dredge the chopped dates.

                        3. Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine melted butter, brown
                        sugar, sugar and eggs. Mix until well-blended. Add in
                        the honey or molasses and vanilla extract.

                        4. Fold in the dry ingredients to the batter mixture.
                        Lastly, fold in the dates and walnuts. Pour the mixture
                        to the prepared pan. Spread evenly. Bake in the oven for
                        35-45 minutes or check doneness with a cake tester.
                        Insert tester close to the side. It should come out
                        clean and dry. The center would still be a little wet
                        when tested. Cool completely. Slice into bars.

 

 

A Sleigh Ride

My  4  year old daughter's school had a  mini-winter carnival  yesterday.  It  was  not really a big  carnival with all the glittering extravaganza that comes with it. It was more family focused with a   children's musical , a  craft making activity, ice skating on the school rink and a sleigh ride.

The sleigh ride was  what we were  after. For a Pinoy recently  transplanted in the middle of winter wonderland this  was  an experience worth taking. Perhaps it  was  the redundant memory of  singing "dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh"  in a the  middle  of  a  tropical and humid  country full of carabaos(water buffalo) and carrosas that  amplified  the  excitement to take that ride. Yesterday evening, with  bells jingling  on the  two white sleigh horses pulling a   big open sleigh, the colonially implanted winter fantasy became flesh.

The ride wasn't dashing at all. Understandably with kids and toddlers in tow the speed limit was a slow leisurely drag not in an open field but  around the public park full of pine trees. We wanted to laugh all the way but stopped short when each chuckle is  punctuated by an unhealthy waft from the horses organic fertilizer factory. One wonders  why this was not in the  Jingle Bells Song ?

The Cure for Bird Flu

In  kindergarten we used to say: an apple a day keeps the doctor away.  With the advent of super viruses that dangles a threat of wiping out a big chunk of human civilization, that much repeated  kiddie  mantra of Eden's infamous fruit  seems to have lost its potency.

Right now the world is at a loss  despite of  the mind boggling advances in medical research dealing  with the looming outbreak of the  Avian Flu. The superpowers of medical drug-making are racing against time to find the antidote that could stop the forecasted plague. Skeptics  say  this pandemic scare is nothing but an overhyped sly marketing maneuver controlled by  a  partnership of  power politicians and their favored drug companies. Investing on  well placed fear factors in the believing mind of the public they say, is one guarantee of  more financial windfall.  Even if  the conspiracy theory is myth or not,  the civilization is hooked on the premise  of the Bird Flu pandemic.

In the global race to search for the perfect bird flu cure, South Korea  seems to be ahead. In fact, they may have  found The Cure .
 

If   this discovery is scientifically validated, then all we need to fight the flu is to get a patch of land and plant pepper,garlic,ginger and  Napa Cabbage  .

Well, A Kimchi a day keeps the  Bird  Flu  away.

Paba-on( Take Home) from Korea

 

In Filipino gatherings, it is common  for  the  party host  to wrap some  paba-on  for the guests to bring home. A  Paba-on is  a package of  food leftovers  still  perfectly fit to eat from the host's buffet table.They are offered to the guests to take home   and  be enjoyed at another time. This is a unique gesture of Filipino hospitality. Here in North America where scarcity is not an issue, leftover party fare is rendered  to the garbage bin. Food safety here  is observed like  a religion.

In our somewhat exclusive  Pinoy    circle here in Saskatoon, the pabaon tradition  is practiced with a  slight twist.  If the host chooses to celebrate  in a restaurant,  a paba-on  for  the guests is given after the celebration. The difference is that the paba-on are not leftovers but  goodies prepared or bought on purpose.

Last week  we  were invited for a birthday eat-out in a Chinese resto. The  celebrant  was a Pinoy friend, a professor at the university whose  significant other is a gracious South Korean. After the meal, we were given as pabaon, two kinds of Korean homemade delights.  The first one is the popular  Kimchi   and the other is Myulchi( Milchi) Boekun. However it is spelled, Myulchi  are  small dried anchovies sauteed in oil, with  crushed garlic and onions,  red or green chili pepper,  sugar, a drizzle of sesame oil, some sesame seeds ,until they are crispy.

A strong tongue teaser both of  these delicacies are.One, salty and spicy, the other sweet and hot that makes one crave for more beer.( I am not complaining.) It is also best with hot steaming rice. Nice for nippy winter binges when one is tired of  nibbling on that turkey and other cream and gravy laden holiday fare.

Gold Mazur

Gold Mazur is another mild cheese . This  has slightly stronger flavor than the salami cheese.It is rectangular and small holes on it. I can taste a very light, hardly negligible presence of saltiness together with a soft nutty taste( I am thinking boiled water chestnuts) just enough to tease the tongue.