theabroma

I was way too far away from my usual source of Italian pork products here in Dallas - Jimmy's - and had to have some proscuitto ... or reasonable facsimile thereof. All I could get to was the WFM in Arlington, TX. They had the domestic product ... and it was ok. Hoping against common sense, I asked if there happened to be even a whiff of an Italian ham lurking about. The charcuteriste crisply informed me that THIS, holding up and waiving what appeared to be a starched and pressed pink shoe shole - a slice of my request - was the ONLY proscuitto WFM offered ... the Italian "stuff", well they just fed those pigs everything, and this pink shoe sole, er slice of proscuitto, was from free-range hogs. Somewhere in the background I heard snickerings in a rustic Italian dialect, as hands snatched figs and ovals of sheer chiffon-like slices of the sunrise and chowed down. I mumbled something about highly controlled, DOC, etc. The chacuteriste's left eyebrow shot up and there was mumbling about whether to call Security. Knowing that I was going to crisp the bejesus out of those shoe soles, I took my package and slunk off. The final indignity? I cost what the San Daniele would have cost me at Jimmy's. Now, if that's the treatment of what is now a reasonably 'common' artisanal ham, I would counsel great care in selecting anything called jamon iberico. Somewhere in an oak grove in Spain, a clan of pata negras, mouths crammed with acorns, are snorting. Theabroma

Food coloring pastes - applied to the mixing bowl by the toothpickful. They pack a punch. A good pastry purveyor will have them. I have, shamefully, not been keeping up consistently with these threads ... there are probablly many resources listed. But for Doh! obvious starters, try King Arthur or JB Prince.. Sugarcraft seems to have a literal rainbow: http://www.sugarcraft.com/catalog/coloring/coloring.htm. Bingo!: http://www.pastrychef.com/?gclid=CM2s_rLUoZACFQFFgQoduVuurg Google it & good luck. Theabroma

I grew up eating Nonesuch - but not the jarred variety - the one in the little box that is dry. It is much drier. We added more diced apples, raisins (golden), and currants (dried), and nuts - walnuts or pecans (we had a huge tree in the back yard). We added liquid to bring it to a moist, but not soupy consistency - water, apple juice, or half and half water & apple juice. And more spices - ginger, allspice, and cinnamon. A sharp whang of good bourbon or brandy doesn't hurt either. The Robertsons and the Crosse & Blackwell are ok as well - we just found that they needed to be "freshened up". Since mincemeat is already cooked, you don't need to bake it forever - Im remembering 30-40 minutes at 350, middle oven. It's still my fave. Good luck! Theabroma

I second the motion to pack it separately - it will not only get knocked off, but it will become wet and gummy from the moisture from the cake, especially being closed up in a box or tin. Cheers, Theabroma Not to be nosy or anything, but ..... tell us about the cake!

Neither MX, MX-TX, or TX-MX, but The Silo (on Broadway, but far enough north that the street is called something else I can't remember) and The Liberty Bar on Josephine. Liberty Bar is an institution with an ecelctic and wonderful menu. Theabroma

Oddest name ... a bakery? Or, just a terminally clever restaurant name? You know ... tortilla soup is a treacherously simple dish, and should be at the head of the slow artisanal food canon: few ingredients, well prepared - yet you get the most incredible gobbledygook out there posing as tortilla soup that, when confronted with the real thing, people can't recognize it! What do you figure was with the missing mayo? Excessive PC in the lipids department? Sounds like a dreadful meal. Hope the company provided some compensation. Could be tacky and say that's what you get for going to Aggieland ... but I won't Regards from an Orangeblood, Theabroma

Mix with liqueur-flavored simple syrup - and any other flavors an odds and ends that add to the texture a/o flavor. Make little cups of tempered chocolate and scoop the crumb mixture into them with a 100 scoop. Garnish. These make a very nice boxed by the dozen bonbon arrangement. Good for gift giving, after dinner w-coffee, or just a couple of sweet holiday treats. Also consider Austro-Hungarian style tortes where things like nut or crumb 'flours' are used instead of wheat flour in the cake. Regards, Theabroma

Glad that Ruhlman is adding to the books on classic and professional techniques. Fervently hope that this will also occasion a reprint of Jacques Pepin's excellent (and utterly amazing considering original publication dates in the US) La Technique and La Methode. They are the basic black Chanel with ropes of pearls of classic and professional technique. Regards, Theabroma

Wonderful account and photos ... Would like, however, to point out that the photo of the marchanta offering the drink in the jicara, is offering an ancient, sacred beverage called tejate ... it is not atole. It is roasted cacao and masa based, but it is quite different than atole. It also contains roasted, ground canela and almonds (though these sabores are not alien to pre-Columbian Mexico, both cinnamon and almonds were Levantine items carried through Spain to the New World). The other ingredients are traditional del mero corazon: hueso de mamey, or the seed/pit of the mamey, and dried rosita de cacao flowers - the mamey is in the sapote family, looks like a small, flocked football, and has avocado-textured, Texas Longhorn orange flesh. The seed's structural composition is rather like that of the avocado (not in the same family), but is spindle-shaped, the the flower is from a small tree called the 'rosital.' It is not in the rose family (that originated in China). It's botanical name is Quaribea funebris, and it is also known as 'flor de orejona' or 'ear flower', due to its shape. All of these ingredients are toasted, ground, and mixed with the cacao an masa. Cold water is poured from the heighth of a raised arm, while the other hand rapidly, and madly, beats the dough-like mass. It becomes liquid, and raises a soapy, scummy foam. Sorry, folks, that's really what it looks like. The foam from cacao is considered, very anciently and traditionally, to be its very soul. The marchantas will serve you a jicara - a gourd bowl - of tejate, and they will scoop a handful of the foam from the cazuela, and place it on top of the tejate in the jicara just before offering it to you. And, if you are lucky enough to be their first customer of the day, they will - holding your coins in payment in their hands - make the sign of the cross on their body, asking the god(s) that it be a good and financially enriching day. Atole, though wonderful and meriting its own discussion, is a far more humble, workaday potion. Champurrado, or atole de chocolate, carries the body of the cacao - tejate is the bearer of its soul. Regards, Theabroma

Oaxaca - preternaturally calm while I was there (1/18-1/31). You could not have convinced someone that there had been such trouble just a few days prior. Too calm. Ileana and her El Naranjo are gone. Gone. Gone. Soledad Diaz and her El Topil are hanging on ... by a thread. The Mendoza family's restaurant, Tlamanalli, goes on ... but it is out of major harm's way in Teotitlan del Valle. Happy to report, however, that Nieves La Chaiguita, Chocolates Mayordomo, and Chocolates Guelaguetza are still hoppin' and boppin' in the Juarez market. The Central de Abastos, a world unto itself anyway, seemed and felt normal. We were just about the only North Americans knocking around ... but did see a fair number of European tourists. I left for Tlacotalpan 1/31. By 2/3, La Jornada was runnion a front page photo of a 10-abreast, 2.5 kilometer long demonstration in Oaxaca City. Preternatural, indeed. The city felt washed by enbalming fluid which evaporated, apparently, shortly after I left. But the tamal class at the Fundacion Herdez in the DF, now that was really something else! Regards, Theabroma

We are still headed to Oaxaca for the holidays. We'll spend the first 8-10 days on the Pacific coast beaches (Puerto Excondido, Mazunte, San Agustinillo, etc.) and get an idea of what the situation is like before likely heading up to Oaxaca City. Huatulco, the best place on the coast to fly into, is also where the nearest military base is located, and is about 6 hours from Oaxaca City. It's a hair raising ride up but worth doing once. ← I'll be driving from Puebla into Oaxaca next week ... I am sorry to hear about Iliana, and I look forward to see what things are like at present. I read La Jornada daily on line - Buenrostro & Barros column Itacate on Tuesdays and the Gastronomia section on Wednesdays especially. There have been some hideous and sobering articles on the APPO, Oaxaca, and the whole situation. It is a good place to get some interesting food info and some news. Theabroma

Ideally, make the fillings the night before, allow to cool and blend. Make the masa the morning of, and then fill and steam. Steaming usually takes about an hour or hous and 15 minutes - depending on the size and you should allow at least 30 to 45 minutes with the heat off to let the tamales 'set' prior to serving. Theabroma

The Christmas season in Mexico brings with it a marked tradition for sweet tamales: pineapple and raisin, pineapple and coconut, etc. Chicken in green chile sauce, pork in red chile sauce, and black bean tamales with either epazote, avocado leaves, or hoja santa. Yum Theabroma

For tamales: You want white field corn - cacahuazintle, or maiz para posole - pick it over, rinse it, and put it in a NON reactive, deep pot. Cover with 3-4" cold water and bring to a simmer. For each pound of corn, measure a rounded tablespoon of cal - calcium hydroxide, or pickling lime - into another small, non-reactive container. Add a cup or so of cold water - and keep it well away from your eyes. Stir with a non-reactive spoon until dissolved. When the water in the corn has come to a full boil, pour the cal-water through a fine strainer into the pot. Stir thoroughly with a non-reactive spoon. The corn will turn chrome yellow. Drop the heat and heavy simmer for 15 minutes. Check t he corn kernels: you should be able to rub the holleja - or outer coat on the kernel - off between your thumb and fingers. If it does not come off easily, cook 5 minutes more. Check again. As soon as the holleja comes off easily, cut the heat, cover the pot, and let sit for 1 hour or so. Pour the corn through a colander set in a deep sink. Plug the sink, fill it with cold water and wash the corn, rubbing it - refregando - between your palms. Do this washing and rinsing in at least 3-4 changes of water. When the kernels are all pure white again, and the holleja is removed, remove the colander from the sink, shake it vigorously, and dump the corn out onto sheet pans lined with towels. Let it dry until it is no longer wet. If you have a proper corn grinder or grain mill, let the corn dry in a warm space overnight. If you do not, when the corn is barely damp, grind it in batches in a very stalwart food processor. When it is a fine, but coarse meal, dump it into a sifter or sieve, and sieve it onto a pan or large towel. Repeat until all of the corn is ground, and then re-grind the coarser pieces left in the sieve and sift again. What you have made is harina para tamal - tamal flour - but a vast improvement on Maseca. It will make a coarser masa than Maseca para tamales, but it will be spongy. You can also mix in a portion of Maseca para Tamales with your harina. This will not be like the masa used for border tamales - it is like that used in Central Mexico. I think that you will like it. One caveat, however: you must return the flour to a barely warm oven to dry it completely - and/or freeze it. It will mold and sour unbelievably quickly otherwise. Regards, Theabroma

Where can it be found? Libros y Arte stores? Anywhere in the US? What a market ... cannot wait to get my hands on this book. Thanks for the head's up. Theabroma

The hollowed-out segment of bamboo stalk I was given at La Capilla from which to drink mezcal is still hanging on my wall at home. I take it w/me everytime I return. Thanks for wonderful, wonderful posts and remindingme of what a truly magic place that is. Theabroma

Meringue or boiled icing ... yuck-eeee! But I love meringues ... go figure. Most carrot cakes, powdered sugar "buttercream", and any cake, ganache, mousse, etc. made w/semi=sweet chocolate ... don't care if it's Valrhona. The bitterer the better. Theabroma

creme anglaise, huevos reales, French buttercream, pate a bombe, lemon, lime, sour orange, or passionfruit ... or other ... curd, mayo, the hollandaise family of fine sauces, sauce gribiche, linzertorte dough ... Salud, Theabroma

I believe that the 'lax' part means salmon. The grav(ad) part means grave. Or, salmon from the grave. Apparently it was the custom to fillet the salmon, salt, sugar and spice it, wrap it in a 'shroud' of cloth, and then bury it in a hole for a couple of days or so. When dug out, it was said to have 'come from the grave.' Yum! There are some other fish prepared in that fashion, but it is most common to just salt or smoke-dry them. The one other example that comes to mind is lutefisk - lye-treated codfish, which is made into a kind of translucent, yellow-ivoryish quivering soup, and is eaten with boiled potatoes and lots ... I mean lots ... of aqavit. It is decidedly an acquired taste, and it has a really, um, distinct aroma. Theabroma

Apparently red was a really big color for the Mexica, and the Maya as well. And this color preference extended to food. Often the coarse sugar topping pan de muerto for Day of the Dead is colored deep, bloody scarlt red, or a less energetic pink. It is traditional for sweet tamales to be dyed pink or red as well. I believe that cochineal was used originally to provide a shade of vermillion. Now, the exotica is gone and the tamaleras reach for the nearest bottle of food coloring. In my traviels in Mexico, it seems typical for the tamale ladies who come out in the evening to have a couple of types of sweet ones in the botes. And two big favorites are strawberry and pineapple. Some ladies in Vallarta showed me how they did it: creamed the fat (in this case, lard - but freshly made; I now use unsalted butter for sweet ones), chunked in the coarse masa, added a bit of piloncillo or granulated sugar and a pinch of salt. Then they dumped in a bottle of either strawberry or pineapple jam, adjusted the sweetness level, plopped the flavored masa into the husks, into the bote, y ya! You may have had a weakly flavored strawberry tamal, or you may have had just sweetened masa dyed red w/food color. The ones w/anise seed and raisins always remind me somehow as MesoAmerica's answer to Spotted Dick. Theabroma

I'm off to the bookstore, and then to my butcher's as soon as they re-open their doors. Elie, how have you dealt w/the air drying issue? I remember using electric fans in Mexico, but we were in the mountains, and the air was dry ... so that doesn't count. That has been a problem for me for some time. Keep thinking West Texas may be the answer .... Theabroma

Chile-Head This guy is the mother ship of things about chiles, including some ace photos. He works in banking in Britain, and is just a pepper lover. A little enthusiastic, but hey ... ! Theabroma

A temexcal was the most amazing experience of my life. Followed by a limipa c/huevo, and a soup made of fresh field corn, onions, garlic, flores de calabaza, and the leaves and guias of chilacayote. Javier Mina, Tlaxcala. I remember that soup as being more exquisite than anything I have ever eaten. Theabroma

Re: Tezka The chef's name is Bruno Oteiza I understand that Arzak visits at least quarterly ... can we find out when????!!!!! And the name, Tezka, comes from the name of the Dark Lord of the indigenous pantheon, Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Smoiking Mirror. They truncated it to Texca, and then replaced the Nahuatl 'x' with a more typical-looking z from Basque orthography. I really admire your review: I have not yet eaten at Arzak, but I understand the comparison, and it is so wonderful to see a wonderful restaurant - in this case Tezka - not be shunted to the side simply because it is not like Arzak. Due to an unexpected alignment of stars in October, I had dinner w/friends in Yountville. A member of the party is a purveyor to the restaurant, and the chef was in that night, and took charge of our tasting menu. It went on in a blissful, yet unrelenting way. I can certainly relate to the help that a mental/sensory frame of reference can provide: I wat batting about 50 percent on that one. I was in heaven, but utterly exhausted by that meal. It took literally a couple of days to get back to balance. I cannot, nor do I understand how anyone can eat like that with anything approaching frequency. Thank the gods for Arzak, and thank them again, and equally, for Tezka. And thanks moreover for that thoughtful review. Theabroma

Oh, my goodness, Yes!!! On sliced, toasted brioche, unsalted butter, a powdering of sugar and a smear of vanilla paste, run in the oven to heat a bit. Eat that while waiting for the cookies, or cake layers, or scones, or what have you to get done! I have to have someone lock it away from me. Theabroma PS: it also works rather well in the products I bake for sale T.