Food

The good, the bad and the ugali

Sitting at Malawi’s Kamuzu international airport in this year’s already singeing summer has me bored, constipated and wishing I was somewhere else. I’ve been dropped off an hour and half early and am finding it difficult to breathe. This has nothing to do with my premature arrival, but with a rather wild weekend in Nairobi a few days prior that will remain a story for another day. I’m on my way back home though, which is good.

The reason I’ve whipped my laptop out is really a mixture of envy, nostalgia and arrogance.

I’ve just been watching someone whom I think to be a Malawian on his way out of his country for the very first time.

Photo credit

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Tortas fritas

Tortas fritas are a traditional Argentinean treat and are usually served with mate. It doesn’t get any more Argentinean than that.

Tortas fritas from Argentina

The next time you feel under the weather or you need some comfort food on a gray, chilly day, grab this recipe and bring in some sunshine in the form of crispy, golden disks.

Ingredients

1 kilo flour

4 tablespoons lard

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup cold water

Shortening

Sift the flour and place on a working surface, making a well in the centre. Add the lard, water and salt. Knead well until smooth. Roll the dough into a ball, cover with a tea towel and let sit for half an hour. Divide the dough into small, egg-sized balls, flatten with your hands, prick with a fork and make a hole in the centre. Deep fry in piping hot shortening until golden. Remove from the pan, place on paper kitchen towels to remove excess fat and sprinkle liberally with sugar. Serve warm.

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Argentinean custom: facturas

Some desserts of Argentina

Cafe culture in Buenos Aires

Argentinean customs: facturas

We have a sweet tooth and try to indulge every chance we get, especially at weekends. A widespread Sunday morning ritual entails going out to get the paper (if it’s not delivered to your house) and then going to the panaderia to get some facturas for your mateor coffee.

Lots of masas secas in this panaderia

Most panaderias, or bakeries, make different kinds of bread, cakes, masa secas (butter cookies) and facturas. Those delicious pastries are distant cousins to the Danish pastries. There are many different types; some are baked and some are deep-fried, like the donas and bolas de fraile, and are sold by the dozen.

Facturas are filled with dulce de leche, crema pastelera (custard), dulce de membrillo (quince paste) and sometimes apple. Each type has its own name. So we have cañoncitos, which look like the barrel of a canon and are usually filled with dulce de leche. Or libritos, made with puff pastry and whose layers look like the pages of a book. The tortitas negras are little cakes covered in brown sugar. I adore churros with crema pastelera.

A tray of facturas

The origins of some types of facturas can be traced to the foods introduced by immigrants and which evolved into our facturas. For example, the Spaniards introduced churros and the French, the mil le-feuille, which we call milhojas and fill mainly with dulce de leche. Our bolas de fraile derive from the German Berliner Pfannkuchen (I think that’s why some people call them berlinesas).

When I was a child, I would only eat facturas with dulce de leche. But as I grew up, I began to enjoy the other types of pastries. Now, every time I go back to Argentina, I pay a visit to my parents’ local bakery to indulge in this sweet treat.

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Argentinean customs: have your soda water delivered to your door

Argentinean customs: car for sale

Cafe culture in Buenos Aires

Windmills in France

Most French people will tell you that bread is a basic food, that they won’t go a day without it… our milling industry has therefore always been thriving!

For many centuries, women painfully ground grains by hand to obtain the precious flour but this was a very tedious and time consuming exercise.

17th century restored and working windmill

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Easter around the world

Our contributors describe Easter celebrations in their countries, how traditions have changed over the years and the history and significance of those celebrations. They share their family traditions as well. Learn more about Easter in Australia, Costa Rica, France, Portugal and the United States.

Easter bilby

Photo: Australian Bilby Appreciation Society

Australia – Liz

Easter in Australia can be summed up in one, sweet and very commercially oriented word – chocolate! For at least a month leading up to Easter chocolate eggs and bunnies can be spied creeping their way all over the supermarket shelves. While the religious meaning of Easter is pertinent for some, most Australians enjoy the four day weekend and chocolate fest that ensues.

Popular options include the Lindt gold bunny, Cadbury crème eggs and the uniquely Australian chocolate bilby, a chocolate incarnation of a near extinct native animal, similar to a bandicoot. People also love to scoff hot cross buns which appear in bakeries during the month leading up to Easter.

The Easter bunny traditionally leaves chocolate eggs for kids overnight in the vein of Santa Claus, while some families have adopted the Easter egg hunt, though this isn’t something that has always been typical of the Australian Easter (when I was a kid no-one did this – I think we’ve adopted this from Europe and the US in recent years). However the chocolate arrives, as long as it does I say!

Costa Rica – Nuria

Nuria shared that “in Costa Rica it does have a very religious meaning, and we actually celebrate the whole week, so for us it’s “Holy Week” instead of just “Easter”. Read more about Costa Rican Easter celebrations here. (more…)

From our contributors: week of April 2

Another week, another roundup of posts written by some of our contributors on their blogs.

Spinach gnocchi

Carmen, our contributor from Romania, writes about St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Bucharest. (more…)