Desserts of Mexico

Definitions

Choux

1) Pastry

Churro

1) Mostly fried dough lightly salted.

Sopapillas

1) Derived from the word Sopaipa, an Andaluan Arabic language from the time Moslems ruled Spain.

Tres Leche
1) Bread dipped in oil.
2) Three kinds of milk
3) Three layer cake with three kinds milk replacing water in the flour.

Churro

When I was just discharged from my service in the U.S. Navy I sampled my first dessert that was native to Mexico, called Churros.

It was delicious and through the years I've eaten most of the more common ones: The churros I had were long, slender, deep fried pastries made with white flour lightly salted, water, cinnamon, deep fried and lightly sprinkled with sugar.

Sopapilla 

Another Mexican dessert that has had a transformation from the original Arabic influence of just bread soaked in olive oil.
The present day sopapilla is a flour based bread that when browned from being fried in oil, removed and sprinkled with powdered sugar then served with honey.

Tres Leche

A 3 layer cake that consists of both sweetened and evaporated canned milk and a small amount of whole milk instead of water; vanilla added, it gives an unique flavor the cake.

After baking I've seen several ways to prepare it for serving: including fresh sliced pieces of fruit; whipped cream; and even nuts sprinkled over a coconut cream frosting. The whipped cream is spread like frosting and fruit slices added to make an artful presentation.

So, while the above three are arguably the most popular, all of them originated in countries other than Mexico.

So then I realized that I havent't really found any that were truly native to Mexico itself and I went on a research quest to see if I could find something and I did.

The one dessert Native to Mexico is from the Aztec's of Central Mexico and it is Chocolate.

The Xocolati (Nahutal lanquage of the Aztec's) was served as the drink we know of as Hot Chocolate. and it was originally reserved for the Aztec Nobility.

Dad.
                     

Desserts II

American Desserts

In this country there is a list of the top ten desserts. I found it on one of my research sites and was surprised to see Fudge at the #1 spot with Cheesecake at #10.

I did my own survey and found the following favorite desserts, mainly by age group:

• By far, Apple Pie was the #1 dessert, unless you're a small kid and then its a toss up between Pop Tarts and candy bars;
• The little older kids favored Jell-O and especially chocolate pudding;
• Ice cream was number one among the twenty-somethings;
• While the thirty-something declined to answering anything at all, but secretly like flavored water.

Also of note, cakes of all kinds, from carrot to chocolate scored very high, as did brownies. Cupcakes received honorable mention.

What is your favorite??

Dad

Desserts

Definitions

Dessert

1. To clear the table; French
2. Fresh Fruit as a last course of the meal;
3. British Something sweet served after the last meal of the day and all of the plates and silverware from the last meal of the day have been cleared away.

Trying to discover the beginning of desserts is guesswork at best, since I couldn't find anything written or even referred to anywhere I looked.

Given that situation my guess would be that the first use of having something sweet to end off a meal would have started with the Neanderthal people and would have been something simple like an apple or a few grapes.


Coming up the line, the Chinese would be my next best guess, with India right there as well, due to the fact that their meal usually has several different and distinct tastes.

So ending off with something like Tong Shuie (sugar water) also known as Sweet Soup, would not be a bad guess.

What is clear is that everywhere I looked I did not find even one society that didn't have something sweet used as a dessert. Even in the Arctic where a dish called Akutaq which means "something mixed", and consisted of various berries mixed with fat from seals and/or walrus, into a sweet paste, was part of their diet as well.

It is also certain that wheat flour plays a major part in not only present time desserts but in ancient times as well; an example would be the Khanom Bu-ang of Thailand, crispy pancakes spread with coconut cream, folded over and shredded coconut added.

There are toppings other than coconut but the above is the ancient one, so ancient in fact it was used in exclusively in religious ceremony.

Mochi: (rice cake), where the cooked rice is pounded into a paste and then formed into whatever shape you like, but usually rectangular.

Mochi has a subtle sweet taste but to the Western tongue the taste may be perceived as bland due to the large amount of sugar in Western desserts.

These rice cakes are prepared and eaten year round but take on a special role for traditional holidays in Japan, especially New Years day.

Another Japanese dessert called hama-biri mocha translates to "flower petal mochi" dates back to the mid 1800s. Mochi flavored ice cream is also a popular dessert in Japan.

In India, due to the fact that Sugar Cane has been cultivated for 3000 years, desserts are an important part of the Indian diet.

One such, called Halva, is prepared in two ways: the first is flour based and the second way is nut based, mixed into a butter. Peanut butter is an example of this. The flour based is fried in a sugary syrup.

The vastly more interesting thing about Halva is that it is prepared under different names and some added ingredients in 33 countries.

There is even a Star named after it called 518 Halawe.

In the upcoming posts I will be concentrating on desserts common to the Americas, Mexico and Canada.

Dad.

Last of Breads

As I mentioned at the start of this subject, there are so many varieties of bread produced around the world, I would just highlight the ones most common to the Americas and parts of Europe and Canada; Canada because it is known to be the "breadbasket of the world" due to its seemingly unending wheat fields and immense production of said wheat.

The common denominator of bread is that wheat flour is the primary ingredient and with this as the base, the addition of yeast, a little salt for flavor, water, then kneaded (mixing of ingredients so that they become as one; usually with the hands or by use of an electric mixer) and let sit to rise, then in the oven till golden brown and you have the basic loaf of bread that has become the number one food source added to the world supplies of food, even ahead of Rice at number two and Noodles which includes the various pasta's of Southern Europe, at number three.

Adding sugar or other sweeteners or spices to the basic formula gives us such staples as donuts, cakes, pie dough, cookies etc., etc. But these are not commonly recognized as bread so I haven't highlighted them under this subject.

I'm currently researching desserts and will at least mention the sweet dough products, but I am amazed at what I'm learning about desserts of the world and I am sure that you will be also.
Dad

More on Breads II

Definitions:

Yeast: Micro-organisms of the Fungus family.

Wad:  Any small mound of a soft substance; Example: "The items came packed in wads of cotton; or, "He used a large wad of chewing gum to blow bubbles".

Maize: Better known as Corn. It is a grain plant native to Mexico and domesticated by them approximately ten centuries ago.

Tortilla: A wad of processed corn kernels, unleavened, flattened and fried on a hot griddle of thin steel.

Note: Processing of Maize/Corn is done by soaking the kernels in a bath of lime water until the skin of the kernel comes off, the remaining is then ground, formed and cooked. Failing to do this soaking step will cause sickness in humans, this is due to the fact that with the skin of the kernel now gone, the vitamins, primarily B3 (Niacin),  and Amino acids, are now able to be fully incorporated in cooking and aid digestion.

Lard: Pig fat. Boiled long enough to remove the fatty parts that cannot be dissolved; the remaining water is then boiled off, leaving the liquid, now soft, whitish fat, highly prized by Chef's for use in
baking and frying meats, adding a superior flavor.

Yeast Bread:  As noted in the definitions yeast is a living micro-organism and was probably first discovered by the Ancient Egyptians. The first use of yeast in flour to make bread is also loosely credited to the Egyptians. Prior to the use of yeast, the breads of the time were flat and hard when
fried. After the discovery and much trial and error, the raised dough gave us bread in light fluffy loaves as we know it today.

Sourdough: Produced by adding Lactobacilli, a bacteria that produces lactic acid and it is this that gives the flour its sourness and ultimately sour dough bread. It also lasts, unrefrigerated for a very long time. Sourdough and Yeast Bread are so old that trying to figure out when or by whom it was first produced is sheer speculation. But it is, by far, the most successful food product ever created.
The way Yeast and Sourdough is made

today is much the same as in ancient times. 

The making of the sourdough starter is simply flour and water and because wheat contains both yeast and lacto-bacilli it can be let raise and then formed into loaves or fried or baked and still set aside a small, uncooked portion, for starting the next batch of bread or biscuits.

Cornbread: This particular bread is so well known and used that saying anything more about it would be wasted effort. It does, however, lead us to a form of this bread described below.

Cornpone: You have probably heard the name and wondered about it, unless you are from the South or Native American of that region. Cornpone is made from Cornmeal dough, that is made with enough water to make a paste-like dough with no milk or eggs added to the mix and then formed into a thick patty and fried in a hot cast iron frying pan that has had lard or bacon drippings added.

Hushpuppies: Another cornbread based staple, also prevalent in the south, the hushpuppies are made with corn meal, buttermilk instead of water, salt and sometimes chopped onions, formed into flattish ovals and deep fried.

 I spent some time in the south and enjoyed hushpuppies with fried fish, usually Bream (pronounced Brim) and catfish on occasion. Quite delicious.

Dad
                  
               

More on Breads

Pancakes

It is hard to wrap your wits around the fact that the venerable pancake is a bread.

Examination of stone age tools, dating back 25-30 thousand years ago, show bits of ground wheat grain. Since there were no ovens or pans, any wheat based food would have to be eaten raw, boiled in bark bowls, or cooked on flat hot rocks.

Bread is basically ground wheat or other grain such as rye or maize as invented by the Mayans of South America. But for the early humans of Europe, it was primarily wheat grain that was used; add water to make a paste, add a bit of salt if available, flatten it and fry it on the hot rock and there you have bread. What they may have called it is anyone's guess but for us, it is bread.

These flat cakes were the first hot cakes. Many years later add a bit of  baking power and another bit of Baking Soda; mix it into a batter and the modern hot cake is born. The pan, in pancake comes with the iron age and the making of pans and other utensils. Pancake batter contains both baking powder and baking soda, the key to making light and fluffy and somewhat thick pancakes is to lightly mix the batter and let it sit for about ten minutes before spooning it out onto the hot pan. This gives the leavening time to infiltrate the batter and you can see the batter rise slightly.

Beer Bread

During the late middle ages in London, the water was so polluted that beer was used almost universally as a substitute. Beer was also used to replace water in making bread and beer bread was born. It is still in use today.

The alcohol is almost all evaporated off by the time it gets to the table to be served up with dinner.

Open a can of your favorite beer (If your beer is unfiltered and yeast is still present in a cloudy coloring you won't have to add yeast to your dough) and let it sit overnight and go flat. It will give you much added flavor in the finished product.

Dad.

Breads

Breads

One of the oldest foods known to man.

Consider what has to happen to get a loaf of Bread.

It is a mix of ingredients; It  has to be Cooked or Steamed; The ingredients have to be in a certain proportion to make it happen and it has to be timed properly to be fully cooked but still tasty.

Getting to the point of "Tasty" must have seemed like magic to the person or persons eating it for the very first time. And the Cook? Probably elevated to high priest/priestess. Maybe even Shaman or Medicine Man.

It comes in hundreds of varieties, and is created in almost every country on earth. The exception is Antarctica and the Arctic all the way south to where permafrost ends.

The Polar region did not know fruit or grains of any kind due to the lack of plants that produce these things. So farming or picking wild grains, nuts, fruits was and is impossible. Importation of ingredients for bread and later, the advent of Greenhouses, ended the lack of obtaining the necessary grains used in Bread making in the far north.

I have concentrated this series on Bread to only the varieties grown and eaten in North America and Mexico.

Definitions

Flour:

1. the grains of wheat or corn, primarily, that are dried and ground to a very fine powder.

Bread:

1. A mix of flour, water, salt and in most cases, a leavening substance.

Leaven:

1. A substance that causes fermentation of dough (a mix of flour and water) to expand.
   
   

Ferment:

1. A group of living organisms such as bacteria, mold, yeast, etc.

Examples of fermentation:

1. Yeast that converts sugar to alcohol.
2. Yeast or bacteria (such as in sourdough) That causes dough to expand and rise and adds flavor.

Sourdough:

1. Uncooked but fermented dough set aside for, and used, as a starter leaven for the next batch. No fresh yeast is needed after that first batch is made.

Egg Wash:

1. 2 eggs with 1/2 cup milk and flavored with a quarter teaspoon of vanilla and beaten with an egg beater till frothy.

Plain Bread, White or Wheat

White bread is wheat flour bleached to remove the yellow brown color of natural ground wheat and is cut to 1/2 inch slices, packaged and sold by the one and half pound package, aka, loaf.

Wheat bread is the same as white but without the bleaching.

The bleaching agent most often used is a mix of bromine and potassium.

Texas Toast

The history of Texas Toast is a little clouded, except for the Texas part.

The story I know of was that an order of bread delivered  to a Dallas Restaurant had some that were sliced too thick  for the toasters so an enterprising cook simply buttered  both sides and grilled it and promoted the idea to the customers that it was a new menu item called Texas Style Toast (you know, "everything is bigger in Texas?)

Obviously it caught on and as time passed the middle word, style, was dropped.

All of that makes a great story but when I was researching the trail drives and Chuck wagon food, I found that cooks, when they ran out of biscuits, would whip up what was left of the flour, add water and a pinch of salt, flatten it in a pan and fry it over coals. It became known as Fry bread and Pan fried bread.

But in the here and now, Texas Toast is simply a loaf of White Bread, sliced twice as thick as in the standard loaf and the top is weighted down during fermenting and baking so as to make a square loaf.
To make the toast, simply butter both sides and fry it, both sides, till golden brown in your frying pan.
It goes great with honey or Jam/Jelly.

French Toast

Prepare an egg wash and soak two slices of Texas Toast bread on both sides and fry as in Texas Toast above.

When golden brown on both sides, it is done and served up with maple syrup. Add a couple of fried eggs, bacon or sausage and you have the almost perfect breakfast.