Siege-era desserts reinvented

Twenty years ago, South Africans didn’t know their crème brule from their profiterole, their crème fraiche from their mascarpone. Today, you’d be hard pressed to find a self respecting urban yuppie without a set of ramekins and a kitchen blow torch.

The world has opened up to South Africa since it opened up to the majority of its people. But there was a time when down at the tip of Africa sanctions excluded us from much of the world’s economic and cultural life in payment for our sins.

The impact on the dessert life of South Africans was telling. Neapolitan ice cream, that tricolor brick of vanilla, strawberry and chocolate, reigned supreme and fridge tarts adorned doilied cake plates. Amidst political upheaval and fiery words from “die groot krokodil” we buried our unease in bowls of ice cream and piled high the milktart and cheesecake.

With liberation, the winds of change blew vanilla and lavender scented life into popular desserts. Stracciatella and cappuccino eclipsed Neapolitan and biscotti gave Ouma a run for her money.

Maybe I’m over politicising the dessert profile of the last few decades, but when Cadbury’s recently launched their Local n Lekker range of chocolates, the comforting flavours couldn’t help but remind me of my childhood years when the country was crazy.

Fortunately, my husband Pat’s illustrations on the covers of the slabs look nothing like eighties food photography. Because Pat had hewn the images from naught on his MacBook and they had come to rest on the slabs, we had to try all the flavours as soon as the range was launched. I sublimated my less edifying associations and focused on determining the winning flavour.

After much consumption and debate, we both agree that the Mint Fridge Tart is the winner with the strawberry filled top-deck style of the Neapolitan a close second. Cheesecake and milk tart come in third and fourth.

I wonder if the prisoners on Robben Island ever got milk tart.

Hannibal rides again

The historical novel genre seems to have a his-and-hers split personality. On the one side you have the sweeping epics of James Michener and Clavell, taking in battles in graphic detail, abounding in tales of fraternal loyalty and political intrigue. Then you have the tales of sweeping skirts, coy smiles and rippling muscles scantily covered by flowing muslin shirts tucked into snug riding trousers outlining the rock hard contours of manly thighs.

On occasion, I have been known to succumb to the muslin shirt, coy smiles brigade. I feel though, that my completion of Hannibal – Pride of Carthage, by David Anthony Durham, a 635 page epic about the Cathaginian commander who nearly conquered Rome, has mitigated any flaky dalliances (past or future) with less rigorous works of historical fiction.

Besides being weighty and as such quite good toning work for the forearm, the book is gripping. I’m not saying it’s a literary masterpiece. It isn’t, but nowhere do you baulk at poor writing, a shaky plot or sentimentalism. Perhaps the story is a bit protracted and the pace not exactly racy, but that said, if you’re a fan of ancient history, it’s good fun.

I’ve always had a bit of a thing for Hannibal. Perhaps it was the elephants and the sheer arrogance of his venture, challenging Rome, crossing the Pyrenees and the Alps. It’s such an unlikely story and Durham tells it with evocative skill. If you’re a history buff, it will be compelling – that most loathsome and lazy word to describe a rollicking read.

For the last week or so I have been moving through the ancient theatres of war – Iberia, Umbria, North Africa – and discovering a wealth of engaging characters, cultures and facts that will prove invaluable when playing trivial pursuit. Empty spaces in my understanding of ancient history and geography have been coloured in and detailed by something other than blockbuster movies featuring digitally enhanced torsos.

I’m going to miss Hannibal, his muscly brothers, their scheming, pouting wives and perhaps even the young Roman consul desperate to make good. It’s been a crazy ride. I know my legion from my phalanx, my short stabbing spear from my scimitar, in spite of being a pacifist. Fortunately, the novel is not an unreflective endorsement of war and violence. The futility of armed struggle, the quest for glory and hatred of others is constantly highlighted. I suppose, in short, it’s a modern retelling of an ancient story, sympathetically and reflectively told.

So, who gets to replace Hannibal Barca (not Barker – wouldn’t that be great!) in my literary affections? It’ll have to be that Kurt Vonnegut in the bookshelf I haven’t read yet. It somehow feels right to mark Kurt’s sad passing by reading Breakfast of Champions. Rest in peace Kurt.

Another kind of bellybutton Lindt

Two days of decadent dessert making at the Lindt Chocolate Studio in Greenpoint and the circumference at the bellybutton is challenging the tape measure. Shannon and I recently spent two days quaffing impressive quantities of couverture under the expert gaze of Lindt pastry chef Dimo Simatos.

Besides having a host of heavenly chocolate themed recipes ferreted away in my bookshelf and on my hips, I now know how to temper chocolate – the lazy way. This is fantastic, because there is no way I would ever have hauled out the thermometer and done all that finicky temp control, heating, cooling, skip three times claptrap. All you do is:

1. Get your couverture (fancy chocolate containing snobbish amounts of cocoa solids) – how you get hold of it is your problem. The good stuff is best – you can get it from Lindt, but you need an order number. I plan to invent an imaginary confectionary deli, cum bookshop, cum gallery, cum massage parlour to secure my supply.

2. Once you have the couverture, put it in a microwaveable bowl and blitz it in the microwave (I know it goes against every purist grain, but it works!) until HALF the chocolate is melted. DON’T OVERBLITZ.

3. Now beat the half melted mixture with an electric beater until smooth and viola. There you have it – smooth and glorious, spreadable chocolate.

Spread onto cold granite, allow to cool and make chocolate curls or spread onto wax paper, cut out patterns, fold, cool and your wildest chocolate dreams come true.

For more about the Chocolate Studio and courses visit: http://www.chocolatestudio.co.za/courses.php

Condiments and hairy children

My small dog's name is Mayo. She's a 10 week old irish terrier and has been the source of much joy and many tetanus scares in our house over the past few weeks. Her latest playful ankle biting saw me dousing my bloodied foot in Savlon, slathering on the Betadine and acquainting myself with the morbid details of tetanus on Wikipedia. A phone call to Donne the Doctor and an in depth wound description and I think I might be in the clear. I may still go for a preventative booster. The shots last for four years in case you’re starting to feel slight muscle twitchings.

The small dog at the centre of this neurosis is named after County Mayo in Ireland, but also, conveniently, after one of my favourite condiments, Mayonnaise. Oddly, Mayonaise is a big salmonella culprit, but that’s a worry for another day.

From an early age, my Swiss father inspired in me a love of rich homemade mayonnaise. This side of Switzerland, where the definitive Thomy mayonnaise can be found in every Migro and corner store, I have found that the French style mayo from Woolworths is pretty good. In fact, I have to hide it at the back of the fridge with the Lurpack spreadable in an attempt to pull back from the obesity event horizon.

Back to the hairy Mayo. She’s deceptively cute and I think she’d love French style mayonnaise if she could get at it. Her diet seems awfully spartan, consisting sole of Hills Science Diet, Puppy Plan. Dogs get a raw deal when it comes to food. Patrick, has taken to applying this zero tolerance for non-mandated dog food with a uncanny fervour. Sometimes I think it appeals to his utilitarian view of food as a fuel – his namesake Patrick Holford would be proud. To Pat, eating can be pleasurable, but having to feed himself has always been too much like hard work. I hope he doesn’t dip into the Puppy Plan when he has to make lunch and I’m not around.

Bit late on the Band Wagon

For a virgin blog posting, this has been a long time coming. The moment of truth arrived earlier this evening when my blog creation intentions of the last few years saw me typing http://www.blogger.com into my browser.

So far so good. But then came the name game. I'd left this whole blogging malarkey a bit late. Other folks had run off with all those premium blog titles. In desperation I checked if “sdfsdf.blogspot.com” was available. It wasn’t. I very nearly gave up. Corny puns flew from my fingertips into the “Check Availability” box, to be rebuffed and scorned.

What I am trying to say is that the title of this blog is somewhat arbitrary. It got the thumbs up from the machine and it has a nice tongue-in-cheek quality. I know it implies something about being precocious and disarmingly deceptive. Well, be that as it may, that’s not really me, but there’s the word butter, which I really like. Especially Lurpak. Oooh, spreadable Lurpak. Get behind me Santa!! If anything was to tempt me to benign deceipt it would be food though, so perhaps the name’s more appropriate than I’m letting on.