Els tres Reis de l’Orient porten torrons a tota la gent

[muckefuck]

Una botifarra per la meva dent
Un tall de pa pel meu germà
Un got de vi pel meu padrí
I per molts anys els Reis!

Monshu gave me my Christmas present tonight (my suggestion to wait until Holy Innocents was met with undisguised scorn) and, given the entry I just posted, it was entirely appropriate: the newest edition of the Larousse gastronomique! Before he left for Toronto, I told him about spending a rainy weekend there passing much of my time perusing a friend's copy. We had looked online for a reasonably-priced used version some months before that and given up, so I didn't suspect a thing even when I saw the words Barnes & Noble on the box.

I'm a little disappointed with the editing; in less than an hour, I've already found at least three errors (mostly in foreign words). And though they've made a laudable effort to be more international with each edition, it's still primarily a resource for French cuisine. Some of their entries on Spanish cooking are just laughable. For instance, they have a separate entry for chufa and never once mention its primary use, which is to make the curiously refreshing Valencian drink called orchata. (Those of you who are saying "I know what that is! I had one at El Charro last night", you do not know what one is. That's like saying if you've eaten a White Castle slider, you know what a hamburger is. I love sliders, but in the same nostalgic senseless way I love gooey butter.)

But such cavils! What other resource am I going to pick up that includes eight recipes for cardoons, illustrates how to wrap an aumônière, and explains how to cook an endangered European species of bunting? It is an absolute treasury of geeky and useless (unless I suddenly gain the income to dine regularly in five-star French restaurants) food trivia! I could read it for hours!

Oh, and my Christkindlmarkt goodies included two brands of Schwarzbrot (chocolate-covered marzipan) and--since he didn't know which kind were my favourite--four kinds of Lebkuchen (Elisen-, Oblaten-, Ulmetten und Herzen). I am fully marchpaned and gingerbreaded, and it's not even the fourth day of Christmas yet!

Comments

[bunj.livejournal.com]

Except that a slider, at least nominally, is made of the same main ingredient as a hamburger. Spanish and Mexican horchata are not. Mexican horchata is made from rice, where as true horchata is made from tiger nuts. I have to restrain myself in Mexican restaurants because I know I'll just be disappointed.

Still, I'm glad to hear about the Larousse and the goodies. Sounds like there will be some good eatin' in the Muckefuck home in the new year.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Same "main ingredient" or not, the point is that they don't taste anything like each other. And I'm not slamming Mexican horchata; unlike Mexican churros, it's not an abomination, it's just a less interesting version. (In my post, I almost called Valencian orchata "original", but then I remembered that the original drink must have been barley-based, as the word etymologically derives from Latin hordeum "barley".)

Hopefully, though, the rosca we get from Bombon will be more like the Spanish version than either of these things are.