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!