Behind the Recipe -- Jeri Quinzio

Weird, wacky, wonderful. Fun ice cream flavors

 

 

Making ice cream is a lot like painting or writing. You start with a blank slate — canvas, paper, or a basic ice cream mixture of cream, sugar, and maybe eggs. Then you decide where to go from there.

 

The ice cream possibilities are limitless. Smooth or crunchy? Fruit-flavors or spices? How about mixing crushed chocolate-covered coffee beans into coffee ice cream? Or a swirl of pureed banana in chocolate? What about green tea? Or the Japanese spice blend called togarashi? In summer, nothing’s better than fresh fruit ice creams like peach or strawberry. In winter, orange marmalade is a delight. And then there are nuts. Pistachio, walnut, almond, peanuts, crushed peanut brittle.

 

In 1778, Vincenzo Corrado, an Italian monk and cookbook author, wrote that there was no vegetable that confectioners couldn’t turn into an ice cream worthy of the name. Corrado was using the word vegetable loosely to mean pretty much any ingredient, from pomegranate to cinnamon. Ever since, ice cream makers have taken up his challenge.Whether the ice creams they created in response were good enough to eat more than once is another issue.

                A dish of ube ice cream

I’ve had fennel, corn, Parmesan, Azuki (red bean paste) and ube (purple yam) ice creams. All were good, and I’d have any of them again. These were either from home cooks or scoop shops. But corporate ice cream manufacturers are also following Corrado’s footsteps. Häagen-Dazs came out with carrot-orange and tomato-cherry ice creams in Japan a while back, though they don’t seem to have hit the states yet. In the U. S., Peekaboo ice cream’s claim to fame is its “hidden veggies.” Think cotton candy with hidden beets, mint chocolate chip with hidden spinach, strawberry with hidden carrots, and so on. They stress the healthy veg angle. I haven’t tried any yet, though I don’t think hiding the vegetables was what Corrado had in mind.

 

Experimentation is wonderful. Sometimes, however, ice creams are so truly weird that you have to wonder what the maker was thinking. Even if I could afford to mix truffles (the fungi, not the chocolates) into my ice cream as the 18th century confectioner M. Emy did, I wouldn’t. Nor would I add foie gras to ice cream as the prominent 19th-century English culinary entrepreneur, Mrs. Agnes B. Marshall, did. 

Mary Randolph’s 1824 book, The Virginia House-Wife, has lots of excellent recipes. But I doubt whether anyone made her oyster ice cream more than once.

 

 

 

Nor can I imagine that this asparagus ice cream from Janet MacKenzie Hill was a big hit. Many sweet ice creams have been flavored with asparagus, often with just enough of the vegetable to add color. Many more have been molded into asparagus shapes, even though the ice cream was pistachio or vanilla.                                      Asparagus ice cream molds

But Hill’s was a savory frozen asparagus. An early 20th-century author of several cookbooks, she had the following recipe in The Book of Entrées, published in 1911 by Little, Brown, and Company in Boston.  Granted, it doesn’t call for any sugar, and she served it as an entrée not as a dessert. It sounds to me like a perfectly nice recipe for hot creamed asparagus soup (if you use fresh rather than canned asparagus) but she froze it.

                                                                                                               

             Asparagus ice cream

 

Here’s her recipe, if you’d like to try it. I think I’ll pass.

 

Asparagus Cream, Glace

 

Asparagus

2 slices of onion

2 cloves

2 slices of carrot

2 branches of parsley

1/2 teaspoonful of sweet herbs and spices

1/2 cup of water

1/2 teaspoonful of salt

1/2 teaspoonful of paprika

1 teaspoonful of lemon juice

1 cup of double cream

 

This dish may be made of either fresh or canned asparagus. If canned asparagus tips be used, pour the “tips” into a colander and turn over cold water to rinse thoroughly. Reserve about a cup of the choicest “tips” to serve, seasoned with French dressing, around the dish when unfolded. To three cups of the cooked asparagus (more of the uncooked asparagus will be needed) add the onion into which the cloves have been pressed, the carrot, with the parsley, sweet herbs, etc., tied in a bit of cheesecloth, and the water; cover and let simmer fifteen or twenty minutes. Remove all but the asparagus; press this through a fine sieve. There should be one cup of purée. Add the seasonings and set aside to become cold. Beat the cream till firm throughout, then fold into the chilled asparagus purée. Turn into a mold lined with paper. Pack in equal measure of rock salt and crushed ice to stand until frozen throughout. Unmold upon a chilled plate, surround with lettuce and the tips, seasoned with French dressing. Serve, as a course by itself, with rolls or sandwiches, or serve, as an entrée, with chicken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saint Pat's Day and Irish soda bread

 


Saint Patrick’s Day is coming up. However, I refuse to drink green beer. I will not eat green mashed potatoes. For that matter, I’m not eating any green food that doesn’t start out that color naturally. 

If I had a garden, I might plant shamrocks, though.

I don’t like corned beef and cabbage, and I don’t have to eat it. I’m not wearing a silly leprechaun hat or lurid green tee shirt. I will never sport a button that says “Kiss me I’m Irish.”

I don’t want to go to a parade or a bar on St. Patrick’s day when, as a friend of mine used to say, “The amateur drinkers are out.”

I’m not buying green carnations or expecting a leprechaun will lead me to his pot of gold.    


But since my mother’s side of the family came from Ireland, I do want to honor the day and my heritage in my own way. Here’s my plan.

First I’ll make my famous (in my own mind) Irish soda bread. Then I’ll set out a pot of tea, a couple of slices of the bread and a bit of butter. And then I’ll curl up with George Bernard Shaw, or Edna O’Brien, or John Banville (aka Benjamin Black), or any one of the other great writers who were born on that small island.

After that, perhaps a wee drop of Jameson. Sláinte!

Irish Soda Bread

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
(or a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice)
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup of melted butter
1 cup of raisins and/or currants

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the flours, sugar, baking soda, caraway seeds,  pumpkin pie spice, and salt in a bowl. Mix the rest of the ingredients together and add to the dry ingredients. Mix together. You’ll have a moist, sticky batter.

Turn it out onto a floured board and knead until it’s smooth. Divide it in half and shape each half into a round of, roughly, eight inches. With a sharp knife, score the tops of each into quarters. Put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for about 45 minutes.
The bread should sound hollow when you tap it on the bottom.

Let the breads cool a bit before you slice them.

Peas symbols. Or, why peas are perfect for Valentine’s Day.

 

 

 

This Valentine’s Day, do something different. Forget flowers and candy. Present your lover with peas.

We may have forgotten the folklore, but for centuries, peas and pea pods (earlier called peascods) have been tiny symbols of love, romance, and fertility. Not merely a healthful food, simple side dish, or soup ingredient, peas are a rich source of stories and legends. They’re teeming with tradition.

Probably the best-known tale of  peas and romance is Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Princess and the Pea.” It seems a prince wanted to marry, but was unsuccessful in finding a true princess. He met many candidates, but none quite made the grade. Then one night, in the middle of a storm, a young woman arrived at the castle claiming to be a princess. But she was sopping wet, her hair was a mess, and she looked more like a ragamuffin than a royal. To test her, the prince’s mother, the queen, placed a pea on the bed where the purported princess was to sleep. Then she had several mattresses and eiderdown comforters piled on top of it.

The next morning, the delicate young woman complained that she hadn’t slept a wink all night because something in the bed was so hard that she was black and blue all over. Clearly, the culprit was the pea. Convinced that only a royal princess could have such a delicate nature, the prince married her. Presumably they lived happily ever after, slept on beds without peas, and had many children.

Leaving aside the elitist idea that aristocrats are more sensitive and refined than the rest of us, why a pea? Andersen may well have been aware of the pea’s association with the many stories of love, marriage, childbearing, and sleep problems. Maybe they inspired him to choose a pea to plague the princess. After all, he could have subjected her to the sensitivity test with grains of sand or cookie crumbs. But he chose a pea, a storied green pea.

 

    Both peas and pea pods had long been associated with love and marriage. Because pea pods shield little baby peas and ensure their safe delivery, businesses catering to pregnant women are often called some variation of "peas in a pod."

According to David Moore, a nineteenth-century writer on gardening, “ Peas and Peascods  are connected with wooing the lasses.” A lad would pick peapods and if the peas remained in the pod, he presented it to the lass of his choice.

Earlier, William Browne, a seventeenth-century English pastoral poet, described the practice.

 

The Peascod greene, oft with no little toyle,

He’d seek for in the fattest, fertil’st soile,

And rend it from the stalks to bring it to her,

And in her bosom for acceptance wooe her.

 

Folklore was also filled with stories about young women using peas to identify the right men. In Bohemia (part of the Czech Republic today), young women gathered flowers in a field of peas, made garlands of them, and used them as pillows. If a woman slept with her right ear on the flowery pillow, she’d hear a voice telling her the name of her husband-to-be. After that, apparently, it was up to her to let the lucky man know.

An English girl considering potential husbands counted the peas in a pod. Nine was the lucky number. If there were nine, she would hang the promising pod over the door frame. The first man to walk through the door after she’d hung it up was supposed to become her husband.

Village girls in Hertfordshire put the pod with nine peas under a gate, and believed that the first man who walked through would be Mr. Right.

Whether the one coming through your door or gate on Valentine’s Day is a long-time love or a new flame, serving peas at dinner is a romantic gesture. However, you might want to have flowers or candy as well, just to be on the safe side.

Braised lettuce and peas   

It’s too early for fresh peas in the pod here in New England, but frozen peas can also symbolize love. Here’s classic French pea preparation that would be perfect with a Valentine’s Day dinner.

 

Ingredients

 

2 tablespoons of olive oil or a combination of butter and oil

1 small shallot or 3 scallions, sliced

1 cup of peas

Lettuce (Butter lettuce is traditional, but mixed lettuces are fine). Chop or tear the leaves into pieces.

Mint or thyme

Salt and pepper

 

Sauté the sliced shallot or scallions in the oil until they’re just softened. Add the peas, cook for a two or three minutes. Toss in the lettuce and cook until the lettuce just barely begins to wilt.

 

Serve with a sprinkle of the mint or thyme and salt and pepper to taste.    

 

 

 

"Dessert" in Korean

I've written a book I cannot read. My book -  Dessert: A Tale of Happy Endings - is out in Korean.

If you can read it, enjoy.

 

Jo March and Mrs. Alcott’s blancmange

 

 

The wonderful new film version of “Little Women” starring Saoirse Ronan as Jo doesn’t mention blancmange, though it appears in the book and in the 1949 film with June Allyson as Jo.

Jo brought blancmange to Laurie when he was stuck indoors with a cold, telling him that “it’s so simple, you can eat it, and, being soft, it will slip down without hurting your sore throat.” Jo hadn’t made the pudding herself, though. She wasn’t much of a cook, as anyone who’s read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women can testify. When Jo made dinner, she burned the bread, undercooked the potatoes, overcooked the asparagus, poured salt instead of sugar on the strawberries, and topped them off with cream that had turned sour. 

On top of everything else, Jo’s blancmange was always lumpy, so Meg made the blancmange Jo brought to Laurie. Meg’s was smooth and white, surrounded with a “garland of green leaves, and the scarlet flowers of Amy’s pet geranium.” When he saw it, Laurie said he thought it looked “too pretty to eat.”

The first time I read Little Women, I was a little girl and had never heard of blancmange. It sounded good, so I looked it up in the dictionary to see if I could find out what it was and, maybe, convince my mother to make it. To my very great disappointment it was defined as a white pudding. That sounded so dull and commonplace that I never did ask my mother. Pudding, to me, was the sort of dessert we had when there wasn’t any cake or pie or ice cream. It was dessert from a box, disappointing even when it was chocolate. There was nothing special about a white pudding.

Flash forward many years and I discovered that there is a lot more to blancmange than the dictionary had revealed. First, and most important, it tastes wonderful in a lush, but subtle, way. Second, it looks elegant, especially when it’s served with colorful berries. And third, blancmange is easy to make.

Louisa May Alcott’s mother Abigail had a recipe for it in the collection she called her “Receipts and simple remedies.” Her 1854 recipe, clipped from an unidentified newspaper, was made with milk and sweetened with sugar (the amount was not specified). It used arrowroot to make the blancmange jell, and suggested flavoring it with orange water, rose water, or lemon peel. Other recipes of the era used isinglass (a type of gelatin), calves’ feet,  or Irish moss to thicken the pudding. Granulated gelatin and cornstarch weren’t in general use until the close of the century. 

A recipe in English writer Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple, first published in 1747 but still going strong in Alcott’s day, used isinglass, cream rather than Mrs. Alcott’s milk, and suggested that it should be served surrounded by baked pears. Glasse wrote, “It both looks very pretty, and eats fine.” 

The simplicity of blancmange brings out the artist in every cook. The famous Isabella Beeton suggested garnishing it with “preserves, bright jelly, or a compote of fruit.” Fannie Farmer served hers surrounded by sliced bananas.  J. M. Sanderson, author of the 1864 book The Complete Cook, described blancmange as “a beautiful white jelly, like marble” and suggested garnishing it with “flowers or with sweetmeats, or sliced lemon.” 

Had I read that description rather than the dictionary’s when I was young, I would have enjoyed many more servings of blancmange in my life. Making up for lost time, I enjoy it often now. Here’s my version. I use gelatin to thicken it, and vary the flavorings. Amaretto gives it a wonderful almond note and fresh berries are a perfect topping. Next time, though, I’ll garnish it with flowers, maybe geraniums.

An Elegant Blancmange

One envelope (0.25 ounces) of unflavored gelatin

1/4 cup cold water

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light cream

1 tablespoon Amaretto or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or

half a teaspoon rose or orange flower water or whatever flavoring pleases you. 

Berries, flowers, leaves to garnish, optional

 

Mix the gelatin and water together in a small bowl and set aside for five minutes or so until it softens.

Rinse a saucepan in cold water,  then pour in the milk and heat to a simmer. Stir in the sugar until dissolved. Mix in the softened gelatin and stir until it’s completely incorporated. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes. Stir in the light cream and the flavoring of your choice.

Pour into four lightly oiled custard cups or one bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until set.

Either un-mold onto plates or simply serve from the custard cups or bowl. The pristine whiteness of blancmange looks lovely garnished with colorful berries or with leaves and brightly colored flowers, as Louisa May Alcott had Meg do in Little Women. 

Portuguese sweets are divine.

To learn why, go to -

travelthruhistory.com

Celery is having a moment. Again.

 

Celery juice

 

Actually, it’s celery juice that’s in the limelight this time around. Its aficionados claim that juicing and drinking celery is good for everything from psoriasis to strep to acne to snake bites. Okay, I made the last one up. But I’m skeptical about all the celery juice health claims making the news now. I think they’re hyperbole, just as similar claims about pomegranate juice, quinoa, oatmilk, and kale are. I believe in consuming a variety of foods, not one miracle ingredient.  Admittedly, I’m not a nutritionist; but neither are all the people writing about the health benefits of celery juice. If you like it, by all means drink it. But I’ll continue to take my celery straight — leaves, stalks and all.

 

A stylish vase of lush, leafy celery.

 

Celery has gone through several popularity phases. Its initial big moment came back in the nineteenth century, when eight-to-twelve-inch tall slender pedestaled vases filled with stalks of celery adorned elegant dining tables. 

An 1820s pressed glass celery vase attributed to the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company.

 

You can still see the vases in museums, antique stores, and online outlets like eBay. They’re made of cut or pressed glass in elegant patterns that often suggest leaves or similar natural motifs. Today, most people buy them to use as flower vases. But vases filled with leafy celery were a mark of prestige for Victorian households. Both the celery and the vases were expensive, so if you could afford them, you wanted to show them off.

Blown, pattern-molded celery vase from 1850.

 

Green and lush, celery adorns the table in this ad for tomato soup.

 

By the latter part of the century, mass-produced vases made them less expensive and, as a result, less prestigious.At about the same time, easier-to-grow varieties made celery more affordable and commonplace. People still liked celery, but they served it in long, narrow, flat dishes that reflected its lower status. Celery had become so common that even though you might want to serve it, you knew better than to show it off.

Celery became the star of what was called the relish tray in the first half of the twentieth century.  Cooks cut lengths of celery, stuffed them with cream cheese, and sprinkled them with paprika. The creamy cheese and crunchy celery were a perfect pairing. Olives stuffed with pimentos and radishes cut to (sort of) look like roses would be arranged on the plate alongside the celery for an assortment of nibbles. The assortment was one of the most popular appetizers of the era.

 

Relish tray with sections for celery, olives, and radishes or other small veggies.

 

At about the same time, celery had another peak moment. It became a dieter’s friend. It was said, by those who indulged in wishful thinking, that the process of eating celery burned more calories that the celery itself. All that crunching and chewing meant that if you ate lots of celery, you could have a brownie for dessert without gaining weight. If only that were true. But the idea gave celery another moment to shine.

 

Celery also because a kids’ treat called “ants on a log,” consisting of celery stuffed with peanut butter and topped with raisins, a combination I find hard to understand. But to each his/her own.

 

Ants on a log

 

When Bloody Marys and brunches became an inseparable couple, bartenders dressed up the drinks with a stalk of celery as a garnish. The Bloody mix usually included a pinch of celery salt as well. Perhaps the addition of the veggie assuaged the consciences of those who felt guilty about early-day drinking. But the leafy greens of a celery stalk also made it impossible to drink a Bloody without a straw, and there was seldom a place to put the celery if you took it out and didn’t eat it all immediately. Maybe hold the celery here.

 

Jamie Oliver’s take on a Bloody Mary

 

There are so many other ways to eat celery. The leaves are a wonderful addition to a green salad as is chopped, raw celery. Celery is a key player in the flavor combination called “mirepoix” consisting of carrots, onions, and celery that French cooks use to make sauces or braise meats. Celery soup is excellent, especially when its garnished with finely chopped celery leaves. There are any number of terrific recipes for cooked celery available. Stuffing celery stalks with cream, goat, or bleu cheese is still a good idea. Maybe sprinkle it with Aleppo pepper instead of paprika for an update. 

Celery is a versatile vegetable no matter how you eat - or drink - it. Enjoy it, just don’t expect miracles.

 

 

 

Celebrate National Ice Cream Sandwich Day, August 2

 

The ice cream sandwich we know and love was born on the Bowery in New York sometime shortly before the turn of the 20th century. According to an 1899 news article in the New York Mail and Express calling it the latest sandwich, it began “in an humble Bowery pushcart and is sold for a penny.”

 

Before this anonymous pushcart vendor had the brilliant idea of putting a slab of ice cream between two crackers or cookies or wafers, street peddlers simply tucked slices of ice cream into a piece of paper. That treat, called a “hokey-pokey,” must have been messy and awkward to hold onto. The cookies made for a neater method as well as a delicious one. The new sandwich was so good, in fact, that another newspaper reported that on Wall Street “the brokers themselves got to buying ice cream sandwiches and eating them in a democratic fashion side by side on the sidewalk with the messengers and the office boys.” 

Iran's take on the ice cream sandwich.

 

Before long, New York’s up-town restaurants began serving “dainty” ice cream sandwiches on a plate with an ice cream fork. The Country Gentleman, published in Albany, claimed that these sandwiches were “quite different from the article dear to a newsboy’s heart.”

 

But was the Bowery vendor the first person to come up with the idea? I recently discovered a cookbook published in 1894, Green’s Receipt Book, by Ralph Green of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, containing a recipe for “Ice Cream Sandwiches.” In his introduction, Green says he is an experienced confectioner and cake-baker and is confining himself to to the subjects of ice cream and cake in this book. He claims to have the “original” recipes for “Famous Portsmouth Orange Cake, Black cake, and Walnut cake, but doesn’t make any claims for his ice cream sandwich recipe.

 

Here is his recipe: 

Cut into thin slices a pound cake or rich sponge cake, then spread them quickly with any kind of ice cream. Put the slices together. You may use two kinds of ice cream on each sandwich if you choose. Arrange on a dish and serve at once, or they may be served singly on tea plates. It the latter way, a small rose or some other flower may be laid on each sandwich. 

Obviously this is a far cry from the slice of ice cream between two crackers bought for a penny and eaten on the streets of New York. It’s a formal fork-and-knife dessert rather than a walking-down-the-street treat.

In any event, the ice cream sandwich in its many and various forms is here to stay. In the early days, some peddlers used Graham crackers for their sandwiches, which would have horrified the famously ascetic Sylvester Graham. He didn’t like anything that smacked of enjoyment. These days, self-denial isn’t fashionable and ice cream sandwiches are made with anything from croissants to macarons to brownies to glazed doughnuts. Italians often scoop gelato into a brioche for breakfast.

Warm, just-out-of-the-oven cookies make for fabulous, though quick to melt, ice cream sandwiches. And who says the cookies have to be the same? Maybe one is chocolate chip and the other is oatmeal raisin. The ice cream, of course, can be any flavor under the sun. For a quick and easy DIY ice cream sandwich at home, just put a slice of ice cream between two crisp butter wafer cookies. And enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry together in another ice cream sandwich.

Discovering the beauty of Louisa May Alcott’s blancmange

 

 

Jo March wasn’t much of a cook, as anyone who’s read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women can testify. When Jo made dinner, she burned the bread, undercooked the potatoes, overcooked the asparagus, poured salt instead of sugar on the strawberries and poured cream that had turned sour over them. On top of everything else, Jo’s blancmange was lumpy. 

 

But Jo said that Meg made blancmange “very nicely.” She said it was smooth and white and Meg served it surrounded it with a “garland of green leaves, and the scarlet flowers of Amy’s pet geranium.” It must have looked lovely.

 

The first time I read Little Women, I was a little girl and had never heard of blancmange. As made by Meg, it sounded good, so I looked it up in the dictionary to see if I could find out what it was and, maybe, convince my mother to make it. To my very great disappointment it was defined as a white pudding. That sounded so dull and commonplace that I never did ask my mother. Pudding, to me, was the sort of dessert we had when there wasn’t any cake or pie or ice cream. It was dessert from a box, disappointing even where it was chocolate. There was nothing special about a white pudding.

 

Flash forward many years and I discovered that there is a lot more to blancmange than the dictionary had revealed. First, and most important, it tastes wonderful in a lush, but subtle, way. Second, it looks elegant especially when it’s served with colorful berries. And third, blancmange is easy to make.

 

Louisa May Alcott’s mother Abigail had a recipe for it in the collection she called her “Receipts and simple remedies.” Her 1854 recipe, clipped from an unidentified newspaper, was made with milk and sweetened (the amount of sugar was not specified). It used arrowroot to make the blancmange jell, and suggested flavoring it with orange water, rose water, or lemon peel. Other recipes of the era used isinglass (a type of gelatin), calves feet,  or Irish or sea moss to thicken the pudding. Granulated gelatin and cornstarch weren’t in general use until the close of the century. 

 

A recipe in English writer Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple, first published in 1747 but still going strong in Alcott’s day, used isinglass, cream rather than Mrs. Alcott’s milk, and suggested that it should be served surrounded by baked pears. Glasse wrote, “It both looks very pretty, and eats fine.” 

 

The simplicity of blancmange brings out the artist in every cook. The famous Isabella Beeton suggested garnishing it with “preserves, bright jelly, or a compote of fruit.” Fannie Farmer served hers surrounded by sliced bananas.  J. M. Sanderson, author of the 1864 book The Complete Cook, described blancmange as “a beautiful white jelly, like marble” and suggested garnishing it with “flowers or with sweetmeats, or sliced lemon.” Had I read that description rather than the dictionary’s, when I was young, I would have enjoyed many more servings of blancmange in my life. Nevertheless, here’s the version I make now. I use gelatin to thicken it, and vary the flavorings. Amaretto gives it a wonderful almond note and fresh berries are a perfect topping, though another time I’ll add flowers.

 

An Elegant Blancmange

 

One envelope (0.25 ounces) of unflavored gelatin

1/4 cup cold water

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light cream

 

Flavoring — 1 tablespoon Amaretto or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1/2 teaspoon rose or orange flower water or whatever pleases you. 

 

Berries, flowers, leaves to garnish, optional

 

 

Mix the gelatin and water together in a small bowl and set aside for five minutes or so until it softens.

 

Rinse a saucepan in cold water,  then pour in the milk and heat to a simmer. Stir in the sugar until dissolved. Mix in the softened gelatin and stir until it’s completely incorporated. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.

 

Stir in the light cream and the flavoring of your choice.

 

Pour into four lightly oiled custard cups or one bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until set.

 

Either un-mold onto plates or simply serve from the custard cups or bowl. The pristine whiteness of blancmange looks lovely garnished with colorful berries or with leaves and flowers as Meg did in Little Women. 

Dessert review

I'm chuffed, as the Brits say. This is an excerpt from the terrific review of my new book, Dessert: A Tale of Happy Endings, from the English magazine Petits Propos Culinaires:

 

'Who could fail to want to look inside a book whose cover is so beguiling and title so tempting? Open this book and you will not be disappointed – the layout is attractive, the font size and spacing make for easy reading and the illustrations are clear and apposite . . . Quinzio's description of the dessert's development and the myriad of factors which lead it from mere sweetmeat to the huge variety of sweet endings that we know today is fascinating stuff . . . There is a wealth of information here, written in easily digestible and lucid form, adding greatly to my appreciation of those "happy endings" that I enjoy so much.' – Petits Propos Culinaires

 

And here's that beguiling cover.

 

Farewell, but not goodbye, to the Super Hunger Brunch

 

For many years, the Greater Boston Food Bank has raised funds through an annual brunch on a cold January weekend. Although the brunch has ended, some friends and I decided to continue the tradition ourselves by going out for brunch and making a donation to the Food Bank. We are in the Boston, MA area but, wherever you live, why not get together with friends for brunch this winter and make a donation to a local organization dedicated to feeding the hungry. It will brighten up your winter and improve lives as well.

Traditions have a way of sneaking up on us. We do something once, then again, then realize that it has become part of our lives. The first time friends and I went to the Super Hunger Brunch, one January weekend day in the 1990s, we had no idea that we’d be going for the next 20 plus years. Or how important the event would become to us. Or how sad we’d be when it ended.

In December, when a friend learned that the annual Greater Boston Food Bank’s Super Hunger Brunch had come to an end, she sent us an email with the heading “Sad news.” We’d come to plan on our annual brunch together, picking out a restaurant, catching up on each other’s news, knowing that we’d have a good meal for a good cause. What could be better?

We liked knowing that the brunch was a benefit, and that all the proceeds went to feed the hungry. Everyone from the restaurant owners to the chefs to the servers donated their time and work. Initially, the brunch benefitted both Oxfam America and the Greater Boston Food Bank. In 2002, the GBFB took it over.

We thought going to the brunch would be a good excuse to try out a new – to us – restaurant. We particularly liked the idea that the restaurants on the list of options didn’t usually serve brunch. So this would not be just a boring bacon and eggs meal. And besides, it would get us out on a chill winter day.

Our first Hunger Brunch was indeed on one of the coldest days in January, and while we waited outside for the restaurant doors to open, we wondered if the brunch would be worth our having braved the cold. We chose Olives in Charlestown because we had never eaten there, and everyone said it was wonderful. Once inside and warmed up by the fire and the food, we realized everyone was right.

We had such a good time, we decided to go the brunch again the next year. And the next, and the next. Most years, we tried a restaurant we’d never been to so we could put it to the test. Often it became a favorite we returned to for dinner again and again.

Sometimes, however, we went with the tried and true and treasured – La Morra, Rialto, Hamersley’s. Some of the dishes we had stand out in memory. We recall the hanger steak at Craigie on Main and their still-warm donuts; the polenta with tomato sauce at Rialto; the house-made sausages at EVOO, then still in Somerville. And, of course, the Champagne and the specialty cocktails each restaurant served.

Often when we arrived at the restaurant, the people from the GBFB gave us a token gift – a dish towel, a spatula, a whisk, something small but useful. Now when I use them, they call to mind a particular brunch, a special day.

Over time, like everyone, we’ve had our share of illnesses, a divorce, a wedding, a death. But no matter what happened, we made it to the Brunch. Several years ago, realizing that she’d never joined us, we asked our friend Rosemary to come to the Hunger Brunch. She said, “What’s a hunger brunch? You go out and don’t eat?” But she did go that year and for a few years after that. Then, sadly and far too young, Rosemary died. The next year, we went back to Craigie on Main. We ordered Cosmopolitans, her favorite cocktail, and raised our glasses to her. On the way out, we each plucked a sprig of rosemary from the planter near the door. Rosemary is for remembrance.

Now, sadly, the GBFB’s Super Hunger Brunch has ended its long run. But we’re continuing ours. We’re going out for brunch on Sunday February 10, restaurant to be determined. Probably we’ll try a new place to see if it will become a regular. Then we’ll send a donation to the GBFB in thanks for its work. And for giving us our tradition.