Posts Tagged With: dessert

Cuban Cascos de Guayaba (Guava Shells with Cheese)

Posted on July 21, 2022 by pauldelancey

Cuban Dessert

CASCOS DE GUAYABA
(Guava Shells With Cheese)

INGREDIENTS

1 15-ounce can guava shells in syrup*
8 ounces cream cheese

* = Found in Hispanic supermarkets or online.

Serves 4. Takes 15 minutes.

PREPARATION

Remove guava shells from syrup. Keep syrup. Add ½ tablespoon to 2 tablespoons cream cheese to guava shell. (Amount depends on size of guava shell.). Drizzle 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon syrup over each guava shell with cream cheese, again depending on the size of the shell. Repeat for each guava shell. Goes well with saltine crackers.

TIDBITS

1) I had to go online to order guava shells in syrup.

2) They traveled the entire country by truck. They arrived by truck. The whole process took days. Fortunately, I planned to prepare this dessert for family. They were willing to wait days.

3) But if instead, I am regaling my business associates about Cascos De Guayaba. I’m really selling how great it tastes when I made it. I can see them starting to drool.

4) Finally, my boss snaps. “Dang, that sounds great,” he says, “I sure could go for some good Cascos de Guayaba. Whip me up a batch right now and I’ll make you vice president. And if you can’t, well . . .” He draws a finger across his throat. I’ll be clearing out my desk tomorrow.

5) But it doesn’t have to end this way. What if I could launch millions of bags of Cascos de Guayaba into the outer atmosphere? Higher than where planes fly, of course. I am nothing, if not careful.

6) Anyway, I’ll have billions of freezer bags full of this delicious dessert orbiting the Earth. All you have to do is order. With seconds a package of Cascos of Guyaba will be directly over your house. A little parachute will deploy. Your dessert will drift precisely to your doorstep. You will be able to make this dessert for your boss. You will become vice president. Your life will be good, very good.

7) But won’t billions of bags of Cascos de Guayaba in the atmosphere block out the Sun, at least to an extent? Won’t that temperatures to fall? Yes. But that what’s needed to stop global warning. I see a Nobel prize in my future.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, Following Good Food, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Madeeda Hilba

Posted on July 4, 2022 by pauldelancey

Sudanese Dessert

MADEEDA HILBA

INGREDIENTS

¼ cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1½ cups water
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
1½ cups water
½ teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons water
1 cup milk
⅔ cup sugar

SPECIAL UTENSIL

colander

Serves 6. Takes 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add oil to pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat. It is hot enough when a fenugreek seed will dance in the oil Add fenugreek seeds. Sauté for 1 minute or until fenugreek seeds darken. Stir constantly. Add 1½ cups water and salt. Reduce heat to low-medium, Simmer for 12 minutes or until fenugreek seeds soften. Stir enough to prevent burning. Reserve fenugreek seeds.

While fenugreek simmers, add flour and 1½ cups water to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until flour dissolves. It should be be quite watery. Use colander to strain fenugreek seeds from water. Keep both fenugreek seeds and fenugreek-flavored water. Add baking soda and 3 tablespoons water to cup. Stir with fork until baking soda dissolves.

Add watery flour to pot. Set heat to low-medium. Stir constantly with whisk keep flour from clumping. Add more water if necessary. Add fenugreek liquid. Stir until well blended. Stir constantly. Add milk. Stir constantly until mixture thickens. Add sugar. Stir until well blended. Add reserved fenugreek seeds. Add dissolved baking soda. Stir until mixture thickens to the consistency of porridge. Serve warm or chilled.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe, Madeeda Hilba, tells you to stir the contents while cooking. Suppose you’ve hurt both your wrists and can’t stir. What then? Simple, buy yourself a Bushnell Rotating Electric RangeTM (BRER). Simply put your liquid in a pot on top of a burner and hold firmly a spatula. Your rotating range will move the liquid around the spatula. No more stirring! Your wrists will say, “Thank you, Bushnell.”

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Simple Oblea Sandwich

Posted on June 21, 2022 by pauldelancey

Colombian Desserts

SIMPLE OBLEA SANDWICH

INGREDIENTS

2 oblea wafers or other 6″ wafers
3 tablespoons each of one or more of the following fillings:
caramel sauce (If you can get the authentic Colombian caramel sauce, arequipe, go for it.)
condensed milk
chocolate sprinkles
chopped pineapple
cream cheese
grated cheese
grated coconut
jam

Serves 1. Takes 3 minutes.

The top wafer shows the filling in the sandwich.

PREPARATION

Spread 3 tablespoons of fillings over first oblea. Put second oblea on top of fillings..

TIDBITS

1) Obleas is the plural form of oblea. Oblea is a Spanish word.

2) The English language is also rich with plural nouns.

3) Popular plural nouns of the English language include: women, ants, hamburgers, and doors.

4) So you can see that English speakers needn’t feel inferior to their Spanish counterparts on this linguistic matter.

5) According to culinary linguists, the word “oblea” has a rich and fabricated history.

6) For in mid 1968, the BeatlesTM traveled to India seeking enlightenment. They did not find it.

7) Disappointed, The Fab Four traveled to Colombia seeking solace in a simple, yet tasty dessert.

8) They found it in the form of Juan Cabrera’s simple oblea sandwich.

9) Such a fabulous dessert was worthy of a song, and soon the gifted Beatles came up with “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.”

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Debesmanna (Cranberry Mousse) From Latvia

Posted on June 7, 2022 by pauldelancey

Latvian Dessert

DEBESMANNA
(Cranberry Mousse)

INGREDIENTS

2¼ cups cranberry juice
⅓ cup sugar
⅓ cup cream of wheat, farina, or semolina
1 cup milk

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric beater.

Serves 6. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Add cranberry juice and sugar to pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir constantly. Gradually add cream of wheat. Stir constantly to prevent lumps. Reduce heat to low-medium. Cook for 10 minutes or until mixture thickens. Stir constantly with whisk or fork.

Transfer mixture to mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on high for 10 minutes or until mixture becomes fluffy and a lighter shade of red.. Serve in bowls. Pour milk equally over each bowl.

TIDBITS

1) The term “manna from heaven” comes from the Old Testament. The book Exodus tells us how the Israelites fearing the wrath of the Egyptian pharaoh plunged deeper and deeper into the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula.

2) The Israelites grumbled that they were running out of food, that they were at least assured of getting full meals back in Egypt. They had apparently forgotten that they were enslaved back there.

3) So God, Yahweh, sent them food, manna. This manna floated down from the sky or perhaps even from heaven. Nowadays, “manna from heaven” means any lucky occurrence. In fact, an event so lucky that is on par with the Israelites receiving manna from God.

4) On July 7, 2008, the Latvian village of Dagda was besieged by hordes of scam artists trying to sell them a new warranty for their cars, to replace the old extended warranties that had expired. The Dagdans had only one day of food left. Then little Debbie from the nearby farms catapulted thousands of cranberries mousses into Dagda. She saved the town. The grateful Dadgans called her dessert, “Debbie’s Manna.” Over time, this shortened to Debesmanna. Now you know.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Strawberry Frosting

Posted on May 10, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

STRAWBERRY FROSTING

INGREDIENTS

1 cup strawberries
1 cup butter, softened
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups confectioners’ sugar

SPECIAL UTENSILS

food processor
electric beater
no-stick pan

Frosts 1 double-layer cake or 24 cupcakes. Takes 1 hour.

PREPARATION

Remove green leaves and stems from strawberries. Puree strawberries in food processor. Add butter and vanilla extract to mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set on medium until fluffy. Set electric beater to medium while gradually add in confectioners’ sugar. Mix until fluffy and completely blended.

Add pureed strawberry to no-stick pan. Cook at medium high until puree starts to boil. Stir constantly. Remove heat to low-medium. Simmer until strawberry puree reduces to ⅓ cup. Stir constantly. Remove thickened puree and put in refrigerator until puree cools to room temperature.

Use spatula to gradually fold strawberry puree into bowl with butter/confectioners’ sugar mix. If frosting turns out a bit thin, thicken it by putting it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

TIDBITS

1) Strawberries are great. They are ever so tasty. One of baseball’s greatest star was Darryl Strawberry. He played for the 1986 world champion New York Mets. One of music’s greatest bands was The Strawberry Alarm Clock.

2) Strawberries are part of the rose family. Who knew

3) Ancient Romans believed strawberries cured depression, kidney stones, and a sore throat. The Roman Empire was one of the world’s mightiest and longest living empires, so they might be right.

4) See the Strawberry Museum in Wépion, Belgium to learn everything about this wondrous fruit.

5) All hail, the strawberry.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, history | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Vanilla Pudding

Posted on April 10, 2022 by pauldelancey

American Dessert

VANILLA PUDDING

INGREDIENTS

3½ tablespoons cornstarch
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ cup sugar
2½ cups milk
1 tablespoon butter, softened
½ tablespoon vanilla extract

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add cornstarch, salt, and sugar to saucepan. Mix with spatula. Add milk slowly, while stirring gently with spatula. Heat for 5 minutes using medium heat or until mixture thickens. Stir constantly to prevent burning. Remove from heat. Add butter and vanilla. Stir gently with spatula until well blended.

Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour 30 minutes or until mixture firms into pudding.

TIDBITS

1) Stars are made from vanilla pudding. How do we know this?

2) Stars are white.

3) Vanilla pudding is white.

4) The Sun is hot. That is because it’s yellow and not made from vanilla pudding.

5) If you were somehow able to catapult your vanilla pudding millions of light years away it would be far too small to be seen, even by the Hubble telescope

6) Indeed, you would need to buy trillions of pounds of: cornstarch, salt, sugar, milk, butter, and vanilla extract to fling a visibile vanilla-pudding star into the far reaches of space.

7) But don’t do it. Every van in the world would be needed to deliver your ingredients. The global economy would collapse. Oh my gosh, we’d have nothing left to make cake! For millions of years! What would we do for birthdays? I beg of you, reconsider this giant-star project!

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, observations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

German Bee Sting Cake (Bienenstich Kuchen)

Posted on April 4, 2022 by pauldelancey

German Dessert

BEE STING CAKE
(Bienenstich Kuchen)

INGREDIENTS – ALMOND TOPPING

½ cup butter (6 tablespoons more later)
5 tablespoons sugar (3 tablespoons more later)
1 tablespoon honey
1½ tablespoons heavy whipping cream (½ cup more later)
1⅓ cup slivered almonds
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

INGREDIENTS – CAKE

2¾ teaspoons yeast
2⅔ cups flour
5 tablespoons butter (1 tablespoon more later)
3 tablespoons sugar
⅔ cup milk, lukewarm (2 cups more later)
1 egg
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
parchment paper

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

6 tablespoons vanilla pudding powder
1 cup milk
½ cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (½ teaspoon more later)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
8″ * 12″ baking pan
parchment paper

Serves 16. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – ALMOND TOPPING

Add ½ cup butter to pot. Melt butter using low-medium heat. Stir gently and frequently. Add 5 tablespoons sugar and honey. Stir constantly until sugar melts and liquid is well blended. Add 1½ tablespoons heavy whipping cream and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract. Stir with spatula until well blended. Remove from heat. Fold in slivered almonds. Just before cake is ready to be bake, use low heat to make topping lukewarm and spreadable.

PREPARATION – CAKE

Add all cake ingredients except 1 tablespoon butter to mixing bowl. Mix with hands until well blended. Knead for 15 minutes or until mix becomes a smooth and pliable dough. Remove dough. Grease mixing bowl with 1 tablespoon butter. Return dough ball to mixing bowl. Cover with cloth and let rise for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size. 15 minutes before dough has finished rising, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cover baking pan with parchment paper. Add dough to baking pan. Smooth dough until it is level. Use spatula to spread almond topping over dough. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until cake turns golden brown and a toothpick inserted into middle of cake comes out clean. Remove from heat and let cool for10 minutes. Grab opposite sides of parchment paper, remove cake, and place on serving plate.

Let cool for another 15 minutes. Cut cake into 16 rectangles, 2″ * 3″. Use serrated knife to cut each rectangle lengthwise into 2 thin layers.

PREPARATION – FILLING

While cake cools, add pudding powder 1 cup milk and ½ cup heavy whipping cream to mixing bowl. (Prepare according to instructions on package.) Cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for 1 hour.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

After filling has chilled, use spatula to carefully spread equal amounts of filling on bottom half of the cake rectangles. (The ones without the slivered-almond topping.) Place cake rectangles with slivered-almond topping on rectangles covered with filling.

A forgotten episode from the Great War

TIDBITS

1) World War I was mostly a static affair as it became incredibly difficult to dislodge the enemy infantry defending their trenches.

2) Then a German beekeeping general thought, why not use bees? After all, everyone flees bees.

3) So, on March 13, 1915 the Germans sent boys and girls carrying this cake to the British lines. The Tommies loved this dessert. So did the bees. The bees dive bombed the British soldiers who fled en masse. The Germans were on the verge of total victory. Then the wind shifted toward the German lines. Countless soldiers on both sides suffered repeated stings. The Great Bee Sting Truce was agreed upon and lasted for two weeks. After that, Bee Sting Cake got banned as a weapon of war.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mauritian Napolitaines

Posted on March 17, 2022 by pauldelancey

Mauritian Dessert

SIMPLE NAPOLITAINES
(Sandwich Cookies)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour (3 more tablespoons later)
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons raspberry jam
2 9-ounce bottles pink cookie icing (Not cake icing)

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric beater
1 cookie sheet
parchment paper
1½” cookie cutter (Must be a cookie cutter)
sonic obliterator

Makes 20 cookies. Takes 3 hours 30 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 335 degrees. Add butter and 2 cups flour to large mixing bowl. Blend with electric beater set or medium until butter and flour form a dough ball. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons flour on flat surface. Roll out dough until it is about ⅓” thick. Cut out dough circles with 1½” cookie cutter. Make them as level and smooth as you can. (I cannot stress this enough. Smooth cookie sides will make proper icing much easier later.) Cover cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place dough circles on parchment paper.

Bake dough circles at 335 degrees for 20 minutes or until the middle of a circle is no longer soft when pressed. Don’t let the circles turn brown! They should remain pale. Gently life parchment paper with circles and let cool on a wire rack or plate. (Leave circles on parchment paper.)

Once circles have cooled completely, spread ½ teaspoon raspberry jam over a baked circle. Gently place another circle over the jam to make a cookie. Repeat until all circles have been used.

Put cookies on large plate. Do not let them touch each other. Pour icing from bottles over cookies. Make sure to pour icing over the edge of the cookie tops so that the icing will flow down and coat the sides of the cookies. Do this all in one go. Let sit until icing hardens completely.

This is a hard one to do perfectly. There’s a reason dessert chefs differ from the other chefs. So appreciate why some things, particularly these cookies, can be expensive. And for the insensitive oafs who give you guff about your cookies, zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need their negativity in your kitchen.

TIDBITS

1) Napolitaines look a lot like UFOs.

2) By the way, Napolitaines is pronounced Napolitaines.

3) I’m glad I cleared that up.

4) UFOs really do resemble Napolitaines. There’s a reason for that.

5) Having a successful space program brings enormous international prestige.

6) If you were to ask people what are the ten greatest things about America, 93.6% would say, “NASA.” The remaing 6.4% couldn’t find a No. 2 pencil and so, couldn’t fill out the questionaire.

7) So what do you if you want to develop a space program but simply do not possess the vast resources of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration?

8) Well, what do you if you want to make crab salad, but you haven’t the money to buy crabmeat?

9) Why, you purchase krabmeat, a crabmeat substitute. It’s made of various seafoods and costs much less than the real thing.

10) Similarly, if you wish to fling manmade objects into space, you send up something small. Dispense with lunar modules, the Hubble telescope, space stations or other enormously heavy gadgetry.

11) Fling Napolitaines from the Earth instead.

12) A batch of Napolitaines is easy to make. All you need is butter, flour, raspberry jam, and pink cookie icing.

13) While even the simplest of Hubble telescopes involve: miles of circuitry, rare metals, scads of computing power, and other complicated gizmos.

14) The Apollo Program required gigantic rockets, specialize fuel, more frigging circuitry, with all of its parts engineered with incredible precision, and a reinforced launching pad to hurl its lunar modules to well, the moon.

15) What does it take to fling Napolitaines into outer space?

16) A really big slingshot.

17) So that’s what thrifty Mauritius did. It slingshotted hundreds of Napolitaines into space. Some made it to the moon, some to Neptune, and some even exited the Solar System. However, many Napolitaines never left our atmosphere and orbit our planet a few dozen feet in the air. The cookies in this recipe, at that altitude, resemble alien space ships. Except for the color. Orbiting UFOs are grey or off white. Napolitaines are pink. Now you know.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., and travel advisor

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ukrainian Syrniki (Cheese Pancakes)

Posted on March 8, 2022 by pauldelancey

Ukrainian Breakfast

SYRNIKI
(Cheese Pancakes)

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs
1 pound farmers’ cheese or cottage cheese
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup flour (5 tablespoons more later)
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup raisins (optional)
3 tablespoons flour (2½ tablespoons more later)
2 tablespoons flour
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil (½ tablespoon per batch)
3 tablespoons sour cream (optional)
1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar

Serves 4. Takes 40 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add eggs to mixing bowl. Beat eggs well with whisk. Add cheese. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add baking powder, ½ cup flour, salt, and sugar. Mix with whisk until batter is well blended. Fold in raisins.

Spread 3 tablespoons flour over flat surface. Ladle batter evenly oven flour. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons flour on batter.

Add ½ tablespoon vegetable oil to large pan. Heat oil at medium heat until a bit of batter begins to dance. Use spatula to carefully add 2″ square pieces of flour-covered batter. (Don’t let them touch each other. You might need to cook in batches.) Cook for 2 minutes per side or until brown all over. Repeat for each batch. If desired, garnish with sour cream or confectioners’ sugar.

TIDBITS

1) This is the first time my tidbits have not been funny. Twelve days before writing this, Putin ordered a unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. This is an existential war for the defenders. I so wish for better days for Ukraine. The nation’s flag is on the left. The country’s symbol, the sunflower, is on the right.

 

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

 

 

Categories: cuisine, international, Ukraine | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Egyptian Roz Bel Laban

Posted on February 24, 2022 by pauldelancey

Egyptian Dessert

ROZ BEL LABAN

INGREDIENTS

1 cup rice
2¼ cups water
3½ cups whole milk
¾ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon orange blossom water or vanilla
½ teaspoon rose water, orange blossom water, or vanilla
½ teaspoon cinnamon

Serves 6. Takes 1 hours 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add rice and water to pot, Set heat to low-medium and simmer for 12 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent burning. (Always, in this recipe, add water or milk if the liquid in the pot dries up.)

While rice simmers, add milk and sugar to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add to pot. Simmer at medium heat for 12 minutes or until mixture starts to thicken. Stir constantly. Add allspice, orange blossom water, and rose water. Simmer at medium heat. Stir constantly until mixture has thickened and rices softens and becomes creamy. Gently spoon rice mixture into individual serving bowls. Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour or until pudding sets. Sprinkle cinnamon over each bowl.

TIDBITS

1) Roz Augureau’s sparkling eyes and beautiful face bedazzled men everywhere. So much so that men made rash decisions. In 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II and President Poincare attended a society ball at the same time as Roz. The German and French leaders both professed undying love for her. Neither ruler would clear the field for the belle Roz. Words were said. Poincare slapped Wilhelm. The Kaiser had the choice of weapons. If only he had picked pistols, instead of millions of soldiers as the duelllng weapons, the world would have been spared the horrors of the First World War.

2) But he didn’t and anyway, hindsight is 20/20. However, the French could forgive Roz Augureau for starting the War to End All Wars. Afier all, “L’amour, toujours l’amour.” They could not ignore, however, her effect on French cuisine. Every time the Belle Roz sashayed by restaurants, the besotted chefs made mistakes. It all came to a head in 1915 when the very sight of Roz so charmed the chef making this very dish, that he unwittingly substituted sardine water for vanilla. This atrocity outraged the French nation. What, if anything, was France fighting for if not for the purity of its cuisine? So, France passed a law banning the belle Roz from walking by any kitchen. In honor of this law, Le Monde called this dish, “Roz Belle La Ban.” Later this became, Roz Bel Laban.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

Categories: cuisine, history, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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