a.k.a. Good Food

Everyone likes or dislikes certain foods.   Have you ever wondered why?  In  my case I cannot swallow anything gelatinous, be it Jell-O, aspic or jellied consommé.  If there’s a thin layer of aspic on my pate, I scrape it off.  Why?  I’ve decided it hails back to a traumatic (at least to a 6 year old) experience.

I was lucky enough to grow up in Europe, my father having a job which took us from country to country.  Our first international outing, which lasted four years, was in Belgium, more specifically the Flemish part of Belgium.

My parents firmly believed that if you were living in a foreign country, you should live the way the local people did, go to their schools, dress in their manner.  But that’s fodder for a different blog.

One of the great pleasures of living, or visiting, abroad is learning new cultures.  Belgium is a country divided by language (French and Flemish) and culture (Walloon and Flemish/Dutch).  Each has its own heroes, customs, foods, and celebrations.

In the north of Flanders (the Flemish section), one of the hallmarks of the carnival season is an event called “goose riding” (ganzenrijden).

“Ganzenrijden” is a yearly contest in which horse riders, generally riding bareback on large Belgian draft horses, take turns and try to pull the head of a (dead) greased goose that’s strung up on a gallows. The lucky rider who is able to dislodge the head (usually after several hours of riding and tugging) gets the goose, also a money prize that accumulates over the day (which he can use to buy beer for the whole town), and is crowned King of the Festival and keeps that title until the next year.

The entire day entails a great deal of eating and drinking.  This is where my jelly phobia comes in.
Belgium is not the warmest climate, particularly during March, so my Father found a small restaurant where we could sit inside and watch the proceedings from the front window while drinking hot chocolate and munching on croissants and Speculoos cookies

Come lunchtime, my Father, unable to read the menu, (Did I mention we didn’t speak a word of Flemish and they not a word of English?)  requested the “specialiteit” of the day, which the owner proudly declared to be something that sounded like “Poochendeck.”   Thinking the nice man was trying to say “poached eggs” we ordered five servings.  I still don’t know how to spell the dish – can’t imagine why anyone would want to — but it turned out to be a terrine consisting primarily stray pieces of overcooked vegetables and meatless bones suspended in some sort of semi-transparent gelatin.  Now a strict rule in our family has always been  that you can’t say you don’t like something until you taste it.  I tasted it, I hated it, I never touched gelatin again.  In all honesty, even my parents were hard put to find anything complimentary to say about the dish.  But the ganzenrijders were spectacular, the beer delicious, the bread and freshly churned butter scrumptious, and the patisseries for dessert  – well, they were downright sinful.  So rather than try to duplicate a recipe for the meal that has tainted my culinary vistas all these years, I’ll share my recipe for Speculoos.

So tell me, what food don’t you like?  And why?

Speculoos

Traditionally these are rolled out on fancy wooden cookie moulds, but plain ones taste just as good.

Note: Prepare the dough a day before baking.

1 cup dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons milk
3 cups sifted flour
1½ teaspoons ground cloves
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground ginger
¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of baking powder
pinch of salt
1¼ cups butter
¼ cup slivered blanched almonds

In a small bowl combine the brown sugar and milk, and stir until smooth.
In a large bowl, sift the flour with the cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt.
With a pastry blender (or two knives), cut the butter into the flour mixture until it is like cornmeal.
Add the brown sugar mixture and the almonds and mix well.
Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

Shape the chilled dough into two rolls, wrap again in foil or cling film and refrigerate overnight. The next day, using a lightly floured surface, cut each roll into ¼” slices and bake on a baking sheet at 350°F for 15 minutes.  Allow to cool for at least 30 minutes before eating.  They should be very crisp.

Tags: cooking, food