Transatlantic cooking
Sep. 24th, 2007 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doireWhen first acquired a vegetarian SO, I bought a cookbook - The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas. It has many fine recipes - apart , perhaps from the strucla recipe where you turn over the page to find the words "Prepare the filling the night before" - which have become staples in our family. The original was published in America but I had a British edition.
It had a recipe for Galub Jamen, an Indian sweet, which I wanted to make, but couldn't find one of the ingredients, 2 Tbsp Nesquick. In the UK Nesquick is a sweet powder for making milkshakes. I reasoned, having had plain milkshakes in Canada, that maybe it mean unflavoured milkshake powder and forgot about it.
The years went by. I went to Indian festival cooking classes and learned to make Galub Jamen and many other celebratory dishes from scratch. I discovered ready-mix Galub Jamen, made by Gits, to my children's delight, in a local shop. And then I discovered Nestles full cream milk powder in the same shop. At last, the magic ingredient safely purchased, I went home to look for my cookery book.
This book having been stolen by my daughter I found her copy, the one that had to be bought before she released mine, first.
I turned to the right page.
It looked a very 1970's recipe. Ah, never mind, I can make allowances. Bugger, it's an American edition I'm going to have translate all the quantities.
No mention of Nesquick! What's Bisquick? A quick Google, Wiki having failed me, and I know it's ready rubbed flour and fat. Have I misremembered all these years? Surely not, I could have made a Bisquick substitute, but could I have found out, then, what it was? My family are not supportive.
Eventually I find my copy. This is not so much a book as a collection of loose pages punched and rebound with plastic spirals. I am vindicated! My copy says Nesquick.
So for nigh on 35 years I have been trying to track down a recipe ingredient that was probably a misreading and substitution of a brand name.
Now I come to look at it with experienced eyes it looks a rather odd recipie too. C'est la vie.
It had a recipe for Galub Jamen, an Indian sweet, which I wanted to make, but couldn't find one of the ingredients, 2 Tbsp Nesquick. In the UK Nesquick is a sweet powder for making milkshakes. I reasoned, having had plain milkshakes in Canada, that maybe it mean unflavoured milkshake powder and forgot about it.
The years went by. I went to Indian festival cooking classes and learned to make Galub Jamen and many other celebratory dishes from scratch. I discovered ready-mix Galub Jamen, made by Gits, to my children's delight, in a local shop. And then I discovered Nestles full cream milk powder in the same shop. At last, the magic ingredient safely purchased, I went home to look for my cookery book.
This book having been stolen by my daughter I found her copy, the one that had to be bought before she released mine, first.
I turned to the right page.
It looked a very 1970's recipe. Ah, never mind, I can make allowances. Bugger, it's an American edition I'm going to have translate all the quantities.
No mention of Nesquick! What's Bisquick? A quick Google, Wiki having failed me, and I know it's ready rubbed flour and fat. Have I misremembered all these years? Surely not, I could have made a Bisquick substitute, but could I have found out, then, what it was? My family are not supportive.
Eventually I find my copy. This is not so much a book as a collection of loose pages punched and rebound with plastic spirals. I am vindicated! My copy says Nesquick.
So for nigh on 35 years I have been trying to track down a recipe ingredient that was probably a misreading and substitution of a brand name.
Now I come to look at it with experienced eyes it looks a rather odd recipie too. C'est la vie.
