Bookshelf: My Sweet Mexico

My entire life — other than occasional stints in Europe — has been spent in the company friends whose families hail from Oaxaca, Baja California, Sonora, and other parts of Mexico. Even today, I live a mere eighteen miles outside Tijuana. Some ascribe the affinity between Irish- and Mexican-Americans to similar Catholic upbringings. While not denying that possibility, I prefer to think that it is testament to how susceptible those of us with freckles are to the siren call of Mexican cookery.

I have, for instance, dispatched an incalculable number of pigs in the form of tacos, guisados, sopas, tortas, enchiladas, chorizos, and various antojitos. My lust for fresh, dried, and smoked chiles leads to eating amounts that would shock (and likely render ill) my pale ancestors. Yet Mexican sirens are not all chiles and pork. Some of them sing songs of sweetness.

One such sirena is Fany Gerson, a Mexican-born pastry chef and author of My Sweet Mexico. Oh, sure, you may know about caramel-topped flan or the long, ridged donuts known as churros, but there’s a wealth of desserts, candies, sweet beverages, and snacks that, while ingrained in Mexican culture, just don’t get much play in the US. Gerson’s here to fix that. Rightly.

Traveling around her native country, the author gathered recipes for dulces de convento (sweets from convents), dulces de antaño (“heirloom” sweets) pan dulce (the ubiquitous sweet morning breads), fruits, various desserts, and frozen treats such as margarita ice, rose petal sherbet, and sorbets made of quince, tamarind, lime, and cucumber.

If you’re the slightest bit interested in Mexican food or sweets in general, Gerson’s book is a knockout. It has recipes for both traditional sweets (want to make your own Mexican chocolate tablets? Instructions included) and more complex modern desserts such as an original lime tart with tequila-plumped “drunken” cherries.

My Sweet Mexico brings together in one place a trove of the kinds of recipes you would have to cobble together from dozens of English-language cookbooks devoted to Mexican cooking. The tone is light, erudite, and engaging: the voice of an expert and one whom I would want to have over for dinner (and not just because she may bring dessert). 

Drinks are not ignored. Sure, there’s an entire chapter devoted to bebidas, but pastry chefs, after all, are used to judicious use of spirits in their work. Gerson puts a Mexican spin on that tradition. Consider her recipe for gaznates (“windpipes”), light, cannoli-like shells filled with Italian meringue: the shells are made with brandy or rum — and the filling? Spiked with mezcal.

Don’t like windpipes? Try the jamoncillo de leche, a fudge-like milk confection that can be flavored with chocolate, lime, coconut — or reposado tequila. 

Gerson’s recipe for pasita, a raisin cordial, was inspired by a bar in Puebla that serves its namesake tipple in a shot glass topped with a skewer of salty cheese and a raisin.

Pasita

(a raisin liqueur)

1.5 c/340g sugar

1 c/250ml water

3 c/750ml brandy

2 c/300g dark raisins

Combine the sugar and water in a pot over medium heat, and cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Pour into a large container. Stir in about 1 cup of the brandy, add the raisins, and let macerate until the raisins plump, about 20 minutes. Add the remaining 2 cups brandy and cover tightly. Store in a dry, dark place for 2 weeks, Stain through a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth and store in a sterilized jar.

“Although this drink is typically served,” she adds “at room temperature, I like it a bit chilled. It will keep about 2 months in the refrigerator.”

~ Adapted from My Sweet Mexico to include metric measures.

Though well-researched throughout, Gerson tips her scholarly hand at the end by including a bibliography of nearly thirty titles, most from Mexico and nearly all in Spanish: a goldmine for those who want to read more.

Fany Gerson (2010)
My Sweet Mexico: Recipes for Authentic Pastries, Breads, Candies, Beverages, and Frozen Treats

224 pages, hardback
Ten Speed Press

ISBN: 1580089941

$30.00

Goes well with:

• Fany Gerson’s site My Sweet Mexico
• Amazon sells the book here
• Gerson’s soon-to-open paleta company, La Newyorkina. Paletas are typically Mexican and often fruit-heavy popsicles that sometimes come in arresting flavors such as mango/chile or roasted corn. Try them: the good ones are very good indeed.

Become a Spirits of Mexico Guest Judge

Generally, I don't repost press releases, but an email just now from about this August's  Spirits of Mexico fest in San Diego made me think you tequila lovers might want in on this.

The gist is that our little waterfront town will be awash in hectoliters of tequila and mezcal, all needing a panel of judges to assess them. There's a space for another judge and SOM is soliciting applications. Yeah, that's right: If you've got the cojones y hígado as well as writing chops, you can sample and pass judgment on hundreds of Mexican spirits in a mere two days.

Here's part of the press release:

Win a seat on the 2010 SOM Tasting Competition judging panel!

Write a brief and original essay (500-1,000 words) on why we should consider you as a judge at the SOM competition this year. Convince us that you are the person who will most benefit from the opportunity to taste as many as 120 Mexican spirits in two days along with the other judges. The essay should display your knowledge, appreciation and experience with tequila, mezcal and other Mexican spirits. Wit, humor and style welcomed. The essay must be written in English, submitted to the info@polishedpalate.com by June 30, 2010 and be available electronically through email, a standard word processing program, pdf or other easily transferable format. Proofread your essay carefully as it will be judged on creativity, spelling and grammar. Decision of the judges is final. Employees of any spirit supplier or distributor are not eligible.

 The rest, including full rules and other info, is here.

See you there.

Rock Out with Your Cock Ale

Trup: Nay, nay, no more sobrietie than will do us good; but that's all one. Look ye, Mr. Spruce, for your wine I don’t love it; and for your ale ye have not a drop in London worth drinking; that's the short on’t.

Spr: How Mr. Trupenny, not a drop worth drinking? Did you ever taste our cock-ale?

Trup: Cock-ale? no; what's that?

Spr: Why there you shew your ignorance. Look ye, sir, I lay ye five pound you shall say, ye never tasted the like in the country.

~ The Woman Turned Bully (1675)
Attributed to Aphra Behn

With a recent post on a 300-year-old drink called negus, I intended to reach back into the misty past of drinking history. Rick Stutz over at Kaiser Penguin has stretched just a bit further with a recipe for Cock Ale. Yeah, with a real cock. Well, a chicken, anyway. The farm-to-table crowd argues about just such semantics.

As an erstwhile homebrewer and incorrigible book hound, I know that recipe well. My thoroughly annotated college-era copy of Charlie Papazian’s old Complete Joy of Homebrewing and its infernally bad index is dog-eared from once-constant reference. Papazian lifted it from Edward Spencer who yoiked it from Eliza Smith whose The Complete Housewife was the first cookbook published in America. The recipe’s been around.

Until Rick’s post, though, I hadn’t known of anyone actually making it. Now, I’ve mentioned before that I’m leery of flesh in my cups—bacon-infused bourbon and whatnot—but anyone setting a mug of cock ale in front of me will soon be faced with an empty mug. By all reports from the 17th and 18th centuries, the stuff was eminently quaffable.

The inclusion of animals in beverages is an old, old practice (whole or parts, live or dead), but has faded almost entirely away. Brewers weren’t the only ones in on the game: When Smith’s book was printed, personal stills were already popular both in North America and England where, in fact, one of the duties of a responsible wife was managing the household still. Cock water was a natural. Also snail water, but we’ll let that one slide.

The practice may be on the ropes, but it hasn't faded entirely away. Del Maguey released, as part of its single-village bottlings of Mexican spirits, Pechuga, a triple-distilled mescal distilled with a chicken breast suspended in the still. The stuff is pricey when you can find it, but I admit I’m curious.

Until I score a bottle, I have this recipe, typical of the mid-18th century, from a handwritten household recipe book once in the collection of Chef Fritz Blank, but now at the University of Pennsylvania. Although I included it in Moonshine, it was primarily as an historical curiosity. Might have to rethink that after prodding from a Penguin…

Cock Water

Take a red Cock from ye Barn’s door, pull it, take out ye Intrals & break all ye Bones, have in readiness of Rosemary, hops and Broad Time each 1 handful, red Pimpernel 2 handfuls, Raisins of ye Sun ston’d half a pound, Dates pick’d and ston’d a qtr of a pound, Currans wash’d and rubb’d dry a pound, Canary sack 2 qts; first lay most of ye herbs in ye bottom of ye still, then put in ye Cock, lay the fruit all about it, put ye rest of ye herbs over it, & pour ye sack in by ye sides, cover and past it close, begin the fire betimes & keep a constant heat under it. You may draw somewhat above 3 pints of very good; mix and sweeten if with Sugar-Candy to yr Liking.

Goes well with:

• The Restoration Comedy Project