Personally, I think they are a little overrated. But I hope you get your wish!
All I’ve had ive had is chinese chestnuts. With the blight having taken out almost all American chestnuts as being functional fruit producers the majority of the modern people won’t ever get to taste them. I’ve not seen pure American chestnut fruit being sold anywhere. I see hybrids and mostly just chinese chestnuts and all reports state the American chestnut was significantly sweeter.
As science emerges it seems that the ozark chinquapin, which is also extremely rare and it’s hard to find nuts online to buy, ancestor to the American chestnut and Allegheny chinquapin. Many plants as you probably know will have the ancestor still alive along with multiple divergents. I’ve not seen them sold in sores either. It’s usually the dwarf chinquapin fruit I see.
There is a decent chance the chestnuts you’ve tried were chinese chestnuts. Harvard put out a while back that although thousands of saplings live they are more like root suckers and almost never flower or produce. They even believe it may be over 500 years before pure American chestnuts are around enough to be cultivated for actual fruit production.
That’s part of the reason I want to try them. They are both very rare, and if a second blight or event hits them they may be lost forever along with their tastes.
Tamales are also a traditional wedding food in San Salvador. My first wife was the child of an American father and the daughter of the ambassador to the United States from San Salvador who met as nurses in England during WWII. When we got married the two of us with her mother’s guidance made tamales for the entire party while guests brought other dishes. The tamales were a really nice touch.
Alas the marriage of my childhood lasted only a few years. My real wife came along a couple years later when I was better prepared for what I was getting into and that has lasted most of my life.
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I make tamales, but don’t restrict them to the holidays. If you make them yourself and the use of lard makes you hesitate, you can easily substitute cheese for the lard and make them more delicious as a result.
I get the oyster and king oyster mushrooms from the oriental grocery store and put them in various stir frys and curries as a change from the usual mushrooms.
Yes chestnuts are a favorite food and flavor in the orient. The Japanese like chestnut and sweet potato flavors for their ice cream. They put chestnuts and sweet potatoes in many other desert and snack foods as well.
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Thanks for asking, Randy…and great question!! Ever since the poem about “visions of sugarpllums dance in their heads” – I suppose the holiday gets associated with food…
I am one of those who must make fruitcake…and yes, I said “make” not buy a cube of it off the shelf…and I like to bake gingerbread men and Christmas cookies of all shapes and sizes…turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes…
Those are my favorite. When I am invited to places that say “pork tenderloin” or “lasagna” — those are holiday nonstarters for me. I will get that turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce in there somwhere,
So those are my favorite holiday foods and I must do them all!!
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Lefse – traditional Norwegian flatbread and a Christmas staple. Basically a tortilla made out of mashed potatoes. (My wife’s of mostly Norwegian descent.)
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Well this thread helped me focus in on a menu for Christmas eve. I’ve decided to do Duck Adobo, a Philippines dish. The inspiration was realizing I wanted to end up with bones for soup but also that I wanted to make something to please my sister-in-law who was born there. I’m thinking of also making a vegetarian version of Kare-Kare I found on line that involves one big banana blossom, eggplant, green beens, and some unusual looking mushroom in place of tripe. Maybe I’ll chicken out on that one, though I’m sure the sauce would be amazing.
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Sounds delicious! Much better than Lake Woebegonian Lutefisk. Here’s a picture I found:
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They’re not as easy to make as they look. Get a lesson first! My neighbor Ruby down the street runs a tortilleria from her house. My Christmas tamales come from there:
LOL. Heresy! There is a saying in Spanish, reflecting the opposite cultural value of “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” since appearances are highly valued. It says something like “The lard of a good tamale shows on the corn husk.”
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Thank the lard!
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We like a Mennonite cookbook, “More With Less,” that frequently uses lard–we sub oil or sometimes other types of fats instead
Does anyone know any good recipes that use apple sauce instead of Crisco/fat? I tried it, but most kids don’t like it as much.
Thanks.
The accusation of heresy has never frightened me in the slightest. Last time I got “real” tamales from an authentic Mexican restaurant my family complained because they just were not as good as mine.
so… it is not just about the fat… in fact…
Ever made a British suet pudding? I have. Steak and kidney pudding. Hardest cooking I ever did. But the kidney flavor wasn’t so popular with the family so I am not likely to do it again. One of these days I will have to make one of the desert suet puddings though. Talking to a friend from England, I found that doing it from scratch like I did is something the modern day English person tends to avoid in any way they can. LOL
@Randy
You forgot to mention what exactly you were making from the Mennonite cookbook that you want a good recipe for and that kids did or didn’t like as much so you left us a little bit in the dark regarding what you were talking about.
@Jay313
At first I thought you were taking about tortillas rather than tamales. And that is another discussion… I love the fresh corn tortillas some Mexican restaurants make so I keep trying for that. I make other kinds of flatbread all the time. In fact I did this morning for breakfast on which we spread my homemade humus and baba ganoush (and I often make muhammara for that as well). If you decide to try your own humus (tired of the sour stuff at the store), I strongly recommend starting with your own raw sesame and roasting it yourself (approx 10 min in a frying pan) instead of using store bought tahani not only because it tastes better but because the tahini tends to be rather overpriced by comparison. With a food processor its really easy to make.
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Sorry! I was thinking of cookies and desserts. Oil replacement tends to make things very crispy. Adding some coconut seems to keep it a bit chewier, which the kids like. However, I was thinking the other night it would be fun to replace the fat with apple sauce–but that might only work with something like banana bread.
Thanks.
The cheapest is usually with bone, precooked and frozen. I rarely pass up 99 cent/pound meat, so I bought such frozen hams a few times this year at that price. Of course, that means you need a few days to defrost the thing like when making turkey also cheap frozen from the store.
Randy… I have that cookbook…somewhere. Good cookbook but have not used it in years…have not heard it mentioned in years either…
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Mennonite food, eh?
https://dailybonnet.com/mennonite-man-discovers-potato-and-cheese-in-his-perogies/
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I enjoyed that! Here is a photo and the recipe inside for Vareniky and Bierrocks. Becky and I keep on planning on making Vareniky, but have only made Bierrocks so far…which are really tasty. My mom and many other missionaries relied on MWL because it doesn’t require pre made commercial foods, like margarine and mixes, that aren’t available overseas.
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That article from “The Daily Bonnet” is hilarious!! Evidently Mr Redekop is a man of habit…expected to find his pierogi (perogy?) filled with cottage cheese but got a surprise. I must check on the spelling of the word …But thanks for the article, Phil.
Pierogis, perogies…have seen both spellings. See Leannbrown. com and also Taste of Home site…the latter describes pierogis as "dumplings filled with " – you guessed it! --“potatoes and cheese”…all right, now I am getting hungry …“and boiled…” I think Mr Redekop just got a taste of the real thing!!
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