Churro

Churro
Tacos Mi Rancho, $1.50 

It's not certain where the Spanish and Portuguese got the idea for churros, but they certainly took the treat with them wherever they went.  Found today throughout the Americas and the Philippines, most churros are made by extruding soft dough through a star-shaped die into hot oil.  The resulting crisp sticks may be eaten plain, or glazed, sprinkled, or filled with ingredients ranging from cinnamon sugar to fruit paste to cheese.  Often eaten at breakfast with a cup of hot chocolate, a churro hot from the fryer also makes fine end to a good meal.

Tacos Mi Rancho
188 S 4th Ave
Yuma AZ
928 / 783-2116

Torrone

Torrone

Antica Torroneria Piemontese, $14.99

Torrone is a feather-light Italian nougat typically made with sugar, honey, and egg white (although this brand uses gelatin rather than egg); toasted nuts or dried fruit are added to the mildly sweet matrix. Like its relative meringue, torrone's texture can range from gooey to brittle, with some regions or companies specializing in one format or the other.

Antica Torroneria Piemontese is based in the Langhe, a hilly rural area in northern Italy's Piedmont region. The area is noted for a number of agricultural products, among them the particularly delicious hazelnuts that make their way to many of Antica's confections.

At Antica Torroneria Piemontese they still do most steps in the process by hand, producing both hard and soft torrone. The base mixture cooks in a bain marie for at least seven hours, during which time the nuts are carefully toasted. Although the idea of torrone has been around for centuries--perhaps millenia--and the list of ingredients is short, making it continues to be hard and skilled work. The timing the final steps is particularly critical, since the mature torrone sets up quickly.

Known as montelimar in France and turrón in Spain, nougats of the torrone family are found all over the Mediterranean region as well as in far-flung former colonies; a few varieties even enjoy special trade protections under EU law. While many of these treats are associated with the Christmas holidays, the Catalan version, torró, plays a role in a particularly colorful tradition.

In many Catalan households, Christmas decorations include a short section of log propped up on two stick legs, decorated with a cheerful face, and draped in a blanket. The tió de Nadal or "Christmas log," is also known less formally as the caga tió or "pooping log." Children beat the caga tió with sticks while singing songs urging it to poop. When parents judge that the caga is whipped, they remove the blanket and reveal the treats that the children have beaten out of the log. Among these is usually a bar of torró, which is shared by all the celebrants.

Want to introduce a Catalan touch to your own family holiday? Check out this radio story on Catalan Christmas at PRI's The World.

Torta de Aciete

Torta de Aciete
$1.50-1.75 each at coffee shops, boxes from $3.99

It doesn't usually take a dare to get me to eat a new cookie, but in this case...

Early last year I was having coffee in Rosie's, a cafe/deli/bakery in south London's Brixton Market presided over by Rosie herself, a red-lipped, black-tressed retro firecracker who prefers giving orders to filling them. There were a handful of customers enjoying her masterful espresso drinks on that grey afternoon and Rosie figured we needed a jolt. Reaching into a jar she drew out a large flat cracker wrapped in greasy wax paper. She broke the cracker into sections and went around pressing each of us to try a shard: "It's kind of cookie, kind of cracker, with salt and sugar and aniseed. It's really strange! Come on..."

I normally run a mile from anything flavored with anise; liquorice is admittedly an excellent material for making small novelty sculptures, but I'd sooner eat plastic. But since you don't say no to Rosie I accepted a bit and popped in in my mouth while she watched to make sure I didn't slip it into my napkin.

If only I could taste torta de aciete again for the first time! The first bite lit up my mouth like a pinball machine, ricocheting from sweet to salty, lightly dinging the aniseed bell and finally melting away with a buttery finish as satisfying as half a dozen bonus balls.

Torta de aciete, or olive oil cookies, are a Spanish speciality with north African roots. In 1910, in the Andalusian capital of Seville, a woman named Ines Rosales began to sell torta de aciete baked from an old Moorish recipe. At the modern Rosales factory, tortas are still made using the original recipe, and each torta is flatted and wrapped by hand.

In my opinion, the original is also the best, but Rosales has plenty of worthy competitors. San Martin de Porres (torta above and label below) is a little thicker than the croissant-flaky Rosales, with the sugar topping melted into glassy patches instead of standing out in discrete, crunchy crystals; the flavor is great but the texture is a little blah. A newcomer to watch out for is Matiz, a specialty exporter of Andalusian foodstuffs. Matiz tortas are expensive but widely available, and come in a range of non-traditional flavors, including cinnamon, almond, and a savory herb version. The Spanish Table in Seattle's Pike Place Market usually stocks all three brands.

The Martin de Porres label lists the ingredients as wheat flour, virgin olive oil (24%), sugar, sesame seeds, aniseed, essence of anise, salt, and yeast. I wasn't able to find a recipe to match exactly, but this recipe using egg whites looks promising, and for quick fixes when the store is out of tortas, here's a recipe based on pizza dough.