Maple butter

Despite the name the maple butter does not contain any dairy butter. It is made of pure maple syrup that has been boiled to a certain temperature and then stirred. It is very very sweet and used as spread on toast, scones or glaze on cakes. I use it sometimes instead of honey. Tastes wonderful with sourdough bread.

In a souvenir shop...

How is Maple Syrup made?

We had an amazing opportunity to visit a sugarbush farm in Ontario, Canada and saw the whole process of making maple syrup.

Buckets are hanging on the trees and collecting the sap that is literally dripping from small spouts that have been bored in the trees. Big maple bush farms have hoses that are connecting all the trees.

On a good day one tree can give about 12 litres of maple sap. The season runs usually between mid March until end of April, depending on the outside temperature.

The temperature must be minus during the night and plus during the day for the sap to flow. At some point starch in the trunk converts into sugar and when the temperature is plus degrees during the day the sugary sap goes all the way up in the trunk, and when the temperature drops during the night the sap goes all the way down and is caught by the spouts.

The sugar level is measured with an aerometer and the sap contains about 2 % sugar, no more. Basically most of it is water and that is why it does not have the nice colour the maple syrup has. We tasted it and it has absolutely no taste. 

After many many hours of boiling in special machines the most of the water evaporates and the end product is left with 67 % of sugar and it looks and tastes like the maple syrup we know.

Before visiting the maple bush I always thought that the maple syrup comes out of the tree looking as in the supermarket :-). But there is so much patience and labour behind the whole process. Thank you Canadian First Nation people for figuring out how to do this.

Champurrado

Champurrado is another Mexican drink made with cacao beans that is really amazing. The difference from the Mexican hot chocolate is that ground corn is used to thicken it up (the same corn flour used to make tortillas) and it is not as sweet as the hot chocolate. If you have Mexican chocolate discs you can easily make champurrado by adding some corn flour until you have slightly thick chocolate.

However, last time we were in Mexico I picked up a bag of champurrado mix by a brand Kekua. The ingredients are: corn, sugar, cacao, cinnamon and soy lecithin. You add 3 tbsp of this mix to a cup of milk or water, boil it, froth it, done.

I really like this mix, it is perfectly sweet and thick, they just could have added a bit more of the cinnamon.

Mexican drinking chocolate

Never return from Mexico without chocolate. I live by this wise rule. These are Mexican drinking chocolates I got when we were on the visit last time. Two are bought in a supermarket, one at the market and one at the airport. I liked three of them, but the fourth one (the largest disk) not so much as it was too sweet.

And I finally bought the traditional chocolate whisk, molinillo. The Mexican hot chocolate has to have a thick froth on the top (has to) and molinillo, together with some elbow grease, makes a wonderful froth...

...and it is a beautiful piece of wooden art as well.

Maypole

Ebersberg is a small town in Bavaria, about 30 kilometers south of Munich, and on the 1st of May the inhabitants of this small town gather to erect the Maypole (Maibaum in German). The tradition goes way back in time and if you are in this part of the world 1st of May it is definitely a great experience.

This maypole was about 30 meters tall and it was erected by some 30 men with a help of a forklift. It took them a bit more than an hour to put the pole on the place and another hour to decorate the pole with shields that represent the crafts and industry of the town.

And everything was observed by huge crowed sitting in the beer garden, chatting about how the work is advancing, enjoying beer, sausages, sauerkraut and cakes (loved it). Long live traditions like this one!

Woodland strawberry

Woodland strawberry grows in the woods and it is the queen of all berries. It is very tiny so the taste is very concentrated, flavorful, sweet and different to the taste of the regular strawberry.

My boyfriend who is Mexican has never tried the woodland strawberry and that had to be changed. As we live in Europe right now and woodland strawberry grows here, I bought two plants at the market and they have been adorning our windows for some weeks now.

The lady at the market told me that these are two-year plants so next year we can look forward some woodland strawberries as well. Not that the two plants I bought will give lots of strawberries but for sure we will be able to have a taste.

Rapeseed, 3rd part

When I returned to check on the rapeseed it was gone. The farmer had done his harvest.

I did find couple of straws on the side of the road and this is how the seeds look like when ready for harvest:

I cannot imagine how many of these tiny seeds you need to get one litre of rapeseed oil. I would have loved to find out and to continue the story about how the cold pressed rapeseed oil is made, but unfortunately my story about the rapeseed field ends here.
And as I mentioned before I only use cold pressed rapeseed oil, I never heat it and I store it in the fridge.

Rapeseed, 2nd part

Rapeseed is continuing to grow. A month later and beautiful yellow flowers are gone but pods are much bigger. The seeds are already visible but completely green. I guess it will take some more weeks and a lot more sun to get these ready for oil pressing.

I was checking the world statistic of rapeseed production and Germany is actually at the 4th place. Speaking of statistics ¨The Food and Agriculture Organization¨ of the United Nations keeps statistics of worlds commodity production. You can search by commodity, country, continent...it is quite addictive!

This is top 10 worlds commodity production in 2007:

1. cow milk
2. rice
3. cattle meat
4. pig meat
5. chicken meat
6. wheat
7. hen eggs
8. soybeans
9. buffalo milk
10. vegetables

Strawberry field

The first strawberries of the year have arrived and this year we were lucky enough to be able to visit a strawberry filed for some strawberry picking.
It was tons of fun, and strawberries were too perfect: red, ripe, juicy, flavourful and sweet. I always go for small strawberries because the taste is more concentrated than in bigger strawberries. Smaller one ripen faster as well, and having fully ripen strawberries is the key to their flavour as they do not ripen after being picked like some other fruits.

And these flavourful strawberries will be eaten just like they are, or at the most sliced and enjoyed with other fruits. Nothing more.

Rapeseed

This is the plant that the rapeseed oil (canola) is made of. It looks very pretty when it blossoms, fields are covered all with yellow, super pretty. The stalks have also oblong, very thin pods and inside these pods grow small seeds from which the oil is extracted.

I live very close to one of these fields so I will try to follow up its growing process.
In cooking I only use cold-pressed (non-refined) rapeseed oil as it is much healthier than the refined rapeseed oil. And to keep all the great vitamins I never heat it, I use it only in cold dishes and salads.

Pretzel

Pretzel is called Brezel in German (Bretzn in Bavaria) and it is a typical bread from southern part of Germany. And as much as the pretzel looks peculiar that much it tastes peculiar as well. The taste however doesn't come from its dough-ingredients, like one would assume, but rather from the glaze that is put on the pretzel just before baking.

The glaze is made of lye, an alkaline solution, which in reaction with heat when baked gives pretzel its colour and taste. Lye is also used when making Chinese mooncakes, lutfisk (Swedish air-dried fish) and hominy corn.

The shape of pretzel makes it soft and chewy in thicker parts and crunchy in thinner parts, so it is definitely not a boring type of bread, it gives you a bit of everything. Pretzels are usually sliced horizontally and buttered, or filled with ham and cheese, or eaten with white sausage.

There are also many other shapes of lye-bread and in German they are distinguished by putting "Laugen" (=lye), in their name. Below are some common variations of pretzels and other lye-breads that can be found in bakeries.

Mexican drinking chocolate

The very first chocolate in the world was not eaten, it was drank. The Mayas ground cacao beans into a paste and mixed it with water, spices and the beverage was thickened with cornflour.

In Mexico even today the tradition of drinking chocolate is bigger than eating chocolate bars. But drinking chocolate it self has changed somewhat since the time of Mayas. These days it is made of ground cacao beans, sugar and cinnamon. The mixture is then made into discs and dried until hard.

The discs are dissolved in milk or water and the froth is made with a molinillo, a traditional Mexican froth maker.

Today chocolate discs are made commercially and the one I like the most is made of organic cacao beans by Wolter. It is not overwhelmingly sweet and when you finish your cup of chocolate all ground cacao beans are waiting for you for the last indulgence.

But in small towns in the areas where cacao beans are grown you can even buy small packages with cacao beans, sugar and cinnamon for mixing as you like and making your own chocolate at home. Yes, nothing can beat that!

Munich Weißwurst

This sausage is so Munich. It was invented in 1857 in the heart of Munich (Marienplatz) and this important event is still announced at the entrance of the restaurant.

White sausage is made of veal meat, pork rind, herbs and it is eaten with a pretzel, sweet mustard and white beer. This combination simply screams Munich! It has been included in the Bavarian law of protected food where every single detail about the sausage has been specified. One of them is that the veal meat content has to be at least 51%.

Special thing about this sausage is that it is not boiled but rather steeped in hot water for about 15 minutes. If the water would boil, the skin (pork intestine) would break, the taste would get spoiled and it would also be very hard to peel the rest of the skin. The skin is not eaten.

Munich and Bavaria are very proud of its sausage, it has a very high status in this region. In the rest of Germany, not so much. One day I was in a store and I found this:

It is a tool to pick up the sausage from the hot water. The official name "White Sausage lifter". It is made of stainless steel and costs about 20 euros. No I did not buy it. A booklet called "Saving the skin of the White Sausage" comes with it explaining every single detail about the white sausage. That's a privilege of being a sausage with origin in the heart of Munich.

Pan de muerto

Day of the Dead is one of the most important holidays in Mexico. Although everything is about death, this is one of the most colourful holidays I have ever experienced. It was completely new to me as in Europe death is shown with dark colours.

Celebration takes place on 1st and 2nd of November and during these two days the spirits of the dead are expected to visit their homes. And the family members are doing different rituals to welcome the souls of the dead on their visit. The celebration is a mixture of pre-Hispanic and Roman Catholic traditions.

On November 1st families build altars with offerings, colourful adornments, like fresh seasonal flowers and colourful paper cut-outs. These altars have a picture of the dead family members and around them all their favourite things are arranged, including food and drinks. Town squares have also altars with the offerings to the souls of the dead.

"Pan de Muerto" or Bread of the Dead is a sweet type of bread made of yeast dough with a touch of orange and anise. It is baked for the dead and put on the altar. The important thing about this bread is its shape. The small ball in the middle symbolizes the skull, and the figures on the side symbolize skeleton bones. Unfortunately I did not manage to take a picture of the bread after being baked.

On November 2nd families visit the graves and arrange second ofrenda. Some families even bring mariachis (traditional musicians) who sing the favourite songs of the dead person. Graveyards are adorned with the most colourful flowers and paper cut-outs, very beautiful. The same type of flowers have been used by Aztecs when honouring the dead.

The symbol of the death in Mexico is La Catrina, fancy dressed female skeleton.

Oktoberfest

City of Munich is very famous for its annual Oktoberfest. Although it did not start as a beer festival, almost 200 years ago, today the festival is all about beer.
There are 6 big breweries and each have huge tents where beer in 1 litre mugs is served, gigantic!

On the same day as the Oktoberfest starts there is a parade of all breweries and other companies that take part in the Oktoberfest.

The next most important thing to the beer is of course the food. Typical Bavarian food like, sausages, schnitzels, pretzels, knödels, grilled chicken, roast pork...can also be found in the beer tents. Outside the the tents, that covers a huge area, you can buy even more food, but no 1 litre mug beer. On the right picture below is ox-roast with fried onions.

One important thing to remember is that although it is called Oktoberfest, these days it starts mid September and lasts for 16 days.