December 12, 2024 • 21 mins
To some people, desserts are more than a sweet ending to a meal, they are the main reason for the meal! With sweets in our holiday midst, Eva and Maite delve into the history of some of our favorite north and south of the border desserts including flan, arroz con leche, cheesecake and pecan pie.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Eva Longoria and I am my Traon
and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll
talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So make yourself at home. Even Brochel, you know, I'm
a salty, savory type of gal. So if I'm gonna
eat desserts, violin up and it has to be worth it,
and it's gotta be Mexican.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
But being from Texas, I'm also a peacm pie kind
of girl.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So am I I'm well Peacan pie. This episode is
all about our favorite dessert.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I am excited about this episode.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
You texted me a while ago and you're like, have
you done a dessert episode? And I was like, Eva
was asking about desserts because you know, the only reason
that I eat is so that I could have dessert.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh my god, you could eat dessert anytime of day.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I love dessert.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
It is I mean the dessert to me, it's more
than the sweet ending to a meal.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
It is the main reason for the meal.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I will say I like cake and pies sometimes, like
I love a pie. I love a I love a toiton.
That's that's I do like a lemon tart. You are
a big fan.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Of flown, right, I love flat. It's like my favorite.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
And I actually I make I have a little side
hustle selling flat.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I'm serious. I it's so.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Funny because for me and my mom does this to
anything anything good happens anybody, anything bad happens, like somebody dies,
somebody has a party.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Somebody whatever. It's like, we bring a flat and it is.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It cures.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So and I used to bring my flat like to
people and during pandemic, I would like drop flans up
people's houses and everyone like, oh my god, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
You should sell it. So I started. I started selling it.
So I have a little little flants.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'll try I'll try your flann because you tried my
Turkish eggs. Where did flawonn come from? Like, well, fly
it couldn't couldn't have been Mexican And no, it wasn't Mexican.
There's no dairy, there's no sugar.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
But the essence of flawn has been recorded since Roman
you know time. So the domestication of chicken became common
during the Roman Empire. So they had a surplus of eggs,
so they would often transform them into custards. The flans
prepared by the ancient Romans were very different from what
we you know, know of as flann today, savory custters
(02:40):
like eel flawn. We see sweet flants made with honey
and pepper, which is kind of unusual. And so when
the Romans Sprare spread their culinary traditions throughout Europe, they
included these sweet and savory you know flanns. So during
the Middle Ages we see a lot of flants made
with almonds and cinnamon and sugar, but then also with
saffron and wine and you know, cheese with fish and spinach.
(03:04):
So these sort of flands were popular, especially during Lent
when meat was was forbidden, you know, according to Platina.
We talked about Platino in our cookbook episode the guy
that was you know that that was that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Was stealing recipes.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
In his cookbook, he has a couple of custard style
dishes that were considered health food. They were thought to soothe, Yeah,
isn't that interesting. Soothe the chest, ate the kidneys and liver,
increased fertility and eliminate certain urinary tract problems.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And then of course chocolate flawn that I have in
my cook book is a variation in in Puerto Rico,
it's called flan that's made with yellow cake.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Sometimes made with yellow cake. Yeah, and I didn't realize
that chocolan. I've always known it as chocolate flan, which
is that's what you call it in your book, right, Yeah,
choco chocolate flant. But its Mexico's also called pastelimpus even
this impossible cake or meliace, which means you know, midnight.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You think sweetness is ingrained in us, You think it's biological.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I think it's biological.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
I mean that's what you were saying when Cynthia was little,
like he wanted, you know, something sweet. So it's when
things are bitter or when things are really salty in nature,
it sort of screams warning. So when something is sweet,
we're sort of drawn to it.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
But from a biological standpoint, desserts are unnecessary. Like when
you talk about a dessert, you're stepping away from your
basic human needs and you're talking about I think you're
talking about culture, because most sweets are really cultural based,
whether you know India or Mexican or Chinese or Jewish Rushishana.
(04:47):
Like I really think when you talk about sweets, you
talk about culture.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I agree, I agree, and almost like talking about and
desserts are so beautiful, right, so it's almost like when
you're talking about a dessert, you're it's like talking about art, right,
the sort of creation of sweets, and you know with
the sugar and some of the earliest recorded sweets were
made from honey and nuts and fruit, going way way
back in history to ancient Mesopotamia, so there's this connection.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
You know, sweets were offered to the.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Gods, and so there was all of this ceremony around
sweets run desserts. And during the Middle Ages in Europe,
they became more and more elaborate with the addition of spices,
and they started making marzipan and cakes with cinnamon and
gems so and even like in during the Renaissance and Venice,
(05:41):
the same people that would make the confections were also
skilled sculptors and they were making these or nat sugar monuments.
And in France, these pastry chefs conducted these edible buildings
that the famed nineteenth century pastry chef antonin Karem declared
pitits a branch of architecture.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
It's an art.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, I will say, you know, baking, I'm not a baker,
but being a pastry chef is highly technical. That is
a hard skill because like a gorgeous dessert is, it's
perfectly crafted. And I think because of this, desserts make
dining a multi sensory experience, right, because you have like
(06:26):
the look of it, the feel of it, the texture
of it. You you sometimes say it's like a virtuo
soul musical performance.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Yes, and you I mean I always have to end
a meal with the dessert. So when you go out
to a restaurant, you don't you don't order dessert.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
No, never, no, no. My husband gets so mad because
after we finish our meal, I'm like check and he goes,
we haven't had coffee or dessert and I'm like, nope, nope,
we have cookies at home.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Oh my gosh, Well we have to go to dinner
with enfluence on my brother because he will order. There
will be three people and he will all five desserts,
like we have to taste back.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
So it is like this virtuoso you know performance.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Where did like the concluding of a course is a
dessert like where did that come from?
Speaker 4 (07:08):
It's a French custom that developed very slowly over several
hundred years, but it didn't really reach its current form
until the twentieth century. So this sweet conclusion to a
meal is relatively recent.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, I want to know how this pastry, you know,
dessert thing arrived to Mexico. So when we come back,
we're going to dive into the history of Mexican posters.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
That's after the break.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Obviously, I remember, you know, we didn't have sugar, we
don't have flour in Mexico. So like, when were all
these things introduced?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Well, it's we touched upon this a little bit when
we did our candy episode last year. So during the
eighth century, the Moors introduced sugar, cane and almonds and
rice and all of the Islamic confectionery, which was which
was so grand to me. Lucia Spain and the Spanish
nuns developed a sweet tooth and derived from these Islamic practices,
(08:15):
they started using fruits and candies and conserves and marz
and pans, and started making custards with egg yolks and sugar,
so we see flun So once Mexico was conquered, all roads.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Lead to Flan is what I alas.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So when Mexico was conquered, these traditions traveled to the Americas, right,
We've talked about the Manila Galleons, you know, so many times.
And they traveled between Acapulcan and Manila, and they brought
sugar cane, you know, to Mexico, and sugar flourished in
the New World. And so these Mexican desserts developed in
colonial convents. So cooking was one of the duties of nuns.
(08:56):
And these early nuns combined their dessert making traditions that
they brought over from Spain and combined them with native
ingredients like vanilla and chocolate and creating these very unique results.
There's one nun in particular, so Juana and Nez La
Cruz and yes, I love her is the early love.
(09:21):
The earliest kitchen manuscript in Mexico in the seventeenth centuries undated,
but she lived between sixteen forty eight and sixteen ninety five,
so this earliest collection of recipes is credited to her.
She lived in work in Mexico City, in the convent
of San Caronimo, and she left thirty six recipes and
(09:41):
most of them are for desserts and candy. So you
see this really interesting cultural mixing in early Mexican cuisine.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Explain to me the indigenous culture at this time.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
That we don't really see the indigenous presence in the
desserts that she left. You know, she grew up in Nepantland,
she grew up among indigenous people. We see this sort
of reflection in some of the recipes that she left.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So she has things like haminy. We just made posle
the other day, right, So.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
You see mancha mantele, so you see these native ingredients,
you see Chile's, you see corn, you see massa. But
in the desserts are still very a lot of nuts,
a lot of eggs, a lot of sugar, So we
don't really see vanilla as would be the only really
thing that we see that is that is, you know,
(10:37):
endemic to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I love that she used poetry and philosophy to talk
about the transformation of ingredients, and philosophy is about the
sensory pleasures of food. And she was I mean, you
should Readana because she's amazing. She was a huge feminist.
She constantly critiqued mesa genistic views of high profile religious men.
(11:04):
She confronted them directly through letters and essays, and she
always defended the right of women to receive an education.
She's amazing, so I would I would read anything she wrote,
including recipes.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
We see things like ante this, these sponge cakes that
were bathed and sugar syrup and fruit pulp and adorned
with dried fruits. Something called webbos reales like royal eggs.
That was a tart of egg yolk with orange blossom water, sugar, cinnamon,
and lime juice. And she has she has a number
(11:39):
of recipes for.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
These fried sweet fritters.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
There's a herika ya, which is like a sweet custard
with milk and eggs and vanilla and cinnamon, similar to
a flam and then a something called a bien messalve,
which literally chans it to it tastes good to me.
That was like a rice tart similar to.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Interesting. Do you like aro school letcher? I do.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I love araskol.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I used to hate it when I was a kid,
but now it is one of my favorite things.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Do you It's okay? You know I'm not a sweet person,
but I know it's been around forever in like different forms,
in many countries do. I feel like a lot of
countries have aroskoon lecha. So where did aroskoon lecha start?
It must have been Asia, right, because is that where
rice comes from.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
There's a really wonderful food history in Katia Chaya who
says that the origin of rice pudding can be traced
back to something called kire that was a dessert with
roots in ancient China. But you know, it's been around
in many forms in many countries for centuries. So people
from the UK will tell you it was invented there.
People from India will say that it's an Indian dish,
(12:50):
and same for you know, China and Greece and Italy
and even Mexico.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
But do you what country do you think is most
famous for autro school lecture today?
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Well, I'm going to say Mexico, right, because that's me too.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
When Mexico that's the but.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
You know somebody for I don't know in the UK.
In the UK they have rice pudding a lot.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
It's such a comforting dish and one of the earliest
known recipes dates to the thirteenth century al Andalus cookbook.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
That's the book.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Luis Yeah, book of Andalucia.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
The rice pudding that we have in Mexico, the one
that we sort of grew up with even in South Texas,
would have had roots in these recipes from Andalucia that
came from the moors.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Did you grow up eating pea campi?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I love pea campi.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I don't have memories of eating pea campi at home
unless it's like Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You know, well I do. We're going to dive into
that after the break cheefsk that a guesso? Oh my god?
So you know when I was shooting searching for Spain.
The most famous guesso comes from the Basque country. Uh
(14:10):
San Sebastian specifically, there's a there's a Lavignya. It's a restaurant.
Line is around the corner. An hour before it opens.
They just make cheesecake. It's like burnt at the top.
It's like four feet tall that it is so thick,
and it's creamy and it's very eggy. It's almost more
savory than sweet. I was in London. I went to
(14:32):
a restaurant and on the dessert menu they said, we
have a Basque cheesecake. Like it's a thing. Now, it's
like it's a Basque cheesecake is like the most the
most famous one. Now, but where did cheesecake begin?
Speaker 4 (14:43):
I think that when you messaged me you had just
gone there, you had just had this cheesecake, because that
basque cheesecake they invented in the nineteen nineties, so not
that long ago, right, But this is like the thing.
So ancient Greek is credited as the birthplace of democracy, philosophy, theater,
(15:04):
and cheesecake, so it goes back cheesecake. There is a
book from the third century called The Learned Banqueters. It's
actually a poem and the author Athanaeis He instructed home
cooks to take some cheese and pound it before riding
honey and wheat flour and forming it into a mass. Right,
(15:27):
so this is some sort of cheesecake, right, some sort
of cheesecake was going on there. It sounds like a
cheesecake different than our modern cheesecake. But this suggests that
you know, this dessert may have existed now for some time.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
This may not have been the first one.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Once things end up in print and writing in some
way that that means that it's been around. So, but
there are also some historians that believe a version of
cheesecake was served as far back as seven seven six BC,
so this is a thousand years earlier than this poem
when the inaugural Olympic Games took place, And anthropologists have
(16:06):
found cheese moules on the Greek island of Samos that
are even older, dating back to about two thousand BC.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So in some sort of cheese honey mixture was.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Being made way way way way back in the day,
and then the spread, like everything, this spread throughout, you know,
throughout Europe, and then English colonists are said to have
introduced it to North America. Cheesecakes were included in early
colonial manuscripts, including those of William Penn's family in Pennsylvania
(16:39):
around seventeen seventy there was an Italian restaurant in Laredo
growing up that had the best cheesecake with whipped cream,
like you know the can that they whipped cream and
then they would drizzle it with chocolate syrup. Oh my gosh,
I do love a good cheesecake.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
So if you figure out.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
How to make that cheesecake, calm, it's made with it's
made with cream cheese. Yeah, because when cheesecake started to
become really popular in the States in the nineteenth century
when Philadelphia clean.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Cream cheese became super available.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
So all of these immigrants from Eastern Europe, from Italy,
you know, they started making cheesecakes.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Lavinia uses the Philadelphia brand cream cheese.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Oh really, huh.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, it is possible that the composition of a Spanish
Philadelphia cream cheese is different than other countries because you
know how like even dan and yogurt here in America,
it's like eighty four ingredients and chemicals. Dan and yogurt
in Europe is three ingredients and you're like, wait what Yeah,
so it might work better because the cream the Philadelphia
(17:47):
brand cream cheese might be different in Spain. Also interesting,
the cake could work with marscapone with.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Both muscarpone and Philadelphia cream cheese, or one for the either.
Or I I wonder if if you mix the mix
the two, it would be really delicious.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Oh it's so easy. So I found the Lavina recipe supposedly,
but we'll see, I'm gonna make it.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Call me. I'll be right over.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
So I grew up in Nuasis County, which isis yes
and Nouisa for us as a pecan not all nuts
because in Mexico, noises are all nuts and pecans are
native to North America. Yes, I grew up eating peacampi.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
My mom has so many pecan trees in her backyard.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
They're like weeds. They grow, They're like, yeah, pineyweeds. Crack them.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
They would fall everywhere in the yard. We'd get it,
crack it, eat it, I say, with pecans. So that's
what we always made, pecan pie. But it's not easy.
By the way, pecan pie is like not labor intensive.
It's just messy and sticky.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And super sticky.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
So you grew up making it at home.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
It's like were growing up, Oh we never did.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
We Also we would pick the pecan and then we
had them in this big basket, not a basket, but
like a plate with the nutcracker, and we would just
sit there and just eat. That's one of my most
vivid memories of my grandfather was just sitting there eating
pecans with a little glass of I don't know if
it was poor or sherry or something.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
He would have his sherry and he would eat pecans.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
By the way, I love pig on pie. I grew
up with peacamp pac But why it's a weird thing.
Like it's like it's like this filling that's kind of
solidified with pecans on top, Like how did this come
to be?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Yeah, I mean it's like the corn syrup, right, it's
like so heavy. Well, the earliest printed pecan pie recipes
began popping up in Texas cookbooks in the eighteen seventies
and eighteen eighties. But the first recipe that most closely
resembles what we know today as the Pea campi was
published in eighteen ninety eight in a church charity cookbook
(19:59):
in se Lewis, Missouri. But it was sent by a
Texas woman, right, so suggesting, oh this is this is
a sort of kind of pies. But by the beginning
of the twentieth century, recipes for pecan pie had started
appearing outside of Texas, but it wouldn't become super popular
until the nineteen twenties. And that's when the manufacturer of
(20:23):
Caro syrup began printing a recipe for precan pie on
the cans of the product. And this is a book
called the Pecan A History of America is Native Not
by James McWilliams noted this. The wide distribution of Caro
syrup introduced many people to pecan pie.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Is that what you would use? Would you use a
carro syrup?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yep, caro syrup.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
It has to be carro syrup, Cara syrup, eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla,
and just a buttload of pecans and sometimes with rusted
with bourbon or rum My brother Alfonso, sweet tooth Galore,
he makes a damn good PECOMPI.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Well, thank you guys for listening to this sugary, delicious
episode about Thank you so much and see you all
next week. Hungary for History is a Hyphenite media production
in partnership with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
My name is Eva Longoria and I am my Traon
and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores
our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll
talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So make yourself at home. Even Brochel, you know, I'm
a salty, savory type of gal. So if I'm gonna
eat desserts, violin up and it has to be worth it,
and it's gotta be Mexican.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
But being from Texas, I'm also a peacm pie kind
of girl.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So am I I'm well Peacan pie. This episode is
all about our favorite dessert.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I am excited about this episode.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
You texted me a while ago and you're like, have
you done a dessert episode? And I was like, Eva
was asking about desserts because you know, the only reason
that I eat is so that I could have dessert.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Oh my god, you could eat dessert anytime of day.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I love dessert.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
It is I mean the dessert to me, it's more
than the sweet ending to a meal.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
It is the main reason for the meal.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I will say I like cake and pies sometimes, like
I love a pie. I love a I love a toiton.
That's that's I do like a lemon tart. You are
a big fan.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Of flown, right, I love flat. It's like my favorite.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
And I actually I make I have a little side
hustle selling flat.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I'm serious. I it's so.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Funny because for me and my mom does this to
anything anything good happens anybody, anything bad happens, like somebody dies,
somebody has a party.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Somebody whatever. It's like, we bring a flat and it is.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It cures.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
So and I used to bring my flat like to
people and during pandemic, I would like drop flans up
people's houses and everyone like, oh my god, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
You should sell it. So I started. I started selling it.
So I have a little little flants.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'll try I'll try your flann because you tried my
Turkish eggs. Where did flawonn come from? Like, well, fly
it couldn't couldn't have been Mexican And no, it wasn't Mexican.
There's no dairy, there's no sugar.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
But the essence of flawn has been recorded since Roman
you know time. So the domestication of chicken became common
during the Roman Empire. So they had a surplus of eggs,
so they would often transform them into custards. The flans
prepared by the ancient Romans were very different from what
we you know, know of as flann today, savory custters
(02:40):
like eel flawn. We see sweet flants made with honey
and pepper, which is kind of unusual. And so when
the Romans Sprare spread their culinary traditions throughout Europe, they
included these sweet and savory you know flanns. So during
the Middle Ages we see a lot of flants made
with almonds and cinnamon and sugar, but then also with
saffron and wine and you know, cheese with fish and spinach.
(03:04):
So these sort of flands were popular, especially during Lent
when meat was was forbidden, you know, according to Platina.
We talked about Platino in our cookbook episode the guy
that was you know that that was that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Was stealing recipes.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
In his cookbook, he has a couple of custard style
dishes that were considered health food. They were thought to soothe, Yeah,
isn't that interesting. Soothe the chest, ate the kidneys and liver,
increased fertility and eliminate certain urinary tract problems.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And then of course chocolate flawn that I have in
my cook book is a variation in in Puerto Rico,
it's called flan that's made with yellow cake.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Sometimes made with yellow cake. Yeah, and I didn't realize
that chocolan. I've always known it as chocolate flan, which
is that's what you call it in your book, right, Yeah,
choco chocolate flant. But its Mexico's also called pastelimpus even
this impossible cake or meliace, which means you know, midnight.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You think sweetness is ingrained in us, You think it's biological.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I think it's biological.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
I mean that's what you were saying when Cynthia was little,
like he wanted, you know, something sweet. So it's when
things are bitter or when things are really salty in nature,
it sort of screams warning. So when something is sweet,
we're sort of drawn to it.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
But from a biological standpoint, desserts are unnecessary. Like when
you talk about a dessert, you're stepping away from your
basic human needs and you're talking about I think you're
talking about culture, because most sweets are really cultural based,
whether you know India or Mexican or Chinese or Jewish Rushishana.
(04:47):
Like I really think when you talk about sweets, you
talk about culture.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I agree, I agree, and almost like talking about and
desserts are so beautiful, right, so it's almost like when
you're talking about a dessert, you're it's like talking about art, right,
the sort of creation of sweets, and you know with
the sugar and some of the earliest recorded sweets were
made from honey and nuts and fruit, going way way
back in history to ancient Mesopotamia, so there's this connection.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
You know, sweets were offered to the.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Gods, and so there was all of this ceremony around
sweets run desserts. And during the Middle Ages in Europe,
they became more and more elaborate with the addition of spices,
and they started making marzipan and cakes with cinnamon and
gems so and even like in during the Renaissance and Venice,
(05:41):
the same people that would make the confections were also
skilled sculptors and they were making these or nat sugar monuments.
And in France, these pastry chefs conducted these edible buildings
that the famed nineteenth century pastry chef antonin Karem declared
pitits a branch of architecture.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
It's an art.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, I will say, you know, baking, I'm not a baker,
but being a pastry chef is highly technical. That is
a hard skill because like a gorgeous dessert is, it's
perfectly crafted. And I think because of this, desserts make
dining a multi sensory experience, right, because you have like
(06:26):
the look of it, the feel of it, the texture
of it. You you sometimes say it's like a virtuo
soul musical performance.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Yes, and you I mean I always have to end
a meal with the dessert. So when you go out
to a restaurant, you don't you don't order dessert.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
No, never, no, no. My husband gets so mad because
after we finish our meal, I'm like check and he goes,
we haven't had coffee or dessert and I'm like, nope, nope,
we have cookies at home.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Oh my gosh, Well we have to go to dinner
with enfluence on my brother because he will order. There
will be three people and he will all five desserts,
like we have to taste back.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
So it is like this virtuoso you know performance.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Where did like the concluding of a course is a
dessert like where did that come from?
Speaker 4 (07:08):
It's a French custom that developed very slowly over several
hundred years, but it didn't really reach its current form
until the twentieth century. So this sweet conclusion to a
meal is relatively recent.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Well, I want to know how this pastry, you know,
dessert thing arrived to Mexico. So when we come back,
we're going to dive into the history of Mexican posters.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
That's after the break.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Obviously, I remember, you know, we didn't have sugar, we
don't have flour in Mexico. So like, when were all
these things introduced?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Well, it's we touched upon this a little bit when
we did our candy episode last year. So during the
eighth century, the Moors introduced sugar, cane and almonds and
rice and all of the Islamic confectionery, which was which
was so grand to me. Lucia Spain and the Spanish
nuns developed a sweet tooth and derived from these Islamic practices,
(08:15):
they started using fruits and candies and conserves and marz
and pans, and started making custards with egg yolks and sugar,
so we see flun So once Mexico was conquered, all roads.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Lead to Flan is what I alas.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So when Mexico was conquered, these traditions traveled to the Americas, right,
We've talked about the Manila Galleons, you know, so many times.
And they traveled between Acapulcan and Manila, and they brought
sugar cane, you know, to Mexico, and sugar flourished in
the New World. And so these Mexican desserts developed in
colonial convents. So cooking was one of the duties of nuns.
(08:56):
And these early nuns combined their dessert making traditions that
they brought over from Spain and combined them with native
ingredients like vanilla and chocolate and creating these very unique results.
There's one nun in particular, so Juana and Nez La
Cruz and yes, I love her is the early love.
(09:21):
The earliest kitchen manuscript in Mexico in the seventeenth centuries undated,
but she lived between sixteen forty eight and sixteen ninety five,
so this earliest collection of recipes is credited to her.
She lived in work in Mexico City, in the convent
of San Caronimo, and she left thirty six recipes and
(09:41):
most of them are for desserts and candy. So you
see this really interesting cultural mixing in early Mexican cuisine.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Explain to me the indigenous culture at this time.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
That we don't really see the indigenous presence in the
desserts that she left. You know, she grew up in Nepantland,
she grew up among indigenous people. We see this sort
of reflection in some of the recipes that she left.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So she has things like haminy. We just made posle
the other day, right, So.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
You see mancha mantele, so you see these native ingredients,
you see Chile's, you see corn, you see massa. But
in the desserts are still very a lot of nuts,
a lot of eggs, a lot of sugar, So we
don't really see vanilla as would be the only really
thing that we see that is that is, you know,
(10:37):
endemic to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I love that she used poetry and philosophy to talk
about the transformation of ingredients, and philosophy is about the
sensory pleasures of food. And she was I mean, you
should Readana because she's amazing. She was a huge feminist.
She constantly critiqued mesa genistic views of high profile religious men.
(11:04):
She confronted them directly through letters and essays, and she
always defended the right of women to receive an education.
She's amazing, so I would I would read anything she wrote,
including recipes.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
We see things like ante this, these sponge cakes that
were bathed and sugar syrup and fruit pulp and adorned
with dried fruits. Something called webbos reales like royal eggs.
That was a tart of egg yolk with orange blossom water, sugar, cinnamon,
and lime juice. And she has she has a number
(11:39):
of recipes for.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
These fried sweet fritters.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
There's a herika ya, which is like a sweet custard
with milk and eggs and vanilla and cinnamon, similar to
a flam and then a something called a bien messalve,
which literally chans it to it tastes good to me.
That was like a rice tart similar to.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Interesting. Do you like aro school letcher? I do.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I love araskol.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I used to hate it when I was a kid,
but now it is one of my favorite things.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Do you It's okay? You know I'm not a sweet person,
but I know it's been around forever in like different forms,
in many countries do. I feel like a lot of
countries have aroskoon lecha. So where did aroskoon lecha start?
It must have been Asia, right, because is that where
rice comes from.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
There's a really wonderful food history in Katia Chaya who
says that the origin of rice pudding can be traced
back to something called kire that was a dessert with
roots in ancient China. But you know, it's been around
in many forms in many countries for centuries. So people
from the UK will tell you it was invented there.
People from India will say that it's an Indian dish,
(12:50):
and same for you know, China and Greece and Italy
and even Mexico.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
But do you what country do you think is most
famous for autro school lecture today?
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Well, I'm going to say Mexico, right, because that's me too.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
When Mexico that's the but.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
You know somebody for I don't know in the UK.
In the UK they have rice pudding a lot.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
It's such a comforting dish and one of the earliest
known recipes dates to the thirteenth century al Andalus cookbook.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
That's the book.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Luis Yeah, book of Andalucia.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
The rice pudding that we have in Mexico, the one
that we sort of grew up with even in South Texas,
would have had roots in these recipes from Andalucia that
came from the moors.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Did you grow up eating pea campi?
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I love pea campi.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I don't have memories of eating pea campi at home
unless it's like Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
You know, well I do. We're going to dive into
that after the break cheefsk that a guesso? Oh my god?
So you know when I was shooting searching for Spain.
The most famous guesso comes from the Basque country. Uh
(14:10):
San Sebastian specifically, there's a there's a Lavignya. It's a restaurant.
Line is around the corner. An hour before it opens.
They just make cheesecake. It's like burnt at the top.
It's like four feet tall that it is so thick,
and it's creamy and it's very eggy. It's almost more
savory than sweet. I was in London. I went to
(14:32):
a restaurant and on the dessert menu they said, we
have a Basque cheesecake. Like it's a thing. Now, it's
like it's a Basque cheesecake is like the most the
most famous one. Now, but where did cheesecake begin?
Speaker 4 (14:43):
I think that when you messaged me you had just
gone there, you had just had this cheesecake, because that
basque cheesecake they invented in the nineteen nineties, so not
that long ago, right, But this is like the thing.
So ancient Greek is credited as the birthplace of democracy, philosophy, theater,
(15:04):
and cheesecake, so it goes back cheesecake. There is a
book from the third century called The Learned Banqueters. It's
actually a poem and the author Athanaeis He instructed home
cooks to take some cheese and pound it before riding
honey and wheat flour and forming it into a mass. Right,
(15:27):
so this is some sort of cheesecake, right, some sort
of cheesecake was going on there. It sounds like a
cheesecake different than our modern cheesecake. But this suggests that
you know, this dessert may have existed now for some time.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
This may not have been the first one.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Once things end up in print and writing in some
way that that means that it's been around. So, but
there are also some historians that believe a version of
cheesecake was served as far back as seven seven six BC,
so this is a thousand years earlier than this poem
when the inaugural Olympic Games took place, And anthropologists have
(16:06):
found cheese moules on the Greek island of Samos that
are even older, dating back to about two thousand BC.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So in some sort of cheese honey mixture was.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Being made way way way way back in the day,
and then the spread, like everything, this spread throughout, you know,
throughout Europe, and then English colonists are said to have
introduced it to North America. Cheesecakes were included in early
colonial manuscripts, including those of William Penn's family in Pennsylvania
(16:39):
around seventeen seventy there was an Italian restaurant in Laredo
growing up that had the best cheesecake with whipped cream,
like you know the can that they whipped cream and
then they would drizzle it with chocolate syrup. Oh my gosh,
I do love a good cheesecake.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
So if you figure out.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
How to make that cheesecake, calm, it's made with it's
made with cream cheese. Yeah, because when cheesecake started to
become really popular in the States in the nineteenth century
when Philadelphia clean.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Cream cheese became super available.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
So all of these immigrants from Eastern Europe, from Italy,
you know, they started making cheesecakes.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Lavinia uses the Philadelphia brand cream cheese.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Oh really, huh.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, it is possible that the composition of a Spanish
Philadelphia cream cheese is different than other countries because you
know how like even dan and yogurt here in America,
it's like eighty four ingredients and chemicals. Dan and yogurt
in Europe is three ingredients and you're like, wait what Yeah,
so it might work better because the cream the Philadelphia
(17:47):
brand cream cheese might be different in Spain. Also interesting,
the cake could work with marscapone with.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Both muscarpone and Philadelphia cream cheese, or one for the either.
Or I I wonder if if you mix the mix
the two, it would be really delicious.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Oh it's so easy. So I found the Lavina recipe supposedly,
but we'll see, I'm gonna make it.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Call me. I'll be right over.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
So I grew up in Nuasis County, which isis yes
and Nouisa for us as a pecan not all nuts
because in Mexico, noises are all nuts and pecans are
native to North America. Yes, I grew up eating peacampi.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
My mom has so many pecan trees in her backyard.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
They're like weeds. They grow, They're like, yeah, pineyweeds. Crack them.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
They would fall everywhere in the yard. We'd get it,
crack it, eat it, I say, with pecans. So that's
what we always made, pecan pie. But it's not easy.
By the way, pecan pie is like not labor intensive.
It's just messy and sticky.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And super sticky.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
So you grew up making it at home.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
It's like were growing up, Oh we never did.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
We Also we would pick the pecan and then we
had them in this big basket, not a basket, but
like a plate with the nutcracker, and we would just
sit there and just eat. That's one of my most
vivid memories of my grandfather was just sitting there eating
pecans with a little glass of I don't know if
it was poor or sherry or something.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
He would have his sherry and he would eat pecans.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
By the way, I love pig on pie. I grew
up with peacamp pac But why it's a weird thing.
Like it's like it's like this filling that's kind of
solidified with pecans on top, Like how did this come
to be?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Yeah, I mean it's like the corn syrup, right, it's
like so heavy. Well, the earliest printed pecan pie recipes
began popping up in Texas cookbooks in the eighteen seventies
and eighteen eighties. But the first recipe that most closely
resembles what we know today as the Pea campi was
published in eighteen ninety eight in a church charity cookbook
(19:59):
in se Lewis, Missouri. But it was sent by a
Texas woman, right, so suggesting, oh this is this is
a sort of kind of pies. But by the beginning
of the twentieth century, recipes for pecan pie had started
appearing outside of Texas, but it wouldn't become super popular
until the nineteen twenties. And that's when the manufacturer of
(20:23):
Caro syrup began printing a recipe for precan pie on
the cans of the product. And this is a book
called the Pecan A History of America is Native Not
by James McWilliams noted this. The wide distribution of Caro
syrup introduced many people to pecan pie.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Is that what you would use? Would you use a
carro syrup?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yep, caro syrup.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
It has to be carro syrup, Cara syrup, eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla,
and just a buttload of pecans and sometimes with rusted
with bourbon or rum My brother Alfonso, sweet tooth Galore,
he makes a damn good PECOMPI.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Well, thank you guys for listening to this sugary, delicious
episode about Thank you so much and see you all
next week. Hungary for History is a Hyphenite media production
in partnership with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
MAITE GOMEZ-REJÓN
Eva Longoria
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