SC - Churros was Re: digby's fruitcake

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

>Stefan li Rous wrote:
>  > So what is a "Churro"? Or a "Rosette"? Recipe and redaction? Perhaps
>  > "Churro" is more of a Californian term?

selene at earthlink.net responded:
>
>  As for Churros:  it's more of a Mexican term, I thought they had 
>these in Texas?
>Maybe not, maybe its more Cal-Mex than Tex-Mex.  Anyway.  The batter 
>I made was
>simple  3 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/4 cup sugar and unbleached flour 'enough.'  For
>rosettes, I made it thin as pancake batter.  For churros, it would 
>be stiffer and
>put through a pastry bag with a wide flower nozzle to make foot-long fluted
>cylinders of dough, which then is deep-fried.  You can get them 
>frozen, but much of
>the charm and mouth-feel are gone, like any other fresh vs. 
>defrosted pastry.  They
>are ubiquitous in Los Angeles, and the comparison is apt.    I got 
>really peevish
>about the churros stand at the local Renaissance Faire, not because 
>of non-period
>food [for once] but for the non-period nomenclature.  Even a calligraphed sign
>reading something like "Spanish Cryspes" would have been an improvement.

Mexican? I think not! Just back from al-Andalus where a common 
breakfast is churros dipped in hot chocolate, which is almost like 
hot chocolate pudding. Churros are the "national" breakfast of 
Andalucia. There are shops that sell nothing but churros and hot 
coffee and hot chocolate from 7 AM to around 11 AM. There are churro 
"pushcarts" in the plazas. A length of dough is extruded into hot oil 
and it curls into a loop (not a circle); to eat, you break the churro 
at the curve and dip in your milky coffee or hot chocolate.

I think the Mexicans got the churros from the Spanish who got the hot 
chocolate from the Mexicans, a pretty good exchange.

Anahita al-shazhiyya al-Andalusiyya