[Sca-cooks] British Candy

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Sue Clemenger:
>Re: rahat loukoum...I dunno what that even translates to, and I've not
>yet had the fortunate circumstance to enter a Middle Eastern
>grocery....*sigh*
>The British "turkish delight" caught my eye because I'd heard that
>turkish delight was similar to a (relatively) local candy known as
>Aplets and Cotlets, which I like. It came in a flat, rectangular bar,
>about half the size of an American Hershey bar, and was primarily made
>of a strongly rose-flavored jelly-stuff, with a light/moderate coating
>of milk chocolate.  I say "jelly" only because I lack a more accurate
>term--it was more like the center of a soft "fruit slice" or gumdrop,
>than anything else.

Around here a company called Joyvah either does, or used to, make and
distribute both chocolate-covered jellies such as the one you
describe, and also [dark] chocolate-covered sesame halvah (marble!).

>I don't recall pistachios one way or t'other, and I'm pretty sure there
>wasn't any date-ness involved.  No powdered sugar, either, so it's
>apparently quite different from the middle-eastern variety you're
>thinking of....

I suspect the date variety is something you'd make only where fresh
dates are actually available, like the Middle East, maybe Southern
California. But the finished product, as I say, is clear and not
especially colorful, so it could be you've tasted the product made
from fresh dates and didn't recognize it because it didn't taste like
dried dates?

>And what is your opinion on bangers? I had a number of sausages (the
>breakfast variety) in both Britain and Ireland, and about all I noticed
>was that they were all much smoother in texture than American breakfast
>links, and frequently *very* strongly tasting of sage.

Well, I've since had some bangers that were more or less edible, once
I got past the fact that the meat used for them is essentially
pureed, so badly-made bangers can have the texture of modelling clay,
which bothers me in a sausage. On the other hand, the original banger
controversy occurred on this list, years ago, when a banger partisan
spoke ill of American sausage as a genre, claiming that they were
nothing but gristle. I countered that while some American sausage is
a little high in gristle, most is not, and in addition, all of it
probably has more muscle-to-gristle ratio than the average banger,
since, between the addition of mass quantities of rusk and total
obliteration of all texture in the grinding, how can you tell _what_
bangers contain? (I believe I said something evil, like claiming I
had been confronted with a plate of bangers and mash, and couldn't
tell which was which.)

As I said, I've since had some bangers that were almost edible
(except it should be noted that the better ones seemed to be made in
America, but essentially following the style as found in the UK), but
more or less stand by my original claims. Give me chipolatas in real
lamb casings any day.

Most of the bangers of my experience seem to taste predominantly of
sugar, nutmeg, and black pepper, rather than sage.

Adamantius

--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER