Saturday, March 13, 2010

De compras (addendum)

Of the San Martin baguettes it must be said that they are essentially pan frances in baguette form...as the bakery would appear not to have access to the specialist flour which gives that distinct texture to both the crust and innards of what the French themselves call French bread.

Guatemala has an extraordinary abundance of natural produce, but when it comes to 'ethnic' cuisine, there's usually one or two missing ingredients which ultimately have quite a telling effect en ausencia.

Italian is probably the easiest to reproduce, but the absence of real parmesan can be disheartening. With Thai and other south-east Asian foods it's the fish sauce, with Indian it's basmati rice. There's also a certain insufficiency of technique when it comes to preparing spices and ghee, and any Indian restaurant without a tandoor and the cooks skilled in its use, is a bit like a pizza without cheese.

3 comments:

Miss Trudy said...

Sushi in Guate sucks! Too much rice on the rolls. I simply prefer to cook a lot of the stuff myself. When in the mood. Which is not often. Hence, we make do with what can be found here ...

Miss Trudy said...

By the way, you can actually find Basmati and a lot of the imported stuff in stores such as La Puerta del Sol, which imports a lot of US goodies, such as wild rice.

Inner Diablog said...

Thanks for the tip.
Brought a load of sushi rice back with me from the UK this time. The first time we made our own sushi, but then after that experimented with a chicken dish. Felt a bit like I'd poured concrete down my throat..so quantity is clearly a key issue!