2023-12-29 01:19:11
If I had a little more malice and were sure that this article was going to be published on December 28, I would sneak in an epic fool’s errand here. I would tell you that 164 years ago in Valencia they ate meat nougat made with chorizo, sausage and sausage, I would share with you a very long text that attests to this and we would all be amazed, saying that “well, it’s true that everything is invented.” But since I am naturally good-natured and I also cannot confirm that this text will see the light of day on the Day of the Holy Innocents (yesterday) I will spare you the joke, lest we mess up, it will happen to us like the esteemed José Carlos Capel with his ‘ Cooking notes by Leonardo da Vinci’ and the joke can be assumed to be true forever and ever, amen.
Just in case I repeat it. Spoiler, spoiler: what you are going to read next was not written seriously. The problem is that so much time has passed since it was published, it is difficult to catch the snafu with which it was originally published.
To understand chufla the first time we would have to be familiar with the life and work of José Bernat Baldoví (1809 – 1864), or at least know that he was a satirical writer accustomed to making light of the most everyday situations. In 1859, Mr. Bernat participated with a large group of Valencian authors in a collective work titled “Los valencianos painted by themselves.” Each collaborator had to choose a type, profession or typical feature of the streets of Valencia and write a sketch of customs on the subject. Some did it seriously, others with affection and some, like Bernat Baldoví, stayed halfway between mockery and bad temper.
Our protagonist today chose the figure of the torroner or turronero, the classic seller who arrived from Alicante or Jijona every year to sweeten Christmas. Instead of talking about the tradition of this profession or how it was performed, José Bernat decided to give free rein to his personal anger with the world of nougat.
We may now complain about the outlandish nougats, those made with ham, French fries, donuts or beer that seem so striking on the supermarket shelves, but in 1859 nougat creativity was also quite overexcited. If we review recipe books of the time we can see that there were already many varieties of this Christmas dessert: for example in the ‘Complete and practical treatise on confectionery and pastry’ (Barcelona, 1848) nougats made of marzipan, fruit, cinnamon, fine yolk, French style, Duchess style, harlequin nougat, thousand flowers, custard, snow, Irish, Chinese, granita or guirlache, in addition to the classics from Alicante, Jijona and Agramunt.
The ‘Manual of the confectioner and pastry chef’ by Ceferino Noriega (Paris, 1858) added to that repertoire the sesame nougat, the orange blossom nougat, the one with pine nuts and cloves, one with cherimoya, another with guava and one typical from the Mexican state of Oaxaca. .
Our friend José Bernat must have been fed up with so much sophistication. If consumers are now divided between devotees of innovation and traditionalists who ask to distinguish between ‘nougat nougat’ and ‘praline with things’ we can assume that the Sueca writer would be one of the latter. And to death. Just as an indignant person would do today on social networks, Bernat Baldoví dropped that “before, in the time of our grandparents, very few types of nougat were known.” The ancients were content “with those they had always seen at Christmas on the table of their ancestors, without even the desire for any innovation in this regard.” Everything was reduced, then, to almond nougat, hemp seeds, hazelnuts,… any other dried fruit, and… stop counting. But lo and behold, modernity and extravagant tastes had achieved such a variety of nougat that it seemed impossible to keep track of its various categories and nomenclatures.
Exaggeration
To illustrate what he saw as a confectioner’s absurdity, Bernat decided to use exaggeration to talk about some famous meat nougats that, in the same way as those made with custard or roses, delighted the most cheesy. His contemporaries knew that this was a satire and that meat nougats did not exist, but the author described them with such a level of detail that now it almost makes you want to believe everything at face value. “Meat nougat has always been, among Valencians, the favorite snack on every decent table, at every popular festival,” Don José fabled. And he went on to say that “this type of nougat is sometimes made by hand and other times by machine, because especially during Easter times, consumption is so great that the natural resources of the workers are not enough, and it is necessary to resort to manufacturing it. scientific advances. Those imaginary and at the same time credible nougats could be of four kinds (1st superior sausage, 2nd chorizo, 3rd longaniza and 4th sausage) and were made by mixing almonds with sausages of different qualities. «Nothing is easier and more peaceful […] “It would be difficult to find another delicacy that better lends itself to sitting perfectly in the most delicate stomach.”
How will the very real and not fictional torrezno or chocolate nougat with churros sit now? Oh, if Bernat could see them!
#Nougat #mail