Are there different ways to be "sweet"? Women are defined in general presumption to be like the rhyme "sugar and spice and everything nice" (whether we wish to be or not)(personally I have no problem with the sugar or spice part but that word "nice" does tend to grate on my nerves)(nice nice nice blech)(reminds me of how guys sometimes look at a girl and say "Smile!" to her. Pah. Smile yourself, my friend.)
Does sugar have more than one flavor or bite?
I decided to look to sugarplums for wisdom.
Sugarplums are thought of as a Christmas sweet - though many people have never seen or tasted one. What are they?
Fast Food Feminist put on her detective hat to find out.
Food Reference.com tells us that sugarplums were originally sugar coated coriander, rather like the sugar coated seeds which many know from the end of a meal at an Indian restaurant. In olden times these were called "comfits". Comforting things.
tells us that Queen Isabella and Benjamin Franklin loved sugarplums. I'm not sure whether that fact will make me run out to chow down on some, though the examples shown are well-rounded and solidly bourgeois and even look as if one alone might make a delicious meal.
has a different take on the sugarplum, saying they may have been actual plums preserved in sugar. I wish sugar could preserve me, too, but so far there is no proof that this could occur.
website has an excellent recipe for sugarplums made in the Victorian fashion (always so jolly, you know) that includes crystallized ginger, which I personally adore. It's pretty fast to make, too.
Those who prefer the intellectual gourmandism of Saveur Magazine
will likely swear by the recipe provided in their forums.
There is a blogger named Sugarplum
who this year did not make sugarplums at all but who instead provided sweetness in life through cranberry-pistachio bark, a recipe I too know and love, as much for its fastness as for its foodie-ness and imagined femininity though of course one does have to imagine a bit to guess at that.
knows sugarplums as wild plums to be gathered from the fertile earth, then to be carefully laid out, sugared and dried. A simple feast, an earthy thing of honor.
The women who write in the Traditional Witches Forum
speak of the same ingredients and technique for sugarplums as Saveur does. Which brings to mind the question: Does a rose by any other name smell as sweet?
Playing on the sweetness and light of sugarplums,
gives us a recipe for Sugarplum Tofu with Udon. Another way of sweetness, this one with a corporate relations link at the top of the page.
Sugarplums are many things, of differing varieties.
Therefore sugar apparently is as you like it, if we follow the wisdom of sugarplums.
No comments:
Post a Comment