Category Food

Salt is now sold in a variety of shapes and size.

Table salt

It is mostly harvested from salt deposits found underground. It’s iodized, highly refined and finely ground, with impurities and trace minerals removed in the process. It’s also treated with an anti-caking agent to keep from clumping.

Kosher salt

It is also called koshering salt. It is flakier and coarser-grained than regular table salt. Its large grain-size makes it perfect for sprinkling on top of meat, where it releases a surprising blast of flavour. Kosher salt also dissolves quickly, making it a perfect all-purpose cooking salt. According to Saltworks, most kosher salt does not contain any added iodine or any anti-caking agents. The salt is used in the koshering process, when surface fluids are removed from meat through drying.

Sea salt

Harvested from evaporated sea water, it is usually unrefined and coarse-grained. It also contains minerals like zinc, potassium and iron, which give sea salt its special flavour. Sea salt is made into several specialty salts.

Himalayan pink salt

Himalayan alt is the purest form of salt in the world. It is harvested by hand from the Khewra Salt Mine in the Himalayan Mountains of Pakistan. Its colour ranges from off-white to deep pink. It contains the 84 natural minerals and elements found in the human body. Himalayan salt is used in cooking and in spa treatments. You can buy a slab of this salt in the shops in the mountains.

Celtic sea salt

It is also known as sel gris (French for “grey salt”). Celtic sea salt is harvested from the bottom of tidal ponds off the coast of France. The salt crystals are raked out from the mineral-rich seawater and this gives Celtic salt its moist, chunky grains, grey colour and briny taste. Bakers prefer this salt.

Fleur de Sel

The word means “flower of salt.” Fleur de sel is a sea salt hand-harvested from tidal pools off the coast of Brittany, France. Paper-thin salt crystals are cut off carefully from the water’s surface, much like cream is taken from milk. This is done on sunny, dry days with a slight breeze, and only with traditional wooden rakes. This salt is rarely found and needs a lot of work and therefore is the most expensive salt (five pounds of it is 80).

The salt is moist, has a blue-grey tint and is rich in minerals. Fleur de sel is used as a finishing salt to add a dash of flavour to meat, seafood, vegetables and even sweets like chocolate and caramel.

Kala Namak

Kala namak or black salt is Himalayan salt that’s been packed in a jar with charcoal, herbs, seeds, and bark, then fired in a furnace for a full 24 hours before it is cooled, stored and aged. It is reddish-black in colour, has a pungent, salty taste and a faint smell of eggs. It’s often used in vegan and vegetarian dishes to give egg-free dishes the taste of egg. Also used in Ayurvedic practice.

Flake salt

Harvested from salt water through evaporation, boiling or other means, flake salt is thin and irregularly shaped with a bright, salty taste and very low mineral content. Its shape makes the salt dissolve quickly. So this can be used for gargling and oral dehydration therapy.

 

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The website Saltworks calls the common salt (sodium chloride) a “timeless ingredient.” And goes on to tell you why.

Salt must have been discovered accidentally, we don’t know when. But there are records to show that in 6050 BC (some 8 thousand years ago), salt was used. Around 2700 BC, in a research paper on pharmacology published in China, more than 40 kinds of salt and descriptions of two methods of salt extraction were mentioned. Nomads spreading westward carried salt, and Egyptian art of 1450 BC records salt making. Phoenicians traded salt with parts of their Mediterranean empire. In all the civilizations, salt has been used for cooking, preserving and in cultural, economic and religious practices.

The expression “not worth his salt” comes from the practice of trading slaves for salt in ancient Greece. Special salt rations given to early Roman soldiers were known as “salarium argentum,” (“sal” is salt in Latin) from which we get the word “salary.” Another theory says the word “salad” also came from “salt”, since early Romans added salt to the green leafy vegetables they ate. In ancient times, salt was a highly valued product, and its production was legally restricted. So it was used as currency. The Bible has 30 references to salt including the phrase “salt of the earth.” Salt stood for purity.

World history has close connections with salt. The city of Tuzia in Bosnia-Herzegovina is named for “tuz,” Turkish word for salt. Salzburg, Austria, has made its four salt mines major tourist attractions. Bolivia’s main tourist attraction is a hotel constructed entirely of salt. In the 16th Century, when the Dutch blockaded the Iberian salt mines, Spain went bankrupt and king Philip II was defeated. Mahatma Gandhi’s resistance to British colonial rule was marked by his Dandi march to make salt.

Portuguese and Spanish fleets used the “wet” method of preserving fish onboard with salt, while the French and English fleets used the “dry” or “shore” salting method. Thanks to this, the French and British fishermen became the first European inhabitants of North America since the Vikings a half century earlier.

In America, the Erie Canal, opened in 1825, was known as “the ditch that salt built” because salt was its principal cargo. Syracuse, NY, is proud of its salt history and its nickname, “Salt City.” The important role of salt in the history of Kanas is captured in a salt museum in Hutchinson, KS. In the American West, a “salt war” was fought at El Paso, Texas.

Salt is an extraordinary ingredient. No kitchen can function without it. Plants need salt to survive. It is a great food preservative. Salt is used in a lot of industries. In the 19th Century, techniques using salt were used to make photographic prints. Salt-glazed pottery is still popular in the U.S.

 

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Cheesecakes have been prepared for several centuries across Europe. With several regional adaptations, it is one of the most widely consumed dessert globally.

History

One of the first evidence of cheesecake can be traced back to ancient Greece. Food anthropologists believe cheesecakes were served for the participants at the ancient Olympic games in 776 B.C. These Greek cheesecakes were reportedly made with four ingredients, namely flour, wheat, honey and cheese.

The Roman annexation of Greece resulted in the introduction of cheesecakes in Rome. One of the earliest mentions of cheesecake can be seen in Roman statesman and writer Marcus Porcius Cato’s book “De re Rustica”, around 200 B.C. In the next few centuries, as the Romans expanded their empire, the dessert was taken to several places across Europe. During this period, those in the Great Britain and a few other Eastern European countries began making their own versions of cheesecakes. Henry VIII, the King of England from 1509 to 1547 was very fond of cheesecake that he asked his chef to experiment new types. Over the years, ingredients such as eggs, butter and sugar began to be used. Colonization was a major factor in taking cheesecakes to the U.S. and other former colonies.

Regional adaptations

Though cheesecake has its roots in Europe, it has been embraced in several forms across the world. They have been adapted according to local taste preferences. The New York cheesecake is made with thick and velvety cream cheese with a base made of cookie crumbs. The French use Neufchatel cheese and also add gelatin to the mixture. In Japan, cheesecakes o not have a separate cookie base, instead cornstarch and whipped egg whites are added to the cheese mixture, which makes the cake extremely fluffy. Germans make their cheesecake (known as Quarkkuchen) with cottage cheese or quark (a type of cheese). Several other European cheesecakes make use of other cheese varieties such as ricotta, mizithra, feta or Swiss.

Pie or cake?

Some believe cheesecakes are pies or even tarts because most of them come with multiple layers – a crust filling and sometimes even a topping. While some food experts suggest cheesecakes are cakes as they are “sweet baked foods made using a thick batter”. The debate of whether the cheesecake is a cake or a pie is unsolved.

What do you think? Is cheesecake a cake, pie or a tart?

Cheesecakes for all

From vegan and dairy-free cheesecakes made with plant-based cream to keto and gluten-free cheesecakes, there are many varieties prepared to cater to the dietary preferences of people.

Apart from the usual berry or fruit flavours, there are many interesting and unique options such as garlic, foie gras, hibiscus, sweet potato, matcha and maple bacon cheesecakes.

Tasty stamps!

American ice-cream brand Haagen-Dazs, in collaboration with the Austrian Postal Service, made stamps infused with flavours of strawberry cheesecake, macadamia nut brittle, and cookies and cream into the adhesive on the back. So when someone licks the stamp to stick it on a parcel or envelope, they get a taste of their favourite flavour!

 

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The Agra petha, made of ash gourd (white pumpkin), is probably the Indian sweet with the fewest ingredients. Even-popular, the petha is believed to have originated when Shah Jahan ordered his cook to make a sweet as white as the Taj Mahal. The chef, experimenting at short notice, probably found it easiest to dunk white ash gourd in sugar syrup. The result was the soft but firm and sweet jujube-like petha. While the original recipe contained just sugar, water and pumpkin, modern recipes include additives for colour and flavour. Cherry, orange-pineapple, khus khus, paan and even chocolate are some of the flavours in which pethas are available today.

We have a rich, varied and, if prepared the traditional way, even healthy repertoire of sweets.

 

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Relatively more recent in origin is the Mysore pak. In the 1930s, chef Kakasura Madappa concocted a mixture of sugar, gram flour and ghee, seasoned with cardamom powder. He intended to serve it as a liquid desert to the King of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar. But by the time the king finished his meal, the syrupy dish had cooled down and solidified. The king loved the dish and the world was gifted Mysore pak.

It is testimony to the ingenuity and talent of the Wodeyar chef Kakasura Madappa, that the Mysore pak is still so popular! It is available almost anywhere you go, but you have to make a trip to the Guru Sweet Mart shop in Mysore, which is run by Mdappa’s descendants, to get the original recipe of Mysore pak and take a bite into its amazing history!

 

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Another sweet we’ve been eating since the Vedic times is the laddoo (or laddu/ luddoo). Interestingly, laddoos started out as medicine. In 4 B.C., Sushruta, a revered Indian physician and surgeon, combined sesame seeds, jiggery and peanuts as an antiseptic for patients who had undergone surgery. Ayurvedic texts contain dozens of recipes for medicinal laddoos, including methi and sonth (ginger) laddoos. And then we have coconut laddoos, chickpea flour laddoos, boondi laddoos, millet laddoos, puffed rice laddoos and wheat laddoos, among numerous others. The sweetener was primarily jiggery until sugar became affordable.

The Balaji Temple in Tirupati started offering Laddus as an offering to the God as early as August 2nd, 1715! That makes this famous offering over 300 years old!

Another landmark event in the history of laddu is the fact that the famous Tirupati laddu has acquired the Geographical Indication (GI) tag. The purpose of issuing the GI tag is to preserve collective community rights.

This was a controversial move as some people felt that the Tirupati laddu was a money spinner for the temple and was not made by the local community. However, the courts decided to grant the GI tag in early 2014 and the naysayers lost.

The argument that a GI tag on the Tirupati laddu is an example of commercialisation of divine affairs and would inspire other temples to follow the Tirupati example, and thus lead to “irrevocable damage to the values of society”, was rejected!

 

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However, malpua is believed to be the oldest-known indigenous Indian sweet. In fact, it is one of the first offerings to the residing deity at the Jagannath Temple in Odisha. Referenced in the Rigveda as ‘apupa’, in ancient times, malpuas were flat cakes made of barley flour, deep fried in ghee and dipped in honey before eating. As time passed, rice and wheat replaced barley. The Mughals added eggs to the recipe. Modern recipes include mashed ripe bananas and pineapples in the batter and may use cream and dry fruits as toppings. The basic method of preparation, however, has remained largely unchanged.

Today, the malpua is popular and is a must have during festivals like Holi, Diwali and the Ramadan.

 

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The gulab jamun – at least as popular as the rasgulla, if not more – is the default sweetmeat for almost every occasion. Among the several theories about its origin, one attributes it to a cooking accident in emperor Shah Jahan’s kitchen. Another trace it to Persia, where dried and fresh milk are mixed into flour and shaped into balls. The balls are deep fried and dunked in rosewater syrup, lending the dish its name. The basic Indian version uses cardamom- and saffron-flavoured syrup and finely chopped dry fruits as garnishing. Sometimes, the balls are dusted with sugar before they’re fried, turning them into black “kala jamuns”. The Kumbakonam dry jamun is similar, with a crisp crust. The ledikeni, first prepared for Lady Canning in Bengal, uses light-fried cottage cheese rather than milk. Another variant, pantua, uses smaller cottage cheese balls stuffed with sugar crystals.

 

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Popular myth has it that upon his return from a nine-day vacation, Lord Jagannath had to bribe Goddess Lakshmi to gain entry into the Jagannath Puri temple – his own home. He used the sweet khira mohana as bribe. According to folklore, the temple kept khira mohana’s recipe a secret. But one of the priests, disturbed at the amount of milk being thrown away by the villagers of Phala, taught them to curdle milk and prepare the sweet. Soon, that tiny village on the outskirts of Bhubhaneshwar became a mandatory stop for everyone passing through Odisha. A local confectioner named Bikalananda Kar perfected the technique of steaming the cottage cheese balls and allowing them to swell in sugar syrup. This version travelled to West Bengal, where Nobin Chandra Das adapted it. The recipe soon became popular everywhere, spawning famous variations such as rasmalai, cham cham and Kamala bhog.

 

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