Nutty as fruitcakes

Christmas has come and gone, absorbing more of my time than I would really have liked, principally in preparing far more food than is good for me.  Anyway, that's why I haven't had an opportunity to post during the festive season.

One of the reasons Christmas cooking takes so much of my time is that I find myself making some things that are traditional for Mrs Walles and some that are traditional for me.  I grew up eating fairly conventional New Zealand Christmas fare: ham, new potatoes, peas and carrots along with a roast, usually pork in our case but occasionally lamb.  So my first American Christmas (I've had three here now, but this last one was the first in my own home) was quite a culture shock with only one point of similarity (the ham).  Mrs Walles comes from Italian-American stock and so pasta figured heavily in that first Christmas dinner - not that I was complaining, mind you, as it was all excellent, but it was certainly different from what I was used to.

One of the most remarkable of all the American festive food quirks, I find, is the widespread distaste for Christmas cake, or indeed fruit cake of any kind.  There is an annual competition, in Texas I believe, where fruit cakes of all shapes and sizes are lobbed by catapults to see who can hurl theirs the furthest, and my own polling indicates that many if not most Americans agree that's the only thing they are good for.

For two Christmases I was baffled.  I was used to seeing Americans turning up their noses at foods they were unfamiliar with, but I couldn't understand this wholesale revulsion to such an inoffensive food. I'm well aware that not everyone in the fruitcake-eating regions of the world likes the stuff, but in America fruitcake is a kind of joke.  But what really got me was that when I made my own Christmas cake, using the hallowed family recipe that never fails, the result just didn't appeal like it usually did.  So unappealing was it that, even coated in a thick layer of brandy icing, most of the cake would end up in the bin shortly after New Year's Day.  Was there something in the air?

But now I understand.  Clearly lingering jet lag from long pre-Yuletide flights had clouded my reason over those two Christmases past.  Careful investigation this year led me to discover that what is labelled "mixed fruit" here, and which is trotted out for sale as the holidays approach, is not mixed fruit as I know it.  Mixed fruit should be heavy on the sultanas and raisins, but the stuff commonly available here contains not a single dried grape. Instead it contains candied pineapple and something called citron, which is the candied peel of a green citrus fruit which must taste something like a lime in the flesh.  Neither is conducive to a good fruit cake, making it overly sugary sweet and dense with an off-putting flavour.

This year I purchased my dried fruits individually and mixed them myself (not a trivial matter as it turned out - the mixed peel had to come by mail order from a British food importer).

The cake that emerged from the oven this year is just as I remember it.  Even Mrs Walles, long an opponent of fruit cake, had to admit that it was palatable, especially without the citron.

And so I think I've probably solved the mystery.  I reckon that American fruit cake has such a bad reputation because it is made with the wrong kind of fruit.  I can't imagine how this state of affairs came about. Maybe fruit cake devotees here couldn't get the best ingredients and had to make do.  Maybe revolting fruit cakes were deliberately baked during the revolution to scare the British away.  I don't know, but it doesn't matter.  Its enough that I know I can make good fruit cake here myself.  And in the unlikely event that I'm offered a slice of the genuine American article, I should probably politely decline.

Election Day

Last Tuesday was Election Day here in the US.  They have it every year, on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  It's a Tuesday because that used to be market day, or some such, which was a good day for people to vote on.  Now it's Tuesday because it always has been and if it was good enough for grandpappy it's good enough for me.

That certainly seems to be the gist of it, and Mrs Walles was complaining how silly it is that Election Day is not a holiday so that people could get to the polls if they so wished. 

The reason they need to have an Election Day each year is that they do like a vote here (whether they actually use the vote is a different matter, but they clearly like the option to be there).  In Pennsylvania they vote judges in and out of office, and district attorneys and all manner of relatively minor public officials at the local and state level.  Some states like to hold referenda on legislative issues, what they call voting on propositions.  Mississippi had a contentious one on whether an embryo is a person (they decided that it isn't).

All this reminded me that there is an election back in New Zealand that I have a say in, so I got my papers filled in ready to send away.  I suppose I could have posted my papers away on Tuesday, to get into the swing of things here, but in many matters I'm a traditionalist, so I sent them away on Saturday instead.

The Beeb

Having come from New Zealand to the US, I suppose it is a little odd that I distract myself from the culture shock by seeking out programmes produced in a third country which I have never visited.  But I'm hooked on the BBC (and, to be fair, other British stuff, but let's not get sidetracked).  I'm especially keen on the radio, ever since I discovered over eight years ago that BBC radio is crazy courteous enough to put all their shows online for anyone to listen to anywhere in the world.

It's just a shame that they don't do the same thing with their TV shows.  A lot of them can be obtained on DVD over here and Mrs Walles and I have now built up quite a collection (Mrs Walles is particularly partial to the Vicar of Dibley).  But not everything can be had (alas, QI is denied me now).

There is even an entire cable channel called BBC America which, you might think, would help satisfy my cravings.  You'd be wrong.

Let's have a look at tonight's schedule, shall we?  At 8pm there's an exciting episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  That's on a lot, for some reason, even though as far as I can tell the only thing British about it is one of the actors.  Before that there's two repeats of Top Gear - at least it's British - and afterwards there's three episodes of The Tudors in a row.  And that's a good night.  They used to have the news on, but that recently shifted to public television.  You can also catch The X Files on BBC America...I guess it was popular in Britain?  Perhaps you're a fan of Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - in which case BBC America is the channel for you because it plays it several times a week.  They can't get enough of it.  I mean, it's set in England, right?  Don't worry, though, there's new programming coming soon - they're particularly excited about repeating the old new Battlestar Galactica.  For some reason.

Now, to be fair, you do get Graham Norton only a week after they show it in the UK.  That's about the only upside though.  I can only assume that nobody remotely connected with the BBC, or Britain come to that, has ever watched BBC America.

Fortunately some of the other channels pick up a wider range of output from Britain, like The IT Crowd.  So all is not lost.  I wouldn't mind if BBC America were lost, though.  I wouldn't be able to watch Kevin Costner in a jerkin 24/7, but somehow I think I'd live.

Drinks with dinner

I don't know if this one is just because I'm unworldly or whether it's a genuine American phenomenon, but Americans seem to make a strict habit of drinking (in the general sense, not just alcohol) with each meal.  Having a drink with a meal doesn't weird me out, but having one with every meal took a little time to adjust to.

Before I came here I would have a cup of tea at breakfast and maybe after lunch.  Sometimes I'd have something with dinner, especially if I was out, but I didn't make a habit of it.  Now we are together, Mrs Walles and I have something to drink with every meal: coffee and juice with breakfast, tea or something cold with lunch and something cold again with dinner.  When in Rome...

On the whole this is a good thing, especially at home.  Here there is always orange juice in the fridge, and sweet iced tea and a plethora of fizzy drinks - even diet ones - that New Zealand manufacturers apparently have yet to discover.

In restaurants, though, things are usually more bleak.  Americans drink juice at breakfast but not other meals, so you can't usually get it unless the place serves breakfast.  There is always a standard line up of Coke or Pepsi products, most of which are packed with sugar (or, rather, high fructose corn syrup, the sweetener of choice in this corn-fed land).  Your options are pretty much diet cola or water, unless you're feeling rakish with respect to calories, and even that doesn't expand the range much.

There are exceptions, of course.  Perkins, one of our regular places, has chocolate milk and shakes on the menu, and another restaurant chain called Ruby Tuesday (ah, Ruby Tuesday) offers not only juice but delectible exotic juice cocktails with limitless refills.

But in general, the drink options seem limited.  Not any less limited than they might be in New Zealand. But in this land of plenty - where you can have your food customised about a hundred different ways - the relative dearth of drink choices leads me to think that those drinks with dinner aren't supposed to be enjoyed in their own right, they're just lubrication to help the food go down.

This all makes me sound ridiculously petulant and ungrateful (not to say that I'm not) but really, I think I'm starting to understand the American attitude.  After all, when the food is this good - and it is really good - who cares about the drinks?

Watch out

Mrs Walles and I had to go to York earlier this week so that the government could "capture my biometrics".  It's less violating than it sounds, they just wanted my fingerprints, photo and signature.  We didn't get to see much of York itself, our business being on the outskirts, but from what I can tell, the New York is a little more exciting.

On the way back we took one of the state roads (routes, as they call them here, all with numbers, all of which everyone except me seems to be able to remember).  At a few points along the way we passed signs like this one.

That's fair enough.  There are plenty of deer here, even around towns.  We had one browse through our back yard last summer and that was just the one we saw.  They aren't that worried by people, or roads, so they are a real hazard.  More than once I've seen a carcass lying on the side of the road.  But wild deer aren't that weird to us Kiwis.  The next one isn't something you won't see back in New Zealand, though.

That's a horse and buggy, specifically the kind that the Amish like to use.  They have to use the road just like everyone else, and you'll see them out in their buggies or riding bicycles in their uncomfortable-looking, old-fashioned garb, even in the ludicrous heat and humidity that the summers bring here.  On this trip I saw an Amish man ploughing a field with a team of horses and an Amish couple tending their garden.

The generally acknowledged Amish centre in Pennsylvania is Lancaster County, around the town of Lancaster (surprise, surprise) which isn't far from where we were in York.  Unfortunately the Amish and their way of life have become such a tourist attraction that many of them have left for distant parts of the US to start a new life away from the glare of publicity.  There are still plenty there, though, and the tourists flock in their thousands to tiny places like Intercourse and Blue Ball (I know, I know) where specially built attractions cater to their every need.  It's pretty much like Rotorua or Queenstown, but in a corn field.  And, though it can feel a little exploitative and artificial, it's really great fun.  More on that another time, perhaps.

For all their differences, which are many, I do feel an affinity to the Amish in one tiny way.  Like most New Zealanders, and unlike most Americans, they dry their washing outside on a line.  That's probably where the similarities end, though.  I doubt I'll be joining them in their spiritual endeavour any time soon - I don't think I could handle the beard for a start.

You can't always get what you want

America is, undoubtedly, a land of plenty.  But every so often I'll come across something that just isn't easily available here.

Case in point: on her first visit to New Zealand my wife encountered cream lamingtons for the first time, and took quite a liking to them.  I haven't seen them here, but then I didn't expect to since they are a distinctly antipodean treat.  (Though I did spot something in the supermarket recently that looked like it might one day evolve into a lamington: a large angel food cake with some kind of pink icing and giant flakes of desiccated coconut attached.)

Nevertheless I thought it would be a simple matter to recreate them, it's just sponge cake, icing and coconut, right?  The icing was no problem, I could make that from scratch, and while finding the right kind of coconut took a little effort I eventually tracked some down at the little Mennonite store we frequent.  But the sponge cake...ah, the sponge cake.

There is no equivalent of Ernest Adams putting out rectangular blocks of sponge cake by the acre.  There might be elsewhere, say in New York, but here in Pennsylvania the closest thing is the angel food cake mentioned above, which is sponge cake, but always comes in a ring which is about the worst shape possible for lamington production.

So I'm forced to make my own square sponge, which means knocking up a few lamingtons for Mrs Walles is a rather more involved process than I'm used to.

Another baking basic I've yet to track down is pure golden syrup.  The best I've found so far is watered down with corn syrup and, while it looks and pours the same, it tastes wrong.  Corn syrup is used a lot here in place of cane sugar as a sweetener because it's cheaper.  It is not, I can assure you, tastier.

Still, I live in hope that I'll stumble across some (probably pricey) golden syrup.  Wikipedia tells me that it's used in Louisiana.  Sounds like a good reason to pay a visit to New Orleans, I reckon.