Switching gears here for a minute from All the Proteins!! Week, I wanted to show you these “overthought” hand pies. You see, today is of course Juneteenth. I must admit that until I attended grad school some 25 years ago in someplace other than New England or Germany, I never really paid much attention to a whole lot of Black history — a fault that I will admit and have hopefully rectified. I’ll spare you the details of my grad school work except to say that it was eye-opening. In addition, I think that most of you know that I find cultural meaning and shared common beliefs through food — yes, for me, almost everything comes back to the food, whether it be Independence Day or Christmas. I did some more details research on the food traditions of Juneteenth, which is often celebrated with a menu of red foods to represent the perseverance of the enslaved. No, these Blackberry Peach Hand Pies aren’t red – there will be red on the menu soon as Strawberry week starts on Monday (and I have taken the day off to go Strawberry picking) — but they are a combination of ideas: Pies, and hand pies, a commonality between North and South, though these are inspired by a recipe from a little Georgia bakery. Peaches are common to both GA and TX. And I will always go back to Breaking Bread with family and friends as an important part of community building.
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Breakfast/Brunch
Let’s talk about these Raisin Danishes for a few minutes, shall we? I know, we’re moved on from the “food from our childhood” topic, but I had to slay this dragon, as it were, so here we go.
These are Rosienenschnecken. Pain au Raisin in French. Raisin Danish or Swirls. It’s not a Cinnamon Bun, mainly because there isn’t much cinnamon in it. In Germany, there are lots of these Schnecken (fun fact: Schnecke also means “snail” — so this is like the swirl of the snail house). There Zimtschnecken, Nussschnecken, Mohnschnecken (cinnamon, nuts and poppy seeds respectively); they can also be called Schneckennudeln, which literally translates to snail-noodle, which is kind of funny. My Oma’s nickname for me was “Kleine Schneckennudel” or “Schneckle” or “Nudel”. Yep, my grandmother called me snail as a term of endearment. I don’t know if that or Noodle was cuter. Just like Gurken and Spätzle, these things were — and still are — one of my favorite foods.
Second Monday in a row that I am splurging on breakfast: French Toast last week and the most technicolor breakfast that I have had in a long time with these Deconstructed Breakfast Burritos this week. I wanted to get in another “Spring Veggie” dish for the Bake/Cook-a-long (you have until midnight today, if you are playing along!), so I started with spinach pancakes, which are actually really really yummy, but are almost too vibrant! Fill it on up with other breakfast ingredients: rice, beans, tomatoes, avocado, spring onion and more spinach … and a fried egg for good measure. I had intended to roll the whole thing up or fold to a square, but I only managed to fold it like an omelette. A great breakfast and a technicolor feast for the eyes!