Book Log 2020 #6: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

Humans have established a foothold on the moon, and are now looking to make the jump to Mars. The first mission is being planned, but the powers that be have left women off of the crew, not wanting to put them in harm's way during such a dangerous mission.

This leaves the popular "Lady Astronaut" Elma York at her current job, flying between the Earth and the moon. She wants to go to Mars, but isn't sure how to get herself - never mind women in general - included. She's also not sure if she should go in the place of other astronauts, who like her have been passed up for not being a white male. On a more personal note, she's also trying to balance advancing her career against starting a family, as she'll definitely be grounded once she's pregnant.

It's interesting to see all of these challenges play out over the planning and eventual execution of the mission, though at times the issues feel more contemporary than those prevalent in the 1960s (though the international make-up of the astronaut corps and the looming planetary disaster would give some explanation for that).

I did like this book, and appreciated how it furthered the story and characters without being too obviously working to set up the third book. 

 Book Log 2020 #5: The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters

A local widow has given her home to the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, but on the condition of an annual rent payable to her of a single white rose from the house's garden. Which isn't normally a problem except for the year 1142, when the man renting the house returns from a job to find the rose bush hacked away at its base, and a young brother from the abbey (who had been asked to be released from his vows due to his feelings for the widow) dead beside it.

Just as Cadfael and the sheriff start their investigation, the widow who owns the house suddenly disappears. Both events appear related, and engineered to void the charter that rented the house to the abbey. Cadfael follows the clues and the consideration of who would stand to benefit from these events, with the expected results.

I generally liked this entry in the series, but it does have what may be the cheesiest ending of them all. Almost cheesy enough to put me off of the book. Be forewarned.

 Book Log 2020 #4 Even the Dead by Benjamin Black

Pathologist/amateur detective Quirke is back on the case, or cases, as he gets pulled into investigating the suspicious death of a young man (whose death is made to look like an accident or suicide) and the disappearance of a pregnant woman who is a friend of sorts of Quirke's daughter, Phoebe.  Quirke pairs up with police inspector Hackett to look into these cases, which appear to involve some old foes from the Catholic church. The involvement of the church also provides a personal connection for Quirke, whose time in an orphanage - and the treatment he received there from the priests running it - has led to medical issues as he moves further into middle age.

I like this series best when it delves into the power structure that ran Ireland in the mid-20th century, as I don't think the average reader would really understand how ingrained the Church was in the running of the country at that time. Those power structures also provide a more engaging - and often enraging - foe for Quirke. 

 Lentorama 2020: Forty Days of Food

Day 15: fanesca

I wrote about fanesca last year when talking about Easter traditions in Ecuador, it's a grain-based soup that's so popular during Lent that there are competitions between restaurants to see who makes the best version.

For this post I was going to write about this year's competition, except that there wasn't one. Covid-19 forced the closure of pretty much all of the restaurants. What this did lead to is a growth in people making the soup at home (note: the page is in Spanish). This also had some challenges, as people were restricted as to when they could go to the market, and the markets had to implement their own procedures to keep shoppers safe. The pandemic also made it hard to get some ingredients due to disruptions in the supply chain, but the prices of the ingredients were often lower than usual because the restaurants weren't buying them. Such are the connections between food, public health, and religion.

 Lentorama 2020: Forty Days of Food

Day 14: pinca

Pinca is a bread made in parts of Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia (Istria and Dalmatia primarily). It's made with an enriched dough, and using eggs and sugar means it's not repentant enough to be eaten until the end of Lent. 

It's kind of like a cross between a large hot cross bun and soda bread, with the dough being more like a hot cross bun and the preparation more like soda bread (loaf-sized and with a cross cut through the top). 

This page gives a short history of the bread and links to several recipes. It looks like the Easter bread is commonly flavored with citrus, and might have some alcohol added in for extra flavor.  You don't get the dried fruit, icing, or nuts that you can get with hot cross buns, but a version made for Christmas is likely to have raisins (or more properly sultanas, based on the recipes in the link). 

There are a number of regional names for the bread, one of which, pogača, is also the last name of the winning cyclist from the 2020 Tour de France (note: this was written after the race; if I actually knew about this in March I would have hit the betting shops hard). I imagine he got some grief from the other kids about this growing up.

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 13: colomba di Pasqua

There are a lot of breads specific to Easter, don't know why but I'm guessing it's something to do with making something that's risen. In any case, colomba di Pasqua is an Italian bread made at Easter, a springtime cousin to panettone or pandoro.

The reciepie for colomba di Pasqua is actually pretty similar to panettone, as far as the dough goes. The Easter bread uses candied peel rather than raisins, and it's topped with almonds and pearl sugar. It's also shaped into a dove (the name translates into English as Easter dove), rather than panettone's tall shape. 

This article from Eataly goes a little deeper into the history of the bread, and notes that it's something that's more often store bought than attempted at home. It mentions that the dough takes 30 hours to rise, which would certainly send me to the bakery for a loaf.  

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 12: sárgatúró 

Sárgatúró is a Hunarian dish whose name literally translates to "yellow curd cheese," though I think it's open to debate how much like cheese it really is.

To make it, you combine eggs, milk, and sugar, and boil until it starts to clump and resemble a curd cheese. You then add vanilla, and any other items you may want in it (other spices, raisins, etc.). You then put the solids into a cheesecloth and force out as much liquid as you can. After that, you hang it so the mass comes together, and to get more liquid to seep out.

Once it's in one solid piece, you can slice it and eat it with ham, bread, or whatever part of the Easter meal you'd like. Most of the web pages about sárgatúró are in Hungarian, but this page in English talks a little bit about it, has a recipie, and a good picture of the finished product. And by good I mean the quality of the photo; the actual appearance of the dish looks, to me, like a loaf of scrambled eggs.

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 11: hot cross buns

Hot cross buns have a long been traditional at Easter, when buns were made without dairy throughout Lent.  It's not clear when they were first made, at least in some form that we would recognize. There's some record of buns being made going back to the 6th century in Greece, while the English have an origin story that goes back to the 14th century at an abbey in St. Albans. 

Regardless of where they were first made, the buns do share a distinctive cross pattern, that could be put into the buns using shortcrust pastry, a paste made of flour and water, or just cutting the cross into the dough. All of these methods seem to have to have taken a back seat to sugar icing, which is a bit more acceptable if you have your buns at the end of Lent rather than during.

While early buns don't appear to have been flavored, over time various spices were introduced, with the idea that they represented the compounds used to prepare Jesus for entombing. This has also changed in more recent times, either with the addition of dried fruit or various flavors (like sticky toffee, apple cinnamon, chocolate, and so on). 

I have to admit that I'm pretty ambivalent about hot cross buns, and find the iced ones too sweet.

 Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 10: aquavit

Aquavit is a Scandinavian spirit brewed from grains or potato, like gin or vodka, but is flavored with various herbs and spices, with caraway typically the dominant flavor (this Eater article gives a good overview on aquavit and suggests a number of brands to try). I never associated it specifically with Easter, but it's apparently very traditional in countries like Norway and Denmark to have a glass with your Easter meal. It's just that it's also traditional to have it with your Christmas meal as well. Or any meal, really.

One thing I did know about aquavit is that there's a type called line aquavit, which is made by putting casks of the stuff on a ship and then sending it to Australia and back (the line in the name refers to the Equator). The conditions on the ship provide a specific character to the aquavit, which is not present in varieties aged on land only. There's been some attempt to recreate this process on land with machinery to mimic changes in humidity, the ship's motion, etc., but without success.

 Book Log 2020 #1: Clyde Fans by Seth

Before getting into Clyde Fans, I should note that I started 2020 by re-reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon (which I had previously re-read in 2013), and I actually did read them chronologically this time around (which just means reading the cycle books in order and Cryptonomicon last), and I do think I was better at connecting people and references between the four books. I don't know that I liked any of the books any better this time around, but the rise of cryptocurrency did lend something to the Cryptonomicon re-read.

So my first new book of the year was Clyde Fans, a graphic novel about a pair of brothers who inherit the family's fan business after their father abandons them. Abe is the more natural businessman, and winds up more or less running the business on his own when Simon, after a failed business trip, becomes a recluse. The family's highly dysfunctional dynamic - between Abe's belittlement of Simon and Simon's co-dependent relationship with their mother - adds emotional weight to the eventual failure of the business.

I don't read a lot of graphic novels, but the format definitely enhanced the story, between the striking graphics and the moody (and often depressing) blue and grey colors of the art. I also found it interesting that Seth based the novel on an actual business (or the remains of one) in Toronto, where he saw a picture of two men, made an assumption that they were brothers, and developed the story from there over the course of several years. It's a sad and occasionally difficult story, but was worth the read.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 9: simnel cake

The English love their fruitcake. The traditional Christmas pudding is a fruitcake, as is the traditional wedding cake. The simnel cake is Easter's fruitcake. Though it wasn't always for Easter.

The simnel cake was originally made for Laetare Sunday, or Refreshment Sunday. The fourth Sunday in Lent, on this day the fast and other restrictions of the period are relaxed. Priests can wear rose colored vestments, flowers can appear on the altar, and the people could enjoy foods that they'd otherwise avoid.

Over time, the British holiday Mothering Sunday would also be held on the fourth Sunday in Lent, and the simnel cake became associated with that day as well.

The cake itself is a light fruitcake (I assume the lightness is relative to other fruitcakes), two layered with marzipan between the layers and on the top. The cake is decorated with 11 or 12 balls of marzipan (often shaped like eggs), representing either the apostles alone or Jesus and the apostles, in both cases without Judas. The cake is baked, and will spend some time under a broiler or grill to brown the marzipan.

But why is it called a simnel cake? No one really knows. There's a theory that the word has something to do with the fine, white flour made to make the cake. It does not appear to be related to the pretender to the throne Lambert Simnel, as the word first appeared a couple of centuries before his birth. This page from Anglican Way magazine gives various theories, and if the Anglicans can't sort this out no one can.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 8: hollow chocolate Easter bunny

While it didn't quite stack up to Christmas morning - then as now the gold standard for childhood nervous energy - Easter morning had its own excitement, not the least of which was the Easter basket. Full of sweet treats and the occasional present, the crowing glory of most baskets was a chocolate rabbit. You'd unwrap it from its shiny foil, take a big bite... and it would be hollow. Why would chocolate makers play such a cruel trick?

Simple. Hollow bunnies are easier to eat than solid ones.

As noted in this article, there is a point where chocolate can be too thick to eat easily, especially for kids. Hollow bunnies are easier to bite through and break apart as needed, which is a much more positive experience. The manufacturer also benefits from being able to make larger bunnies with less chocolate, which entices the eater. Even if it winds up being a lie.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 7: figolli

Malta has a few baked goods associated with Lent and Easter, but figolli are the most festive. With roots apparently going back to pagan times, modern figolli are filled with marzipan, iced in festive colors, and often given holiday-appropriate shapes (fish, lambs, etc.). They are topped with half a chocolate egg, still wearing its foil wrapper.

It's common for kids to bring figolli to church to be blessed, and they're also often given as gifts.

Here's one of several recipes for figolli that are out there, which I include as it has links to two other Maltese Easter foods, a Lenten cake and a fish soup.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 6: zurek

Unlike yesterday's entry, which in its early days was considered a "dry soup" to start a meal, today's entry is an actual soup from Poland. While it's possible to find it year round now, it is most associated with Lent and Easter.

Unlike soups that use a meat or vegetable stock as its base, zurek uses a liquid made by soaking rye bread in water, creating a started called zakwas (check here if you want to take a shot at making it yourself). Traditionally the soup includes sausage, herbs, and hard boiled eggs, though that can vary depending on when you serve it (no meat on Fridays during Lent, of course).

According to this list of Polish Easter foods, zurek is often consumed with herring, another common Lenten food in Poland. There's also a tradition of having a funeral for zurek after Easter is over, either by burying a pot of it or dumping it on the ground. This reminded me a little bit of the fish funeral in Ireland, as people are sick enough of eating something to want it gone and buried.

Lentorama 2020: 40 Days of Food

Day 5: capirotada

Capirotada is a bread pudding commonly served in Mexico during Lent and on Easter, though it appears to have roots going back to Moorish Spain, where it was served as a savory dish before the meal, rather than as a dessert as most of us would expect from a bread pudding. The main spices in the dish - cinnamon and cloves - were also found in savory dishes cooked in the region at the time. Even today, when the dish is mostly served as a dessert, there are versions that include ingredients like tomato, onion, and (when permitted) meat.

Unlike standard bread pudding, capirotada uses a sugar syrup to hydrate the bread, rather than milk and eggs. The cinnamon and cloves are used to flavor the syrup, which also darkens it. This lends to a Christian interpretation of the dish where the bread represents Jesus, the syrup his blood, cinnamon the wood of the cross, and cloves the nails used in the crucifixion.

Fruit (often dried, though fresh pineapple or banana is also used) and nuts can also be added, while some versions also include a cheese (not sure if this is the Mexican Easter cheese I've seen referenced in a few places or something more like queso fresco).

This article (which I've liberally ripped off for this entry) includes a recipe, not sure how authentic it is. This one may be better, as the writer has personal experience with the dish.  Or you could go with Rick Bayless. Really, there are a ton of recipes online if you want to give it a go yourself.