[HN Gopher] The sweet sea monster of Portuguese Christmas
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The sweet sea monster of Portuguese Christmas
Author : galfarragem
Score : 28 points
Date : 2021-12-24 10:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| diego_moita wrote:
| This excess of egg yolks is also a strong characteristic of
| Portuguese pastry. A lot of Portuguese sweets are egg yolk (and
| cholesterol) rich: pasteis de nata (Portuguese Tarts), leite-
| creme (lemony custard), pasteis de Santa Clara, ambrosia, fios de
| ovos (the "angel hair" seen in the link above), etc...
|
| The main reason is that many of these recipes were developed by
| nuns in convents. Convents were the places were the "unwanted"
| women would be "placed" in Catholic patriarchal societies. In
| ancient times a source of income for these convents was to wash
| rich people's clothes. After washing the linens, they had to be
| ironed and a common ingredient for starching and making them
| crisp smooth was egg whites. Because of this they'd have an
| immense supply of egg yolks that they began using for making
| pastries, after sugar plantations where introduced in Madeira
| island and Brazil, in the 16th and 17th centuries.
| telesilla wrote:
| I'm so glad to see this! I saw this explanation in a Lisbon
| museum a long time ago about this and always wondered if I'd
| imagined it. The expanse of egg yolk desserts is so distinct to
| Portugal. My favorite remains the chocolate mousse, not full of
| air like the French style but thick and with a touch of sea
| salt. So good when it's done well.
| guiraldelli wrote:
| Thank you for the explanation: I was always intrigued by tge
| reasons of so much use of egg yolks in Portuguese pastries!
| (Seriously, no sarcasm!)
|
| Would you have any references on the subject? If so, would you
| mind sharing in here?
| kbcool wrote:
| I always figured it had something to do with lactose
| intolerance. Somewhere between 40 and 50% of the population are
| intolerant which is high compared to most of western Europe.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| So glad to see this posted as I am visiting Portugal for xmas and
| saw this crazy thing in the grocery store yesterday. It looked
| like it was covered in grated Taco Bell cheese. Now I am wishing
| I would have bought one. Got the rabanadas and sonhos though
| leading to happy xmas kids.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > During the Middle Ages, the lamprey reemerged as a prestige
| food.
|
| Henry I of England reportedly died from eating too many of them.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_of_England
| duarteoc wrote:
| Oh wow. I'm from Portugal. Never really thought about what the
| name of the sweet actually means. My sisters love this thing.
|
| It's just too sweet for me
| ohcomments wrote:
| My blood sugar rises just by looking at the damn cake!!!
|
| Interesting facts there too, learned something new today.
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