Monthly Archives October 2009

The cheesecake is indeed an american classic. I never considered myself american or even close to the culture it represents till the moment my oven rolled out one of these beauties! It is a desert that sums up the american spirit. Many reasons for that. First of all it has a bunch of american ingredients, cream cheese, Graham cookies and butter. The all american cooking fat. Also the idea of a cake that has a base that can be tailored to anything sweet and savory it is an all american classic. An all american classic. But most of all it is the basic custard filling that is the heart and soul of the american country desert cooking.

Dulce de Leche is one more fine contribution to my culinary education from the south of the border school. It is fine sauce and since the previous post was about cheesecake, the finest dairy concoction, I thought of staying in the same mood. Diary stuff. Dulce de leche was a way of preserving milk in a similar way that jams and preserves are to preserve fruit. I assume that this is the way dulce was envisioned and started. It probably originated rom the la lecheda, a warm sugar and milk beverage, drunk in Argentina. As a sauce dulce de leche resembles caramel but since the major sweetness comes from lactose, the  milk sugar, it is not as overwhelming and the flavor is a little more delicate.