LL-L "Delectables" 2006.05.09 (02) [D/E]

Tue May 9 15:05:51 UTC 2006

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L O W L A N D S - L * 09 May 2006 * Volume 02
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From: "Tom Mc Rae" <t.mcrae at uq.net.au>
Subject: LL-L "Delectables" 2006.05.08 (07) [E]

On 09/05/2006, at 8:39 AM,
>> Wa2kbzKarl at wmconnect.com <Wa2kbzKarl at wmconnect.com> wrote:
>> was given tea and some
>> very odd sugar. It was in crystals about size of a grape (2 cm?),

I recall something similar in Scotland during my childhood we called
it 'sugar candy'.
It seems to have been common in England as well where there was a
song with a line
"You're as sweet as sugar candy'"
And an old nursery rhyme told how a certain boy
"Loved plum cake and sugar candy".
I don't recall encountering it in my later years in Britain and have
never seen it here.

Regards
Tom Mc Rae
Brisbane Australia
Oh Wad Some Power the Giftie Gie Us
Tae See Oorsel's as Ithers See Us
Robert Burns

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From: "Mark Dreyer" <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Delectables" 2006.05.08 (07) [E]

Dear Karl:

Subject: LL-L Frisian sugar/tea

> Folks,
> I just returned from Germany, and while there, I had a fine Zuegener
> Schnitnel (a favorite) but at sister-in-law's home was given tea and some
> very odd sugar. It was in crystals about size of a grape (2 cm?), and they
> said it was from my heimatland (Emden).

I b'lieve I can tag something onto this string. They tell me a lot of sugar
used at sea came this way - perhaps because it was less hygroscopic & more
manageable than suger-loaves. It wandered inland too, here in S.Africa,
under the name 'koffie-suiker'. But, Karl, can they have been in some error
as to how it was used? Over here the practise was to pass it around in the
bowl, & the company would take one, & suck it like a sweet, while they
sipped the bitter coffee round it. An alternative was 'Skotse Lekkers' -
sourballs, are they called today? I think my mother was the last in our
family to see it used as a 'social exercise'.

This usage probably stopped because of the regulatory restrictions of WW II,
which drove koffie-suiker off the market, & most other kinds too. All you
could get (off the black-market, & that includes sweets) was semi-refined
brown stuff popularly called 'gowwermentsuiker' in 50lb hessian bags to the
whole-sale trade, ladled to the customer over the counter in a brown-paper
packet. You refused to accept lumps. Rumour hath it that they were caused by
the Station-master's dog pissing on the bag while it waited for delivery to
the grocer!

My mother told us all this when she saw me trying out some coffee this way,
& I did it, prompted by a line in Thomas Pringle's Diary of his years in
S.Africa. Read Thomas Pringle, guys, & talk to your Old Folks.

Yrs,
Mark

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From: "Heinrich Becker" <heinrich.becker at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Delectables" 2006.05.08 (05) [E]

Dear Karl,

the taste of your "Zigeuner-Schnitzel" "Gipsy  schnitzel" you may keep
for a while in your memory. It's in Germany as common and popular as a
hamburger worldwide. The custom to cover a schnitzel with industrial
gravy consisting of Mediterranian mixed pickles and ketchup is not
thinkable without American post war influence. Horrible for people who
prefer traditional German food.

Eastern Friesland is the only traditional "tealand" in Germany. That
means, having a daily amount of tea is there as popular as in England.
The big crystal ( size of a grape is O.K.) of white (!) sugar they call
"Kluntje" (= High German Kandiszucker), which they first put into the
tea cup before pouring the tea. To stir is a sin. First one has to taste
the bitter part that is getting sweeter draught by draught, referring to
what real life is about.....

 It's really a wonderful custom. Hope, you can get it in Missouri
somewhere.
Greetings from Germany
Heinrich Becker

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Delectables

Thanks for clarifying this, Heinrich.

But we also ought to mention the heavy cream that is carefully poured or
ladled into the tea and that settles in a clump on the bottom of the cup,
nestling the sugar.  Again: no stirring!  You get closer and closer to the
sweetened cream as you sip your way down.

This is a lovely tea tradition that is virtually unknown outside Northern
Germany and the Northeastern Netherlands.  I bet it would be considered
quite attractive elsewhere, for instance here in the United States where
tea drinking is becoming more popular (starting for health reasons) and
definitely fashionable.

People in Germany, and also many people in the United States, tell me that
they dislike tea, including black tea.  I am not surprised.  I used to
dislike it too, hate it, in fact.  Reason?  Most people there don't know
how to make a good cuppa.  Reason?  They live in coffee-lovers' societies
and like to think of tea as (poor) substitute coffee (something they have
to drink for caffein in a pinch), and they want to make it as coffee-like
as possible.  This means that most of them waaaay overbrew tea, and then
squeeeeze the tea bag (if they use any) to make the tea black like coffee.
 Result?  The tea is bitter, muddy and nasty.  No wonder they hate it. 
Anyone would.

I first learned to appreciate and then love tea in England and was a
regular tea drinker all my years in Australia.  I still drink it, though
not as much as coffee.  My wife (an American) drinks only tea. 
Oftentimes, I find that only a cup of good British-style tea with sugar
(or sweetener) and milk or cream hits the spot, is soothing, comforting. 
Lately I discovered that Scottish breakfast tea is my favorite of that
sort, closely followed by Yorkshire Gold.  I have a similar feeling with
South Asian chai, which I brew myself on occasion, using (red and smooth)
Ceylon tea with my own concoction of spices (with lots of cardamom) in
milk.  I drink East Asian green tea when I'm in a "sophisticated" and
"spiritual" mood and use my brain (which I do do on rare occasions), such
as when doing some thinking and writing at a tea house or after
meditation.

What interests me to know is why Eastern Friesland ended up being a
tea-drinking area.  Is it because the old tea trade from the Netherlands
to Hamburg went through it and people there tended to be more conservative
(in the sense that they liked to preserve their local uniqueness), thus
did not want to participate in the new coffee culture that elsewhere
supplanted the tea culture?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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From: "Arend Victorie" <victorie.a at home.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Delectables" 2006.05.08 (07) [E]

Moi Karl,

Hier hej een recept umme kandij klonten te maken.

kandijsuiker
Grof uitgekristalliseerde suiker, verkregen door het langzaam afkoelen van
een hete rietsuiker- of bietsuikerstroop. Men heeft witte, gele of
lichtbruine en donkerbruine kandij.

Het wordt verkregen door in een oververzadigde warme suikeroplossing zeer
langzaam grote kristallen te laten groeien op katoenen draden of houten
stokjes (duurt enkele weken). Om de donkere kandijsoorten te bekomen wordt
er een caramel oplossing toegevoegd.
De Nederlandse arts Boerhaave schreef in de 17e eeuw zwarte kandij voor als
middel tegen keelpijn en verkoudheid.

Kandijsuiker wordt voornamelijk gebruikt in koffie of thee maar ook als
garnering van koek; kandijkoek. Kandijstokjes zijn stokjes vol met kandij
die worden gebruikt in thee.

Goodgaon,
Arend Victorie

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