Social Cooking or something different gluten-free

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Straus wrote that "Cooking...is with language a truly universal form of human activity: if there is no society without a language, there is no society that does not cook.”  For the purpose of this blog entry, what I want to take from that idea is how inherently social and consequently rewarding our culinary endeavours can be.

It is Labour Day Monday here in Canada, so we had an a opportunity to get together as family before we all moved into the busyness that comes with school or kids’ school or life in general.  My sister was hosting the event and she was providing the main: the makings for a number of different taco-type creations.  She made seasoned basa filets, fajita-fried chicken and braised beef with the accompaniments.  We were asked to bring a dessert and a drink.  Harkening back to the Levi-Straus quote, there was something very social (ie. thinking of others and what they were eating) that had to take place when I was planning what to cook because there are some dietary concerns within my family.

Since diabetes is a concern, I wanted to include a sugar free option in our drink at least.  I took a simple but, in my opinion, better than pop option, and did Italian sodas, which I know are not Italian but are good.  I bought two bottles of syrup, one regular pomegranate and one sugar-free vanilla and a bottle of club soda.  I really enjoy using these at gatherings because guests can control the sweetness and I can make mine with a lot of the tang of the soda and just the slight hint of the syrup, which I find very refreshing.

In planning the dessert, I needed to take into account that I have a nephew who cannot have gluten and a niece that is lactose intolerant.  I was looking for something that wasn’t a gluten-free version of something else and something that did not need to be changed too much to be lactose free.  A slightly different option I found was Strawberry and Cream Meringue Nest Petits Fours from a BBC food show called The Great British Bake Off.  The recipe can be found here.  The social of experience of cooking for my family provided me with a culinary first: I had never piped meringue into baskets before.  To be honest I haven’t piped much of anything since I cook a fair bit but bake very little.  They were not the most aesthetically perfect creations ever but that did mean they had the advantage of clearly looking homemade.  I ended up make about 40 pieces and from the fact that none were left, it seems that they were enjoyed by those without gluten issues as well.  The mousse with cream did not work for someone who could not have lactose, so I left it off some of the meringues and instead filled them with fresh strawberries; those also got eaten.

I probably would not normally have been looking for this kind of recipe and so without the prompting of a family gathering, I would have missed something I quite enjoyed.  The sweet meringues with marshmallow-like interiors worked well against the not overly sugary, slightly tangy strawberry mousse and fresh strawberry garnish.  You also had three different textures, crispy exteriors of the meringues, their gooey interiors and the smooth mousse.  The moral of the story: extending your culinary self for others has its benefits.