Kitchens Without Women
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Food of Singapore with Kheng Hua Tan
A star of Crazy Rich Asians, who is from Singapore, talks about the truly international food scene she grew up with - why is it like that?
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Two Teams: Brownie and Blondie
My kids loved the “Who Would Win” series of books, which pitted different animals against each other. As a writer and dessert enthusiast, I’m thinking there’s a market out there for a similar series on sweets. The first installment? “Who Would Win: Brownie vs. Blondie.”
As with many American foods, the history of these two dessert bars is somewhat mysterious. Multiple sources report that Bertha Palmer, a socialite associated with the Palmer House in Chicago, tasked pastry chef Joseph Sehl with creating a dessert that could fit easily into boxed lunches for the Women’s Pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. What Sehl created had all the characteristics of a brownie, but without the name. The original recipe is still served at the Palmer House today.
The first printed use of the word “brownie” appeared in the 1896 edition of “The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook” by recipe goddess extraordinaire, Fanny Farmer. Interestingly enough, this recipe contains no chocolate, categorizing it now as a blondie.
So what delineates a blondie from a brownie? The blondie’s heart and soul is brown butter, which imparts the butterscotch flavor that defines its essence. Browning butter involves low heat and patience; achieving the perfect amber color and nutty aroma can never be rushed. Blondies explicitly use brown sugar, creating an even richer depth of molasses flavor and chewy texture.
Brownies, in contrast, are all about the chocolate. You can use cocoa powder, chocolate chips, baking bars or a combination, which will create different shades of the deep brown color that sets brownies apart. Granulated sugar is preferred; be prepared to shell a fair amount of eggs if you prefer them fudgy.
Brownies are typically a shorter hands-on experience, but because their aroma will take over your senses soon after putting them into the oven, this part will feel like eternity. Also, you really should let them cool completely before diving in...but that is asking a lot.
There are dozens of boxed mixes if you want to speed up your brownie experience. Apparently, there are blondie mixes out there, too, but I have yet to meet anyone who has tried one.
Personally, I have always been in camp brownie but, I hadn’t tried blondies until my preteen and I made them for the first time recently. They were delicious, but I’m still choosing brownies.🍫
Photo: Rui Ornelas/Flickr
The Basque Kitchens Women Can’t Enter
By Miriam Foley
Spain’s northern Basque region is most famous for its pintxos, its abundance of Michelin-starred restaurants, and its celebrated chefs. What locals keep quieter about is their very own food scene: private members-only clubs, or gastronomic societies, of which all members are traditionally men.
Known as txokos, which literally means “cozy corner” in Basque and is pronounced "cho-kos," these food clubs provide a space where groups of friends come together to cook, eat, drink, and socialize. The oldest date back to the late 1800s.
A member invited me to one private gastronomic society in the region’s capital, Vitoria-Gasteiz, where women are actually allowed. So I got a surprise when, armed with hunger and curiosity, I went into the professional-looking kitchen to peek in the huge pot simmering with rice and mushrooms. Instead of a look inside, I got a telling-off by a man in an apron wagging his finger and pointing to what resembled a ladies' toilet sign with a red line through it.
No women are allowed into the kitchen in this particular sociedad, which remains unyielding in moving with the times, sticking to the traditional rule of men-only, where membership is still passed from a member to his eldest son.
My friend quickly ushered me back to the large dining area, with several long “Game of Thrones”-esque tables, and photographs of its all-male members lined up on a wall. While women can be invited to enjoy food and drink, they cannot enter the kitchen, go behind the bar, or become a member. One member of this gastronomic society, who has no sons, wants his daughters to inherit his membership; some of his fellow members have proposed his son-in-law get it instead.
Each txoko has its own rules; some of the more modern sociedades allow women to move freely into the kitchen, both to peek and cook.
More progressive food clubs are opening their heavy wooden doors to female members too, and others still have founding male as well as female members, reflecting younger generations with women who like to socialize just as much as men, alongside men. Women like to have fun in the kitchen too.👫
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