Archive for May, 2010
Vlaai: Fruit Pie From Limburg
Friday, May 21st, 2010
Ask any Dutch person to name a typical food from the province of Limburg and they will most probably answer: “vlaai”! Vlaai is a pie made of a flat spongy base that is then topped with fruit and whipped cream.
It is said that vlaai originally was a Germanic dish. Germanic tribes would bake flat breads on hot stones and top them with honey or fruit. They called this bread “vladel”. In the early Middle Ages German monks baked similar cakes to offer at Easter, which they called “vlade”. From there the custom spread to Belgium and the Southern Dutch province of Limburg.
Vlaai used to be a luxury bread baked only at special occasions such as Easter, weddings, local fairs, birthdays and the like. Nowadays you can buy it at any time of the year at bakeries in Limburg or at the nationwide vlaai shop Multivlaai. They come in all kinds of varieties and not only with fruit. To give you an idea: Multivlaai offers over 50 different tastes!
Making a home baked vlaai is easy and very tasty:
Ingredients:
For the base:
2 cups (250 gr.) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (30 gr.) sugar
1 sachet dried yeast
pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup (50 ml) milk
1/4 cup (50 ml) melted butter
1 flat, round cake form
For the filling:
1 cup (250ml) milk
1 vanilla stick or 2 sachets of vanilla sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup (100 gr.) sugar
2 tbsp custard powder
3 tbsp hot milk
1/4 cup (50 ml) melted butter
2 jars of apricots (or any other fruit of your choice)
2 tbsp apricot marmalade (or any other marmalade that matches the fruit of your choice).
Instructions:
1. Mix the ingredients for the base until you get a nice smooth and elastic dough. Let the dough rise in a warm place for an hour in a covered container.
2. While the dough rises you can make the filling. Warm the milk until almost boiling and add the vanilla stick. Give the vanilla about 10 minutes to flavor the milk (if you do not have a vanilla stick just dissolve 2 sachets of vanilla sugar in the milk).
3. Beat the two yolks with the sugar until creamy.
4. Add the custard powder and 3 tablespoons of hot vanilla milk.
5. Add this to the rest of the hot milk and stir until you get a nice, creamy mass.
6. Take the cream off the fire and add the melted butter. Stir until the butter has completely dissolved into the cream.
7. Preheat you oven to 400 °F (200 °C).
8. Grease your cake form with some butter.
9. Cover your working space with some flour. Take about 3/4 of the dough and form it into a flat disk of about 0.2 inch (0.5 cm) thick.
10. Cover your cake form with the dough disk.
11. Add the custard cream to the form.
12. Put the apricots on top.
13. Cut long strips of the remaining dough and put them cross-wise over the filling. Make sure they stick well to the border.
14. Sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar on top.
15. Put the cake in your oven just below the middle and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes.
16. Cover the top with two tablespoons of apricot marmalade directly after removing the vlaai from the oven.
Serve cold with whipped cream. Enjoy!
Continue:
Using Family Myths To Break Through Brick Walls
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
Photograph Wikimedia Commons
Almost every genealogist has stumbled upon them at a certain point of their research: the family myths. The most common myth is that of having royal blood, but every family has its own particular myths that are so detailed that they are hard to dismiss right away. What to do with grandma insisting that her grandfather was an African prince although her family does not look African at all? And what about grandpa claiming that the old gun in his cabinet once belonged to Thomas Jefferson?
We tend to put those myths aside because we cannot prove them or because they simply sound to far-fetched to be true. However, I think you should always take these stories seriously; they may even help you break through some of your “brick walls”! To see how that can be, let’s have a look first at what family myths are.
How do family myths develop in the first place? Usually they start out as simple oral stories around a family fact. For example grandma’s grandfather was born in the French colony of Algeria, spent his youth there and later emigrated with his parents to the United States. With each generation that passes on the story orally, some details are lost and others are added to make the story more worth telling. The first generation may transform Algeria into Africa, because they could not remember the exact country. The second generation may add that he grew up in great wealth and his parents belonged to high society. Most colonials would have matched that description. The third generation may change high society to nobility and before you know it the son of a well-to-do French colonist in Algeria has become an African prince.
You could of course dismiss grandma’s stories about her noble African roots and get stuck in your research when you cannot find her grandfathers birth record in France. You could also take her story seriously, in the sense that something about these African roots may in fact be true. The myth actually points the way to breaking through that brick wall. It is telling you: if this birth record is not to be found in France, how about French-African territories?
Some practical steps you can take to break through brick walls with family myths:
1. Collect what myths you can from your living relatives.
2. Write down every myth in all its details.
3. Strip the myths of any embellishments: get rid of or tune down famous people, kings, brave actions and other obvious or likely exaggerations.
4. Make a list of the few things that point to exact places, dates and events.
5. Keep the list with your research and consult it every time you hit a brick wall. The list will often provide just the clues you need
