Flapjacks

What's a flapjack?

When we were living in Strasbourg, France, my friend Jill proposed bringing over a plate of flapjacks for dessert. “Flapjacks, for dessert?” I asked. Not being a connoisseur of Scottish cooking, I assumed that she was talking about pancakes, which also go by the name of “flapjack” in the U.S. Jill who’s from Scotland said, “oh noooo” (which rhymes with “oo” in moose) and explained to me that “her flapjack” was a standard dessert in Scotland and that it—like most Scottish dishes—was made of oats.

What I encountered a few hours later has become one of my all time favorite treats, a chewy, sweet and nutty bar, much like Granola bars but 100 times better perhaps in part because of its virtuosity. (Oats get high points for virtue in our family rating system.) Besides oats, a secret ingredient is Lyle’s golden syrup. Jill had a stash remaining from her last trip “home” to visit her parents. Like most of us expats living in Strasbourg, a line—albeit thin—attached Jill and her family to “home” through the pantry. (For us, it was peanut butter, Jiffy Corn Muffin mix, Annie’s Pasta and in our earliest most craven moments Fluff, a product we never purchase in the US.)

It’s odd to speak of Scotland as “home” for Jill, when she has lived in France for over 2 decades and has no intention of moving away. As a British subject, she holds a E.C. passport, which enables her to live and work anywhere in the E.C. She works for an international science foundation and her husband, Jean-Marie is a Swiss-born historian who teaches at the Université Marc Bloch. To the astonishment of many of his acquaintances, he gave up his Swiss nationality (which is not in the E.C.) for French nationality (which is). Like Jill, he’s living life as a European.

Their daughters, Mary and Hélène, were born in France and although English is their mother tongue, French is their first language. When we first met them four years ago, they spoke English well but with overtones of French and American accents. Now, due to their experience in the French public school with International Sections, their language is “international anglo” (something between Oxford and the mid-West) when speaking English and pure French when speaking French—with no hint of Scottish in either language.

The Husser girls appreciate their Mom’s flapjacks, crumble, muesli (inspired in part by Jean Marie, the Swiss) and haggis (imported yearly for the Burn’s dinner), but for them, Scottish food shares space in the pantry cum alter with brownies, baguette, couscous, Nutella, cheese soufflé, raclette and choucroute garnie. For Hélène and Marie, home cooking like their linguistic and cultural identity is international.

I must admit that I prefer the international identity to the national one and strive to inculcate it in our children. It probably sounds unhealthy, but one of the reasons I didn’t want to move back to the U.S. is that I didn’t want our children, Clio, Zola and Finley, to feel “too much at home” in the U.S. I take a dim view on Heimlichkeit (which taken to its extreme is delusionary and destructive) and didn’t want them to believe that being “American” was essential to the formation of a strong self concept nor a better world.

I think the world is better off for people feeling dépaysé (un-landed, not at home, like a fish out of water). As long as people are treated humanely and can find work and love, Dépaysement – like all changes of scenery – can breed creativity, humility and tolerance.

My hope is that our children will understand that national identity is not essential, but a social construct, in particular an “artifact” of a colonial world. I hope they will shrug off the false and empty security national identity can bring and embrace life as citizens of the world. It’s a lot to ask of a person. They will have to decide for themselves.

Asking someone to shed their national identity is akin to asking them to strip naked and run across the village Green in November. We asked our children to do that for six years as we floated around France in our house boat, schooling them in different French public schools. We’ve brought them back to New England where they could experience the fun and continuity of childhood that they couldn’t find in our former lifestyle. They love it here, which warms my heart. Yet I hope that once they gain autonomy from social institutions and become adults, they will venture back into the world armed with a couple of fig leaves (dual citizenship and multiple languages) as they grapple with the question of who they are and how they relate to the world.

In the meantime, I’ll do my best to insure that their family nest is warm, welcoming, worldly and, of course, ever critical of nationhood.

Revenons à nos moutons …

Here’s the recipe for Jill’s flapjacks. Note that our family cook, Jeff, has adjusted the recipe for U.S. measures and ingredients, which is a constant challenge—and opportunity!—facing the international cook:

Flapjacks by Jill

Temperature 180 Celsius (U.S. 350 Fahrenheit)
230 grams rolled oats
115 grams butter (U.S. 4 oz = 1 stick)
80 grams sugar (white or brown)
50 grams Golden Syrup (2 Tbs)

Grease 11×7 inch tin. Gently heat butter, sugar and syrup till melted. Stir in the oats. Press into tin and cook 20 minutes (or longer – until it starts to brown around the edges). Let cool for 5 minutes and then mark into fingers (Scottish for cut into squares). Leave to cool. Serve on a platter.

Lyle's Golden Syrup

Lyle’s Golden Syrup is an essential ingredient in many British and Scottish recipes. It’s available on Amazon.com among other sites.

In our area, we’re fortunate to be able to find it at the Hanover Co-op Food Store in Hanover, New Hampshire. Not that surprising given the social and cultural connections between the New and Old Englands.

Variations on flapjack's

Jeff has experimented with many variations of this recipe. My favorites are the pumpkin seed and Grapenuts variations. 1) Since pumpkin seeds don’t absorb any liquid, just add them to the mixture or… 2) Replace some of the oats with Grapenuts.

Grapenuts is another one of the “comfort foods” we requested from guests and tucked into our suitcases on trips across the “Pond”. Jeff eventually located a supplier, Best of British, an importer based in the South of France. We ate Grapenuts for breakfast till the day we left Strasbourg.

Funny thing is that now we’re back in the US, we still have a cupboard full of Grapenuts, but we rarely use it as breakfast cereal. Instead it’s a baking ingredient. Almost as soon as the bags were unpacked, Grapenuts became the ingredient of Flapjacks (and other favorite recipes from strasbourg) and of our daily bread, which Jeff started baking to replace the cheap and tasty French baguette.

Just words, words, words...

In Dominica’s latest post for “Speckled Dish”, she asked for thoughts about home and abroad. Since I couldn’t post my thoughts as a comment (the text exceeds 150 words), I have created this post.

“Home” and “Abroad” are as Frank Zappa said in a comical and compelling interview “Just words…It’s words, words”. I don’t point out this fact to belittle the importance of words (and certainly not the ones with which Dominica artfully tells her story about “home”) but to emphasize the fact that words—especially abstract nouns like “home” and “abroad”—represent concepts which people have invented. (Dominica points to this fact herself when she suggests that her ideal version of “home” rejoins (her version of) the Berber conception of home as “travel with your tribe”.)

If there is any “sin” associated with our use of words, it lies in our forgetfulness or downright denial of the nonessential connection between words and concepts. People invent words to describe concepts (which they also invent).

To feel the experience firsthand, try to translate a text from one language to another. It usually doesn’t take long to run up against a concept that can’t be translated because it doesn’t map onto a concept (and word) in the target language.

Caught off guard believing words always have traction on reality, we are easy prey for people who (wittingly or unwittingly) use words as if they do map ineluctably onto an essential concept. If a person “gets us” to share their meaning of a word, it is likely that they will also “get us to share” their world view. Consider concepts like “sanity”, “success”, “patriot”, “tax burden” and “enemy” and the ways in which definitions frame subsequent discussions. (George Lakeoff, among other authors, exposes the ways in which politcal strategists use language to frame political discussions and shape voter beliefs.)

We get into trouble (personally, interpersonally, interculturally, intergovernementally) when we critically accept the word and the concept as an essential unity.

Just like a scout who mistakes the map for the terrain, a person who mistakes words for “reality” risks at best , missing the path to personal “enlightenment” and at worst, wandering into a a cultural, intellectual and moral wasteland paved by a malignant person or persons.

Words are merely words, but they can be deadly when we forget this fact! In case you haven’t already seen Zappa’s interview on words in a discussion about censorship:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=12593428

Coal

Thought I’d share this “inspiring look at what makes our country run” as the folks at freeloveforum put it.

The Story of Stuff

Finley couldn’t sleep tonight. She was laying awake worrying about the plight of the polar bears. Did I know that because of global warming, they were falling through the ice and drowning? And that the polar ice caps might drown us all in 50 years? She did the math and figured out that I probably wouldn’t be around to drown, but she wanted to know what I was doing to save the polar bears, ice caps and her.

I muddled through with a list of things we try to do as a family: drive a Prius, heat with wood, grow vegetables & raise chickens, eat locally, take the bus, bake bread, reduce, reuse, recycle. And what we don’t do: buy lots of packaged foods, take long, hot showers and drive a lot. Finley was reassured enough to go to sleep, but then I couldn’t sleep. How can we lie about sleeping when the planet may be destroyed within our grandchildren’s lifetiime and it’s our fault?

So, I decided to send you this video. Pretty lame response? No doubt, but it’s a start. I know Janna is also concerned about the polar bears, as are you, which made me think you might enjoy, get inspired and pass it on.

If you’d like to see the whole video: http://www.storyofstuff.com

Another blow to "common sense"

Here’s a funny comment posted on Notio

Out of Africa

Here’s a photo of Ian Player, a distinguished South African ecology activist, contemplating what fate has served up to him. Look closely at the cream. What do you see? I saw it only after Ian exclaimed, “Why, it’s Africa!”

This pudding was the punctuation of our meal together at Phuzamoya (“Wind Spirit” in Zulu) the farm Ian and his wife Ann have lived on for decades. Along with my Heritance ( Jean, Sheila and Claire) I was invited to spend the weekend with them as part of an initiative to preserve, share and promote Ian’s life work. The Player house which is filled with a rich and extensive personal library, photos and awards, as well as papers, recorded interviews with Zulu trackers and films is a testimony to Ian’s productive career. And Ann’s undaunted support for her husband’s controversial, at times adversarial, stance vis-a-vis the South African government and society.

Ian, renowned for being a remarkable person, is credited with the creation of the national park in the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa, the founding of the Wilderness School in Durban, the successful initiative to save the white rhino, and the preservation of the Zulu Indigenous Knowlege System transmitted to him by his friend Magqubu Ntombela.

Unfortunately wikipedia doesn’t yet have any information about Magqubu, an oversight which I am sure that Ian would want to see corrected. At a pivotal moment in his life, he recognized Magqubu as “the better man” and dedicated the rest of his life to learning what Magqubu could teach him about the ecosytem and the good life and fighting to preserve and promote both.

Ann's bountiful dish

Ann Player prepared the most exquisite plate of fresh fruit I’ve ever seen or tasted, a potpourri of South African summer treasures.