Funny old thing, the so-called Festive Season and the food that goes with it. It is strange mix of centuries’ old traditions imported from Europe which sit uneasily in the climate of a Zimbabwe Christmas. Up North, the holiday falls in the coldest, darkest days of winter and it is therefore appropriate to be stocking up on pies, puddings and dried fruit to provide fuel against the cold. But here we are in the height of summer where a bit of meat, chicken or fish on the braai, with a salad and a cool beer is surely the wiser menu to be aiming for!
However, colonial rituals die hard, and local supermarket shelves are laden with cakes decorated with snowmen, robins and jolly Santas cracking the whip over poor Rudolph.
Mince pies are among the most well known and enjoyed Christmas treats. They are made of either short crust or puff pastry, filled with a mixture of sultanas, raisins, currants, apple, mixed peel, spices, citrus juice, sugar, nuts, a dollop of dry sherry and a drop (or more) of brandy. The mixture goes uncooked – just left to soak and settle for weeks or months before use. It is delicious. A good pastry should be light, rich and slightly sweet.
This month’s column brings you a review of 12 options available in Harare. They were graded as follows – 2 stars for the pastry, 2 stars for the mincemeat and 1 star for appearance. Our findings were that there is little correlation between quality and cost. Here goes!
Bon Marché Borrowdale’s Puff Pastry Pie: ∗∗
A tough puff pastry forms a hard shell. The mincemeat is a layer at the bottom of a cavernous hole. The mincemeat is not bad though. 50 cents.
Bon Marché Borrowdale’s Short Crust Pastry Pie: ∗∗
Pastry is too thick at 7 mm all round, smothering the mincemeat. 50 cents.
Pick n Pay Avondale: 1/2 ∗
Thick, hard short crust pastry up to 10 mm thick. Filling is very sweet and sparse with little resemblance to mincemeat. Not a pleasant experience. 45 cents.
Spar Borrowdale: ∗1/2
A thick short crust overrides the taste of the mincemeat, which is spicy, though with too much clove. $3.50 for 6.
Food Lover’s Market Avondale: ∗∗1/2
This pie uses short crust pastry that is not rolled too thick. Mincemeat is fruit but a little too sweet and lacking spice. 60 cents.
Food Lover’s Market Borrowdale: ∗∗
Short crust that is too thick. Not as good as the Avondale counterpart. 50 cents.
Café Nush Avondale: ∗1/2
Thick, stodgy short crust pastry and bland mincemeat that has no recognisable fruit in the mincemeat. Though very pretty, these are also the most pricey at $1 each.
Vali’s Kensington: ∗∗
Covered in deep icing sugar, these have a good, thin short crust pastry but not nearly enough filling. 80 cents each.
Pemcol – Sam Levy’s & Ballantyne Park: ∗∗∗1/2
The puff pastry is far too thick, and not adapted from their excellent savory pies. Mincemeat is delicious though – bursting with fruit and pleasingly runny. $4 for 6.
Spar Ballantyne Park: ∗∗∗∗ 1/2
An excellent, rich, thinly rolled short crust at 2–3 mm thick that is brimming with luscious moist filling full of fruit that you can see and taste. $3.55 for 6.
Spar Ballantyne Park: ∗∗∗1/2
Their puff pastry pie is very nicely glazed and uses the same excellent mincemeat though less generously. The pastry is slightly too thick, making the pie on the doughy side. $3.30 for 6.
TM Newlands: ∗1/2
Short crust pastry rolled a little too thick. Filled generously with very sweet jam-like mincemeat. 45 cents.
Bravo to Spar Ballantyne – and Happy Christmas to all!
If you are going for most excellent contents like I do, simply
go to see this site daily because it provides quality contents, thanks
Ahaa, its fastidious discussion concerning this piece
of writing here at this blog, I have read all that, so now me also commenting at this
place.
My family every time say that I am wasting my time here at web, but I know
I am getting experience every day by reading thes fastidious articles or
reviews.
Hi there would you mind letting me know which hosting company you’re working with? I’ve loaded your blog in 3 different web browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot faster then most. Can you suggest a good internet hosting provider at a reasonable price? Many thanks, I appreciate it!
obviously like your website but you have to check the spelling on quite a few of your posts. A number of them are rife with spelling problems and I find it very troublesome to tell the truth nevertheless I’ll definitely come again again.
My husband and i felt now ecstatic Peter could conclude his basic research while using the ideas he grabbed from your very own web page. It’s not at all simplistic to just possibly be freely giving strategies which usually people have been making money from. And we also discover we’ve got the website owner to give thanks to for that. All the illustrations you’ve made, the simple website menu, the relationships your site give support to engender – it’s got all amazing, and it’s helping our son and our family reckon that this content is amusing, and that’s especially important. Thank you for the whole thing!
Great post. I am facing a couple of these problems.
We’re a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your site offered us with valuable info to work on. You’ve done an impressive job and our whole community will be thankful to you.
Simply desire to say your article is as astounding. The clearness to your post is simply cool and that i can think you’re an expert in this subject. Fine together with your permission let me to take hold of your feed to keep updated with forthcoming post. Thanks 1,000,000 and please keep up the enjoyable work.
I was wondering if you ever considered changing the page layout of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or 2 images. Maybe you could space it out better?
Hey, I think your website might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your blog site in Ie, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, superb blog!
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he just bought me lunch since I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!