Fry Me To the Moon!

My name is Evel Longoria and I am and welcome to Hungry for History.

A podcast that explores our past and present through food.

On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.

So make yourself at home. Even themalas are such an important part of holiday traditions. What other food scream Christmas to yous?

It smells up the entire house of christ. Crispy fritters, tust and cinnamon sugar. They are probably my favorite treat to eat around the holidays.

Yeah, and you know I'm not a sugar person, but I'll eat a bulo. I have a simple Bonuello recipe in my cookbook and we're going to make them today. When do you put up your Christmas tree? I put it up early.

It's what It's my favorite time of the year. I usually put it up the day after Thanksgiving.

You I do it before Thanksgiving because I want to enjoy it. I would leave it up all year if I wasn't criticized, like why are.

Your Christmas lights still up?

Where is your Christmas tree still up? Where did this Christmas tree concept even come from?

But it's kind of odd. They're like, let's bring a tree into the house. It is, it's super super weird. Yeah, but it has many roots. Really, it all makes sense.

Even before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter, So today people decorate their homes with pine trees or fir trees. Ancient people hung evergreen branches over doors and windows, and in many countries always believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, and evil.

Spirit But it was witches and ghost and evil spirits only around at Christmas time.

Well no, not necessarily.

There's just this idea because it's so dark and everything's dead. But even like in the northern Hemisphere, the shortest day and the longest night of the year falls around Christmas December twenty first or twenty seven.

The winter, the winter solstice.

So many ancient people believe that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the Sun God had become sick and weak, and so by celebrating the solstice, the Sun God would begin to get well. And these evergreen branches reminded of all the green plants that would regrow when the sun God regained strength, and then summer would return.

But it was Germany that created the Christmas tree today as we know it.

Today, as we know it Germany. Germany, yes, Germany.

So it's widely believed that Martin Luther, the sixteenth century Protestant reformer, first added candles, like lighted candles to a tree.

After that seems like, no, I know, it's like, it's really bad. I don't do this at home.

He was walking home when winter evening and he was an by the stars twinkling amongst the you know, the trees, the evergreens, and he wanted to recapture this moment and the scene for his family, so he put up a tree in his home and wired its branches with candle. And so they brought the Pennsylvania Dutch, and they're called Dutch because there were Deutsch, the German, not necessarily Dutch

How crazy. And then two years later another tree was placed and this time with lights.

Yeah.

So it's a very new tradition, relatively new tradition.

And but for Mexicans, not only do we put a Christmas tree up, we put out the new simiento. Did you see my simiento?

And is that yes?

I mean it's modern.

But is that Jesus not babies? Maybe Jesus?

Yeah, yeah, it's a little contemporary. I love.

I have a little tiny neesimenta that I bought in Mexico City many years ago.

It's tiny and it's clay.

Well for people who't know what nacimento is, it's the Nativity set. Yes, so it's the birth of Jesus in the in the manger with.

The little three kings and the little sheet Joseph and Mary in the hay in the hey.

It's the sweetest thing. I there's so many things I like in the Mexican culture at Christmas. Obviously, tamalas and the nasimenthal but also boons is a big one for us. We used to make I mean stacks of them and give them away. We would give them way to neighbors or it would be like a really it was like our fruit cake.

Yeah, yeah, that's.

A really great way to think that.

I never really thought about it.

We just put them a bag. Yeah, we would just tie it up and give it to neighbors. But Bunuelo's were like big tradition for us. Yeah, us too. We always got as gifts.

They're always given.

My mom used to always make the cookies all sorts of different different cookies, but also like cinnamon and sugar cookies.

But it's just this tradition of gifting.

Well it's also for those of you that don't know, it's almost like our it's like fried dough with cinnamon and sugar. It's it's like another version of achiro but flat but flat.

And some believe that.

Bonello's brought good luck for the new year. Yeah, yeah, I remember that too.

Yeah I did not know that, but yeah, and they're they're made with really basic ingredients flour, eggs, sugar, like super super basic ingredients. There are lots of regional different regional variations of boos in Mexico, but they're really laborious to make. I know that yours are very kind of.

Simple, are very simple.

I don't think you're amazing.

I use my tortilla mix and just fried up and it comes out spectacus spectacular, spectacular.

So there are different there's.

Yeah, have you heard about that you never heard of? That is traditionally the dough.

It contains thick casquita, which is this mineral salt that acts like as a leavening agent. And then it's that with flour, eggs, water, sugar, melted butter, vanilla. It's like a baking powder and then it rests and it's rolled like you would roll out of flour.

Yeah, but to paper thin.

And sometimes you see cooks put like a clean dish rug over their knee and then just roll them out over their knee until it's paper, paper, paper, paper things.

I need a YouTube video of this, I don't I look for one. I cannot picture rolling out this dough on your knee.

Your knees until it's paper thin, and then it's deep fried, and then it's rolled in cinemata deep.

Fried mind I love anything deep fried. And then there's buns and those are like those rosette shaped Have you seen those?

Yeah, it's basically like a mold that's a rosette shape like a rose, like a kind of like a rose. And then it's the same batter, but it's a looser batter, and the mold is dipped into the batter and then it's dropped into the hot oil and it's like this flour.

I've never seen it.

And then that's put out and mixed with the cinnamon sugar.

Wow. Well, when we come back, we're heading into the kitchen to make my quick and easy boonellos for my new cookbook.

If it's deep fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar, I'm all about it.

We are in my kitchen, Yes, back in my kitchen. We're gonna make boonellows.

Oh my gosh.

I grew up with bonellows.

Did you get my mom did never made them, but we always had them.

Would you get them?

Usually around Christmas? And I feel like people would just.

Give them or just like gift them.

Like they just don't just have We would make that, I specifically I would make them. I remember, like as a ten year old making these.

Really this one that you were you're doing right now? Yes, using rolling out these.

Yeah. So I always have fresh blot of the flower tortillas in the fridge. I'll make a whole batch and every day I just pull one out, two out, one for me, one for something. So because it's the same basis like as my as a flower tortilla. It's the dough from flower tortilla. But instead of heating it on akmal for a taco, we're gonna fry it.

Okay, So it's different than like thes that you could that you get sort of around Christmas time.

No, that has egg, but this doesn't have egg, doesn't it all? Yeah?

No, what has egg?

No? But this is like your family blo recipe. It's like a like where does the egg go in the.

Batter in the dough?

Interesting?

Yeah?

Oh interesting?

Yeah? No, no, no, this is I noticed this when you're this, But this is like a much easier.

Well yeah, this is the shortcut. Then I'm gonna put you on sugar cinnamon sugar duty. Okay. Once we fry these in vegetable oil, then we coat them in that.

Okay, this is the best part.

So I'm just gonna. Is there like a science to this surgeon.

No, I just you know, whatever ratio you light.

Okay.

I love cinnamon sugar. It's one of my favorite favorite favorite things in the world.

Really.

Yeah, I don't like it too cinnamon, okay, but no, I mean, I mean you could put as much I am putting the tortilla in the oil, Okay, I mean, and you get it'll just start to bubble up. Fry it in the oil, and then it honestly tastes like.

A churro because of the cinnamon sugar. Yeah, let's fried dough that is gorgeous. So you're just frying it to nice gold and brown.

Yeah, on both sides.

On both sides. Well right, yeah, and my cookbook it says olive oil. But I think that's a mistake because I don't want the olive taste of it.

Yeah, it would be too strong.

Yeah, that this is going to be the perfect one. Like how pretty that is?

My gosh, it's beautiful size, golden with lots of bubbles. And this is something like if people just have flower thrtyas at home. Yeah, they could just make them. Yeah, but not store bought, not store bought. No, no is it too thick.

It has to be raw or else it won't. It won't really, it won't taste it'll taste like a fried tortilla as.

Opposed to.

Which is like for me, is a mix between funnel kay chiro, like it's the best of all world.

It's just fried dough with cinnamon sugar. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.

Ever, that's what that cool for two seconds it could there's bubbles.

Oh my gosh, beautiful, beautiful. That's it's probably a really good flower. Yes, yeah, those bubbles.

Look at those bubbles.

Should I toss this now?

Yeah, go ahead and toss it because you don't want it to cool down too fat, too much.

Yeah, because otherwise the goodness one sticks. I'm just tossing it in the cinnamon sugar.

See how easy that is, My guys, were done. We've already made it all right. Let's take a bite. Let's take a bite, you know, and I usually can't wait and I eat it too soon and then you burn your telling me, yes, m there's like a donut.

Yeah. Mmmm it does. Hmm, it's really good.

Hmm.

You're gonna make it crisp beer. Mmm.

It tastes like the holidays.

Yeah, like the holidays. Yeah, tastes like the holidays, pretty deep perfect.

Yeah.

Where did buonolos come from? What's the earliest sign of them?

Well, the earliest sign of bunola's in Mexico Isla Cruz.

Who we talked about in our Dessert episode.

In our Dessert episode, the earliest recipes in manuscript in Mexico attributed to her in the seventeenth century, and she has there are thirty six recipes in this manuscript and there are three recipes for bunuelos in the manuscript. One of them is bunoo, which is a similar batter, but they have annis and they're molded by hand. And then

Gueso which has queso fresco.

Flour and butter rolled in a rolling pin and then and then cut and then fried and lard.

And then she has a recipe for huelas what's that?

And that is the only one of these, all of these recipes, that's the one that's similar to the modern shaped that are roll thinly you know world that's like a basically you know, thin fried rolled in cinnamon, sugar and in chiapas. They're also they're still called alas. They're also called panales nigo, which means children's diapers.

Oh, because they're trying triangular. Yes, don't go anywhere, hungry for history will be right back. Wait, you have hanaka traditions, Yeah, you have other traditions other than Mexican.

I do what I do. My husband's Jewish.

I did not know this, really, I did not know this. That's amazing, muzzle.

Tall, thank you.

Yeah.

So I'm all of about the Christmas tree, the nacimento, the menora, Like, oh my god. Ah, that's so you get both the best best of both worlds. And it's all like Jewish holidays are all about food. Oh, they're all about the food and family. So it's like it's perfect. It's the stuff that I love.

But it'snic is often called the Festival of Lights, right it is?

It is because festival lights. Yes, well, because I love that there's this writer. In cookbook author Leah Kunning, she calls it the Festival of fried foods. So basically, oil plays a very important role in this in the Hankah story. So it does, it does, it's that's it's the whole it's the whole thing. And this year is especially special because Hankah falls on December twenty fifth. It's different every year. It's around this time of year, but it's different every year.

Eight days, one for each night of Hanukkah.

So as a tribute to this oil, to this miraculous jar of oil, Jews developed a custom of eating fried foods, fried foods and oil on Hanagah. So the most popular are potato lotkas, which is what I make every year on.

The first night of Hanakhah. I make a whole potato.

Latka nice and there's also these jelly donuts called soufka yacht but.

My favorite of the potato lotkas. Really yeah, I've had those.

I must have had those.

Yeah.

It's basically shredded potato, right, and you get all of the moisture out, so thank.

You to the burrow.

It's not as mushy as a hash brown because they're shredded.

And then my mouth is watering.

And then you'll add a little onion to it and just you know different faberly, Well it's savory, yeah, okay, and then for it and then flour a little bit and it's like little fritters and then you fright and you serve it with apple.

Sauce, apple sauce and potatoes. Yeah, that's interesting, it is. I've definitely not had that.

Oh my gosh, it's so good. But yeah, it's the fried food.

But the whole kind of jelly donut connection is so interesting as well.

Are you talking about a jelly donut like dunkin donuts jelly donut?

Kind of?

So where did that come from?

Kind of?

So the first known recipe for jelly donuts dates to fourteen eighty five, to a German cookbook. It's actually one of the earliest cookbooks ever printed on the printing press it's called mastery in the kitchen, and it's.

Basically the first recipe for a jelly donut.

So stuff jelly and usually with these Tonica donuts are stuffed with like a like a raspberry jelly, like some sort of red jelly.

Why is fried food so good? Obviously, like it's usually fried in some sort of fat, and fat is tasty. But there's like, uh, there's a brain connection though, right, yeah.

Yeah, It's like the first bite is crunchy, and it stimulates this auditory function of the brain and it's like, oh, it's crunchy and most basically and then you bite into it and it melts in your mouth. And most fried foods, like or donuts, right or even like fried chicken, they're even with your hands. So it's like this sense of intimacy. So it really but.

It sends a like an auditory function of pleasure, like a state of pleasure to your brain.

Isn't that interesting? Crunchy, the crunchy.

And then you have it with your hands and it really involves all of the senses.

Wow, this makes so much sense. Like fried foods, it's like it's not me, it's my brain. It's just my brain being stimulated. Yes, when did bunuelo's become popular in the US.

So they've been popular among Spanish speaking countries forever for centuries. But the story is that Tony Specia, the owner of the original Hemisphareos company, says it in nineteen sixty eight, he and his friend, this guy named David Carter, were talking about, oh, the World's First coming to San Antonio,

Wow.

So even though it was, you know, served at the World's Fair in nineteen sixty eight, this really suggests that the recipe had been enjoyed in this area for you know, over two centuries by then.

So and then the bunuelo's were the best selling food item at that fair, and then that was it. They continued to grow throughout Texas.

Of course, it was the best selling of course. Of course, of course.

I often say this like a bunuelo is just another form of a turo, like the everything turroles, funnel cakes. They're all fried dough and they just differ in shape. And when they differ in shape, it kind of changes the flavor a little bit and obviously the cooking method. But they're all just heavenly deserved, they are. But a lot of people don't know this. Churials are from Spain. If you ask a Mexican, they'll say they're from Mexico.

Well, yeah, they're from Spain, for sure. They originated in Spain.

And yeah.

It's a similar battery that it's placed to this metal like a star shape tube or a piping bag, like.

A piping tube some sort. Yeah, and you you just shoot it into some oil.

Exactly, and then you toss it in cinnamon sugar.

But like in Spain, you always have it with hot chocolate. Not hot chocolate. You drink like chocolate that is hot, so you dip it into like dense, right, like super dense chocolate, like melted chocolate. So you don't have it with drinking chocolate. It's like dipping to no. And in Mexico it's more, yeah, but in Spain it's more with melted chocolate. Yeah, every day. And you know in Spain they're everywhere. To ridas are everywhere there on every corner.

Well in Orange County and they're opening they're about to open one up. I was reading some morning, so like in I want to say Silver Lake, I go park like around there they're opening another.

They're they're opening one.

Well.

One of the oldest churrias that sells churros is in Madrid from eighteen eighty three. Wow, they've been making sure its a long time. And then funnel cakes did that come after childros?

And not necessarily it's like stilts, one of those same things. And so during the nineteenth century they were sold as a novelty food item during Christmas and years in the in the US, and so they are like an ang more of an Anglo Norman medieval.

You know food.

And we even see it in the fourteenth century English cookbook called the form of Curry, which is the form of cooking. So but the funnel cakes sort of in medieval times, these fritters were made by pouring batter through a bowl with a small hole in the bottom, and then they were back then they were doused with sugar syrup and sprinkled with salt.

Oh interesting.

And in the US they became associated with the Pennsylvania Dutch, the same people that were.

A group of German speaking immigrants.

They're the ones that about the Christmas tree.

Oh my god. They I need to thank these Pennsylvania and Deutsche. I know, I know, in the Christmas tree and funnel cake funnel okay, but they do funnel cakes.

Is usually with powdered sugar. That's the difference. It's cinema difference. Yeah, that's the main difference. Is just powdered sugar. And now it's a funnel But basically you basically pour the batter in and then you sort of swirl it around into the hot oil and creating this kind of like a lace pattern.

Oh okay, and then douse it with this.

I love a funnelcake. If I'm at a fair, I'm going straight to the funnelcake booth.

It's good stuff.

Happy holidays everyone. Next week we're going to be ringing in the new Year with Kava, Proseco and Champagne Oh My.

We have a great episode planned for you all, so see that happy holiday.

Bye Hungary. For History is a hyphen A media production in partnership with Iheart's Michael Bura podcast network.

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