Cooking across continents
Cuisines in one culture take completely for granted ingredients that are not at all common in other cultures. Hungarian cooking has some pretty basic dishes (e.g. dairy dumplings) that require farina. But farina is not something you can necessarily obtain in the nearest food store in American towns. Fortunately, I have finally figured out that Cream of Wheat works just as well. And Cream of Wheat is a very common item in American supermarkets. It seems to me that it is basically just farina, but with a corporate logo slapped onto it and “enhanced” so it can be repackaged with that logo (I guess). I don’t know how it is enhanced, but I do know that it works in the exact same fashion as farina in recipes. So there you have it. Next time a recipe calls for farina, no need to scratch your head, just grab a container of plain Cream of Wheat.
September 16th, 2004 at 11:18 am
Congratulations on your Miller Outstanding Dissertation Award! Well done!
September 19th, 2004 at 4:20 pm
You know, I didn’t know this at all and had basically given up on the dumplings, finding various frozen-Italian-pastry substitutes (not very ‘accurate’ substitutes – but what can you do.) Thanks for posting this!