20 - 26 December 2001
Issue No.565
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 20 - 26 December 2001 Issue No.565 |
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Ten kilos
Contrary to common belief, dieting is not a process with a beginning and an end. It only has a beginning, which occurs at the very instant when, gazing at oneself one day in the mirror for longer than is strictly necessary, one notices, heart sinking, that no trick of the light can flatter one's girth. There is no use denying it, pretending that one is hardly eating, protesting that one has already forsaken bread altogether and demanding what else one can do: the long, hard road to improvement looms ahead. I have been there many times already, but after a while, having dropped ten kilos from my frame, I invariably slip self- righteously back into my old habits, encouraged by my nearest and dearest who seem to have a good excuse ready for each of my excesses. This time, while feeling very sorry for myself, I have finally accepted the painful truth: dieting is forever. It means a change of lifestyle, exercising and saying no firmly to all temptations -- and I mean all of them.
There is no secret. The less one eats, the more weight one loses; but, unless one chooses the right foods, one cannot function properly, which is a good reason for going back to the little tidbits one imagines will restore energy. Well, I have overcome that particular obstacle and have learned to binge on steamed broccoli and courgettes, with an occasional walnut.
With the advent of the festive season, however, I have decided to make a list of my favourite dishes instead of eating them. I can only think about them fleetingly, because I have heard that just contemplating fatty food makes one gain weight.
I shall not dwell on the delicious new potatoes with butter and sour cream, nor the pasta accompanied by a piece of crusty, hot baguette dipped in virgin olive oil with a little salt and pepper. I will not even mention the onion soup with melted cheese, so unlike the imitation one eats these days in upscale restaurants. I can live without those. What I really miss are the sweets my grandmother used to make. First there was the strudel, crunchy filo pastry filled with apples and raisins, drenched in butter and powdered sugar. The smell used to fill the house as she removed the masterpiece from the oven; no sooner had she placed it on the table than I had scalded my fingers and mouth trying to get at the slightly burnt and crunchier bits. Then there were the pancakes, thin as tissue paper, filled with apricot jam and sprinkled with castor sugar. For a change, she used to shred the pancakes and quickly fry them in butter with sugar and raisins. She called this method Kaiserschmarn and told us that it was invented by a resourceful housewife, who, receiving an impromptu visit from the Kaiser, did not have enough pancakes to feed him and his retinue. She therefore cut what she had into small pieces and, by adding sugar, raisins and nuts, managed to present an original -- and somewhat larger -- dish.
I used to wonder about the Kaiser visiting ordinary people without prior notice and imagined for a while that King Farouk would drop in unannounced to share our dessert. Since he was already quite fat at the time, I did not fancy the idea and observed my grandmother carefully, worrying that she would never make enough to satisfy both his large appetite and mine.
Fruit was also a reason to rejoice: the apricot season was the time when my grandmother made a most divine dish that she called Marylnknoedel: little balls of dough stuffed with half a fresh apricot then thrown in boiling water. I watched, mesmerised, as each ball bobbed to the surface, a sure sign that it was cooked. The knoedels were then piled on a plate and lavishly covered with melting butter, a mountain of fried homemade breadcrumbs and powdered sugar. I was always anxious that my mother would forget to give me the very top layer, where most of the breadcrumbs were. As I wolfed down this dripping delicacy, my grandmother would recount that there were contests in Austria to see who could eat the largest number of knoedels. Once a man ate over a hundred and won the contest, but died soon after of indigestion. I chose not to view this as a cautionary tale.
My grandmother made another dish with fried breadcrumbs that she always referred to as Polish cauliflower. Now I eat this most unpleasant vegetable without the trimmings, of course, but each morsel cruelly reminds me of what it could be, were its taste camouflaged by the crisp topping.
For a woman who ate very little herself, my grandmother always had ways of improving on everything. Ordinary dark chocolate was never eaten plain, but placed on a fine, generously buttered slice of whole-wheat bread, sprinkled with sugar and roasted for a few minutes in the oven until the top bubbled and the sugar became slightly caramelised.
For Eid, my grandmother made her own interpretation of kahk, which involved a very fine pastry filled to bursting with dates or mixed nuts and covered with a kind of powdered sugar that cooled the mouth. She also made kunafa, but fried the vermicelli like dough with butter, then added raisins, sugar and nuts and served it hot.
Her chef d'oeuvre, however, was the coffee cake she made for Christmas, two layers of light sponge cake sandwiched with a butter-coffee cream, thickly spread all over with the same cream and decorated with whole walnuts. No bžche de No‘l ever came close to the delicious melting taste that, for us, symbolised the celebration more than anything else.
These days, I spend much time in front of the mirror wondering if ten kilos less are worth so much deprivation.
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