cookies : markets : shopping for tradition

Sometimes, the true festival tradition seems to be disappearing into the ocean of the masses --
Sale of foam plastic \"gingerbread\" and Christmas tree decorations imported from China.
But cherish the old
The shops of some outstanding food merchants still retain rural traditions.
From their kitchen, there are food treasures that are unlikely to appear in the local shopping center ---from hand-
Almost all of the village\'s Italian cookies were made of gingerbread and other cookies.
In these businesses, customers-like family--
Their favorite holiday program is year after year.
For merchants and customers, customs and rituals are the glue to sustain generations and cultures.
Protecting their heritage is more satisfying than being obsessed with the bottom line and having these people cook and bake throughout the season.
Italian Market in Claro, 1003Valley Blvd. St. Gabriel ,(818)288-2026; 19 1/2 E.
Huntington Avenue, Acadia (818)446-0275; 101 W. Whittier Blvd. , La Habra, (310)690-2844; 1095 E. Main St. , Tustin, (714)832-3081; 1655 N. Mountain Ave. , Upland, (909)946-2689; 322 S. Glendora Ave. West Covina ,(818)918-8818. Monday-Saturday 9 a. m. to 6 p. m. , Sunday 9 a. m. to 2 p. m. *\"Hand-
Rolling and forming cars is a very important moment.
Mary explained: \"The consumption process
Linda Daddona, one of Claro\'s daughters, helped manage the fourth child
Family business.
For a whole month, Claro\'s team of chefs made these southern Italians
Small Batch fried wine biscuits.
The cooled cookies are dipped with their hands in a mixture of honey and vino Covent, a thick grape syrup translated into \"cooked wine \".
\"Every fall, Claro\'s makes vino Covent with fresh grape juice and cooks it into sticky syrup with a quince slice.
They are sold to Italian family bakers through quart and they may use it for panpepato, chocolate nut bread for Christmas, or for sweet ice pudding cullia.
Although it pays attention to the details, these 45-year-
The old market fell.
Home in Italy-
American shop with sawdust and Italian joke T on the floorShirts for sale.
During Christmas, the place was packed with large crowds of people ready to celebrate.
Great Claro
The grandchildren are packing the gift basket and wrapping the glass paper tightly with the shrink
Wrapping machine blowing hot air.
Two women from nearby stand below 550 to pick meat for their office deli tray
A pound of provolone cheese from Claro has aged in the warehouse for about two years.
In the center of the deli, baked goods are constantly replenished by chefs, who regularly carry out fresh batches from the huge dining kitchen behind the store.
Many Italians offer fish and seafood on their famous Christmas Eve dinner cenone, never eating meat.
A week before Christmas, Claro stocked a variety of seafood, as if copying the days when the Roman wholesale fish market Cottio was open to the public on Christmas Eve.
In theory, at least, the fish purify the body.
But in the case of a Christmas Eve dinner, this is at best a fable concept.
\"It\'s like a seafood banquet,\" Daddona said . \"
You can eat a lot of seafood. The most important thing is eel.
What does Claro bring to this occasion).
Tomato marinated octopus salad, clams and Green mouth
Stewed wine, squid, salt
Cod fritters are all dishes that can be included on the cenone menu.
The Italians had little time to digest their cenone before the panettone on Christmas morning.
Then, at the Christmas party, Claro\'s lambs are sold in whole or in part.
There are rabbits and roast beef in the meat box.
It can be said that if you want the whole pig, you can order a Claro roast suckling pig marinated with olive oil, lemon juice and wine.
The barbecue will certainly confirm the motto of Rome: \"Tavora \"(
\"All celebrations end at the table \").
Joe craro opened the shop in 1948, and the St. Gabriel neighborhood was packed with Italians.
Claro used to have a house behind the business, but eventually the store took over the entire property, and when Claro\'s customers started moving out, their family accommodated them by opening a new branch.
The daily Italian ingredients served by Claro include homemade Italian cheese and spaghetti.
Cheese from the United States, imported Italian ham, dried or oily beef liver fungus, and a variety of cold dishes, including a very lean meat from Canada.
But here are traditional items for Christmas.
* Cartellate: heel of Italian boots in Bari--
Where\'s the family from--
Everyone called these cookies farfalla dolce, probably because they were thin and launched-
Cakes made into butterflieslike design.
Fried pastries like this are used by Arab invaders when cooking in Sicily.
You can see them and fried Arabic when they dip in Vino Coto syrupstyle sweets.
But unlike the Arabic version of sweet cookies, which have subtle, slightly excessive
Caramel is much sweeter than it looks.
* Cucciddati: these fruits may be distant relatives of Fig Newtonand-nut-filled semi-
Round pastries were once made in the shape of huge rings or logs.
In Sicily, they are sometimes called Buccellato Siciliano (
Adapted from Latin to ring)
They are the product of gorgeous bread historically made for Christmas.
Now, cucciddati got a bite
Turnover of size filled with raisins, dried figs, almonds and nuts.
\"It\'s important to use Greek --
\"The style string of figs is not a soft, sweet California variety,\" Daddona said . \".
A little bit of colored No Parena gave cucciddati the look of their festival.
* Ricotta cookies: gently roll up in the granulated sugar and pour half of the rock sugar cherries that are a little fluffy and almost cake
Almost half of the ricotta cheese is like a cookie.
They seem to be made with coffee or sweet wine.
\"Every town and every village has its own unique Christmas bread,\" Carol Field wrote in \"Celebrating Italy . \".
She went on to explain that the tall, light yeast --
The fermented cake we now know evolved from the local fruit bread of Italian farmers.
A story says a lot today. lighter, yeast-
When a rich young Milan man wants to marry the daughter of a baker but cannot accept the beautiful poverty, the fermented panettone appears.
The young man bought the best butter and fruit of the Baker and made the girl\'s father an amazing cake and sold it to become rich.
So the daughter became an acceptable well. off bride.
Italy now sells millions of panettone cars a year.
Claro\'s usage is so large that they take 40-
Foot containers distributed to all stores.
The variety they choose is very unique.
Daddona raised the copper and said: \"These are becoming more and more strange every year. colored foil-
Packed coffee.
Another style is to join the panettone al vinino Moscato of Muscat wine;
One of them is covered with dates and chestnuts, and a dark chocolate strip runs through it.
Farcito di oro is particularly rich;
Made with extra butter.
* Seafood: small clams, light dishes, baby octopus, mature octopus and selected squid sold by traditional cenone can be turned into a hearty seafood soup, placed in a seafood lasagna, or marinated as antipasti.
For your own table, read the anti-priest table by Michelle Scicolone;
It has a good firstcourse ideas.
Evan Kleiman\'s \"Cucina del Mare\" includes many nice light dishes, delicious seafood soup and seafood pizza.
* Eel: Lynne Rossetto Kasper wrote in \"gorgeous table\": \"Once people forget the idea of Eel, its mild taste will even beat the most hesitant
\"The eel is usually sold in full, but Claro will wear the eel for you if you ask for it.
Daddona\'s mom. in-
The law always roast eel with a little olive oil with skin on it.
Then she put the accumulated oil (
The rich eel exudes its own oil)
Add the sauce of onions, garlic, tomatoes and capers.
It replaces the traditional grilled eel and grilled eel. roasting.
Kasper\'s book provides a discussion about this fish and a recipe for stewed eel with peas.
There are also plenty of eel recipes in Richard Olney\'s beautiful recipes in Provence.
\"** Baccala: it is well known that salt cod has never found a large number of followers in the United States, but there are many ways for Italians to cook this dense and satisfying fish.
They cut it into fritters, stew it with wine, and marinate it in a salad with oil and vinegar.
It can be cooked in dozens of ways.
Cod must be soaked to soften and dilute before stewing cod.
Claro\'s sells traditional dry cod, which takes three days to soak in three water changes.
They only need 24-hour soak.
* EXTRACT: Claro\'s contains a variety of spice extracts and oils.
Many spices, such as cinnamon oil and sesame oil, have a richer flavor than ground spices and other extracts.
There are Amaretto, anis sesame oil, Brandy, strega and rosolia.
* Cardone: Claro\'s products are limited to a small selection of specialties: broccoli, fennel, chrysanthemum, Thistle, and sometimes seasonal herbs.
But one of the fixed things on the Christmas table is carrots, a vegetable that looks like a giant celery stalk, with the taste of artichokes.
One of the best ways to serve is to peel the strings, slice them and immerse them in the eggs, and then fry them in olive oil.
* German family bakery, 2950 Costa Mesa Grace Lane ,(714)540-0281; Tuesday-Friday 8 a. m. to 6 p. m. , Saturday 8 a. m. to 5 p. m. 429-
H coastline village, Long Beach (310)435-2533; Monday-Sunday 7 a. m. to 7 p. m.
370 camenoord estreira Hotel, pallyside Square, St. Clement ,(714)661-9088; Monday-Saturday 8 a. m. to 6 p. m.
* Throughout December, at the Costa Mesa store, a family bakery in Germany, a group of biscuits were squashed --
The gingerbread house, dotted with sweet ice pillars, swayed around the table where customers drank coffee and swayed from the top.
Lebkuchen in the form of gingerbread boys, girls, stars and Santa Claus turned the small room into a Hansel and Gretel fantasy.
Christmas decorations are everywhere in the store and look like a mini-shop.
A replica of Christmas in Nuremberg, Germany.
In a market.
Like the atmosphere, vendors set up stalls a week before Christmas to sell everything about Christmas
Related Products: Christmas trees and green plants, glittering decorations, handmade wooden toys, pottery and other small gifts.
Shoppers buy warm roasted chestnuts or caramel almonds that are still hot from the pan and drink a cup of hot, hot gluten to protect their hands from frost.
The German family bakery sells not Gluhwein, but bake Springerle.
These cookies are printed with decorative molds imported from Bavaria that look like decorative tiles and taste very similar to the fennel used for seasoning.
In the box of the glass bakery, rich in feathers
Decorated Christmas log, jewel-like holiday rum cake and small bowls full of Bavarian cream, rum cake and fruit are all part of the owner\'s Oscar Stritt classic German Christmas track.
Behind modesty
Stre is 9,500 of Streit-square-
A walking bakery that provides bread and candy for most shops in southern Germany.
Streeter was trained as a baker and pastry chef in the Black Forest area of Germany, and he received 25-year-
Old German family bakery in 1976.
\"At the time it was just a nearby German bread bakery,\" said Stritt . \".
He continued to bake delicious, natural sponges --
Rising German bread: dark sour dough, rich pumpernickel and round Bavarian bread --
Country bread.
But Streit thinks the bakery has more potential.
He added a range of traditional cakes and pastries, including apples and poppies.
The Germans like to have fun with afternoon coffee and cake.
Bakery starts wholesale.
In the end, Streit opened two more German family bakeries, one in Long Beach and the other in St. Clement.
* Springerle: Springerle, originally from Swabia in southwest Germany, used to be made with beautifully carved molds and painted in multiple colors like the old one
Old-fashioned photos
Streit introduces a simpler, more modern, but still very official spring mold that prints the design in these cookies.
Although they look like tiles, they have a quality of ventilation because they are fermented wellbeaten egg.
Streit made a square version of the cookie, and the other one was 10 inch high, which was great. looking Old-World-
Decorated in style.
** Lebkuchen: Lebkuchen is a descendant of bread decorated centuries ago and is famous for honey, morespiced, cake-
Like cookies, it has reached its ultimate in Nuremberg, where the spice trade has flourished for many centuries.
Like everything baked in Germany, there are dozens of varieties of Lebkuchen.
The German family made dream Christmas characters and houses with honey, rye, white flour and spices from Lebkuchen.
* Gingerbread kits and houses: German families sell fully renovated Lebkuchen \"gingerbread\" houses;
It also sells kits that you can assemble on your own.
As the slate of Lebkuchen will become the wall of the House, the royal icing decoration and design concept and instruction manual will follow.
* Gingerbread House course: gingerbread house building and decoration courses are held every year by German family bakery.
Participants will soon master the ice column-
Drip technology, there will be little reindeer jumping on ice in front of their own buildings.
Information about this.
** Pfeffernusse: coated with their powdered sugar, the whole of these highly seasoned
Wheat cookies like small snowballs.
Many people like to put a few apples in the can.
This technology is optional for Pfeffernussen of German families as it is not like rock and roll
Hard as some home
Make style recipes.
* Cookie Teller: Coming--
Four Sundays before Christmas-
It was an important moment at the German Christmas ceremony.
Every Sunday, candles are lit on the mandatory decorative family wreath, and everyone goes to visit relatives and friends.
For these occasions, it is important to provide you with the best cookies in colorful Kuchenteller, a cookie plate decorated with festivals.
Tellers sold by German families to non-bakers--
A variety of decorative sugar cookie cuts, spritz cookies and many other varieties have been prepared for your plate.
* Christmas snacks: If you bring your own bowls, the German family will be filled with small items for sale by pound.
Rum dessert floor
Cake with Bavarian cream and raspberry stuffing and put a piece of paper on it
Thin whirlpool of white chocolate.
The store also sells small things made of bowls.
* Christmas log cake: whether you get mocha, chocolate or white
The cake version of this roll cake will be applied with rum syrup, coated with Bavarian cream, and filled with fruit fillings that taste rich.
Logs frosted with pure butter cream are beautifully decorated during the holiday season.
* Christmas Storen: \"You have to make it mellow for at least a week before Storen is ready to eat,\" said a German friend . \".
This very regional sweet Christmas yeast bread is always stuffed with dried fruits and covered with snow-covered powdered sugar.
Dresden, located in Saxony, has become the most famous city in Germany with its unique Storen style, where a large number of dry cherries are used.
My friend said that the version of the German family is usually Bavarian with golden raisins, almonds and tangerine peel;
It lacks the strong flavor of the Angelica star contained in some versions.
Stollen will remain tightly packed throughout the holiday season and remain edible.
There are two different sizes of products in Germany: one is marzipan (
I personally prefer)
No one.
About hyrigan Abend-Christmas Eve--
After midnight mass, stollen was grandly cut, and in some families, when everyone gathered around the decorated Christmas tree to greet Christmas, it was punched out by hot wine
** Holiday cake: This tender butter bundle cake inlaid with golden raisins, soaked in the whole cake with light rum syrup and topped with pecans and red and green ice during the festival
** Small Christmas-Fours: One-inch-square mini-
Cake with a little liqueur and raspberry wrapped in shiny icing sugar and decorated with Christmas fantasy.
* Croquemboche: Bavarian cream Tower-
Filling cream puffs of almost any size can be ordered.
Before placing the final decorations, the German family will drop a wisp of white chocolate or dark chocolate on the tower to replace the traditional caramel sugar.
\"Humidity will let sugar in,\" Streit said . \".
* Christmas bread: nothing is more spectacular for the holiday table than country bread as the center.
A farmer in Germany.
Rye lightly seasoned with grated coriander must be the most spectacular of all options. It\'s made in 8-or 4-
Pound bread, although there is a moderate 1-
Version of the pound.
Bread fermented with Germany\'s famous natural acid dough sponge, slowly rising in the basket and baking with stonesfloored oven.
It\'s rich in nuts, and the results from these times are a bit tangy-and labor-Intensive steps.
This bakery produces about a dozen rye breads, including Kumisbrot, a dense Pullman bread made of three rye flour, with a large iron mold that holds more than a dozen breads