Two Dishes

I have two particular foods in mind. They aren't particularly common outside Asia, so I'll describe them for the benefit of those who want to give them a try.

The first is kaya toast. Kaya is a kind of paste made from sugar, eggs, and coconut. Other ingredients are sometimes added to flavour the mix. Essentially, an eggy kind of jam is produced, which on cooking (while stirring to prevent burning) caramelises to a lovely brown. I've seen blue, green and greyish kaya before; the blue variety coloured by the flowers of indigenous sweet pea plants, the green kind often involving pandan leaves.

Kaya toast is made when very thin slices of bread are toasted to a biscuit-like hardness, spread with kaya, and loaded with chunks of slightly salty butter. The right proportions make for a heavenly and calorie-laden breakfast, often consumed with two half-boiled eggs (with pepper and black soy sauce added to taste) and black coffee.

The second is apricot kernel and pear soup. Apricot kernels contain amygdalin, which generates a small amount of cyanide in the body. You'd have to eat a quarter pound of the kernels all at once to kill yourself, though. You boil the kernels (which you can buy in half-pound packages with no health warnings on them) with sweet pears and rock sugar (to taste). Add a bit of orange zest or a small tangerine to the mixture for a blend of bitter, tangy, and mostly sweet and soothing liquid nutrition. It's supposed to calm you down.

Sometimes I have foodie thoughts. Sigh. All the ills that the flesh is heir to, I must endure.