torta [tor’-tah]: cake Listen
zanahoria [zahn-nah-o’-ree-ah]: carrot Listen
Yesterday, for the first time in over two years, it was my chance to teach my adopted Argentine grandmother a thing or two about baking. Or maybe just a thing. The recipe. She’s got the baking part down to her own science to the point that she adamantly expressed three times how no one knows her oven better than she. True, and that is more of an art here considering that the majority of ovens have no friendly knob with etched centigrade markings. But even those numbers could cause confusion for the
So, together with my oven expert, we carefully mixed together first the “wet” and then the “dry” ingredients in order to make a cake that the common Argentine has never heard of nor tasted: torta de zanahoria (carrot cake). Coaxing an Argentine to try a new recipe is a topic unto itself. They are simple eaters and the vast majority do not delight in trying the newest fusion at the newest restaurant even if they have the money to spare.
While she updated me on her children and her true, non-adopted grandchildren, I finished off the coffee she had percolated earlier that morning and waited patiently to see if the finished torta would please her as much as it had me. Timers are often thought to be an unnecessary kitchen ornament with the sense of smell serving as a useful replacement. And to the trained nostril, this almost never fails. The aromas of cinnamon, zanahoria, brown sugar, and orange (the secret to this recipe) began to seep out from the trusted oven, the door was hatched, and our torta was ready. I copied the recipe into Spanish for my “grandmother” and even taught her the adjective yummy in English. She put her new word to good use because mmmm, it was yummy.
