Burmese Cake, Burma Shave, and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Burmese Dessert

SEMOLINA CAKE
(sanwin makin)

INGREDIENTS

1 16-ounce can coconut cream
or 2 14-ounces cans coconut milk.
3 eggs
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 cup semolina or cream of wheat
1 cup sugar
¼ cup ghee or butter
½ teaspoon cardamom

Note: if you need to make coconut cream from coconut milk, you will need to keep cans of coconut milk in the fridge overnight.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

8″ square cake pan

PREPARATION – COCONUT CREAM (If you can’t find it in stores.)

Chill coconut milk cans in refrigerator for 24 hours. Open cans and scoop out the thick cream on the top. Keep 16 ounces, or 2 cups, of coconut cream. Use the rest of the coconut cream and the liquid in the bottom of the cans to make coconut-based smoothies

PREPARATION – ONCE YOU HAVE COCONUT CREAM.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Separate egg yolks from egg whites.

Add sesame seeds to pan. Fry sesame seeds for 3 minutes at medium heat or until seeds brown. Stir constantly. Remove seeds from heat.

Add semolina to large pot. Slowly add in the coconut cream, stirring each time to prevent lumps. Add sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves. Bring to boil using medium heat for 3-to-5 minutes or until mixture begins to thicken. Stir constantly. Add ghee. Cook for 2 minutes or until mixture thickens to the point that it leaves the side of the pot. Remove from heat.

Add cardamom and eggs yolks to pot. Mix with whisk until this batter is well blended. Add egg whites to small mixing bowl. Whisk egg whites until they thicken and form peaks. Fold egg whites into batter. Pour batter into cake pan. Top with sesame seeds. Bake at 325 degrees for about 45 minutes or until cake start to brown or a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Let cool in cake pan. Cut into squares and serve warm.

TIDBITS

1) The Burma-Vita company first produced Burma ShaveTM in 1925. The product was said to include products from Burma. Antarctic Shave wouldn’t have worked. It would have had to included ice and cubes and penguin meat. No one would have wanted to shave with that, particularly during the summer.

2) At first Burma Shave only sold a bit better than Antarctic Shave.

3) Then Burma Shave came out with a brushless shaving cream. To promote this new, improved product they came up with a brilliant advertising campaign. They put a series of six small signs in a row along major roads. Early motorists got a chuckle out of reading them.

4) And they bought Burma Shave. The company became the second-largest seller of brushless shaving cream. The number-one company sold more.

5) Sales of Burma Shave after declined after the development of the atomic bomb.

6) This is probably coincidence.

7) But roadside Burma-Shave signs got put up less and less often with new advancement of nuclear weaponry. Indeed, about a year after the world almost went wonky during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the signs all got taken down.

8) Why do advertisers always say, “new and improved?” Shouldn’t “improved” be implied? Is there really a possibility of companies proudly putting out an product that’s “new and worsened?” How can something be improved if it’s new? You can only improve something that’s been around for a while.

9) Indeed, the first ICBM was just plain new. Now, the second generation of ICBMs could have been improved, but the whole ICBM concept was no longer new. Could the company that made the ICBMs have boasted of “new and improved” nuclear warfare. If so, I must have missed the radio jingle.

10) But the fond memories of the Burma-Shave signs never left our hearts. They would show up again and again in literature, including the very best of cat-herding novels, The Fur West.

11) There is no evidence that cats ever read the Burma-Shave signs. Cats do not shave. Coincidence?
Perhaps.

– Chef Paul

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World,  and novels are available in paperpack or Kindle on amazon.com

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or on my website-where you can get a signed copy at: www.lordsoffun.com