MealMap #73

Small, golden-yellow crackers, each an elongated cylinder three to eight centimetres long, made not from wheat but from the starch of a canna lily rhizome — a root that pre-Hispanic peoples cooked or roasted as food long before anyone baked it. The starch is worked with fresh curd cheese, egg yolks, melted butter and a little sugar and salt into a soft paste, rolled into bars, cut by hand and baked hot in clay ovens. The result is gluten-free, sandy on the surface and compact within; it crunches, then melts gently on the palate with a mild dairy aroma and a lightly salty, cheesy taste. A hand-made speciality of one department in particular, where they are still turned out to the traditional recipe and have lately begun to be exported.

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