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Last but not Least
No one has ever solved one of the great mysteries of eating. All of us have experienced it,
some of us frequently. You have just eaten a wonderful multi-course meal and are so full that you
don't know how you managed to swallow those last few bites. You are really stuffed! Suddenly
dessert arrives—it looks truly sumptuous. There is no diplomatic way you can pass. A few minutes
later you look down and your plate is empty. You were able to finish that rich dessert without any
problem.
The only plausible explanation is that dessert goes into a different stomach, a second one
that is reserved just for that last sweet course. No wonder that no matter how full you are, you
always have room for dessert.
Don't desert the dessert
Most human beings have a craving for sweets. Certainly any discriminating eater feels a
meal is not complete without dessert. Psychologists and anthropologists believe that they can trace
this powerful attraction for anything sweet to our ancestors. The human body in its natural state
recognized the high energy and quick replenishment provided by natural sweets—ripe fruits, honey,
sugarcane. This craving has stayed with us, probably even intensified, along with other neurotic
obsessions. Sugar in its many forms is one of the most widely consumed foods and most humans eat
it on a daily basis. Americans devour on the average 143 pounds (65 kg) of sugar annually from all
sources. That translates to nearly one cup of sugar every day. Could that be possible? And do you
eat your fair share?
Every cuisine in the world has some culinary means to satisfy the sweet tooth, but how
people satisfy it varies enormously. Western-style desserts are common in all countries where
cuisines are European-based. For instance, South American countries make their last course the
sweet finale, but where the European influence is minor, as in Central America, an actual dessert
course is little known—they serve sweets in other forms than a last course. In Asian countries,
ending a meal with a sweet is even less common. When Asians do serve dessert as a result of
European influence, it is a simple preparation like pudding, custard, sweet gelatin or fruit. Even
these they generally reserve for ceremonial and festive occasions.
The best-known Chinese "sweet" is the fortune cookie, which some brilliant individual
actually created in California. Chinese in some regions serve small sweets to rejuvenate the palate
between courses of highly seasoned foods. But Asians usually get their sugar fix by drinking many
cups of highly sweetened tea, sometimes coffee, fruit or other artificial beverage preparation with
one thing in common, the high sugar content, often in the form of sweetened condensed milk.
Asians even prefer their canned soft drinks sweeter—soft-drink formulas in many Asian markets
have higher sugar than American formulas of the same beverage.
It is unknown why the discrepancy between the western and eastern type desserts. One
possible explanation is that very few Asian households, including the wealthier Asian nations, have
had electric or gas ovens. The ovens that do exist are often fueled with wood. Baking European-
style concoctions requires good temperature control that is difficult with wood fire. Another
unknown is why, over the centuries, different European cuisines developed in diverse directions in
their foods, yet the evolution of their desserts followed similar lines.
play © erdosh 294
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