Spanish (page 20)
Beginners’ Spanish I (SPAN 201): Following a Food Recipe
For my first cultural portfolio assignment I decided to make a food item with my grandmother, who is colombian. The item we decided to make is pan de queso, this is not something I have made before but I have watched my grandmother make it a few times. For this specific scenario we used a premade dry mix and combined it with cheese and water to make them. The band of the mix we used is called Su Sabor and it is a colombian company that specialises in bringing cultural food to north america. The pan de queso that we decided to make is called almojabanas. This is the more specific way to say it.
This particular brand uses three languages on their boxes, English, French and Spanish, to reach the highest number of people possible. Almojabanas are a traditional Colombian cheese bread made with cuajada cheese and corn flour. However we used feta and mozzarella cheese for ours. This type of cheese bread can also be found in Chile, Argentina and Puerto Rico as well as in Spain. Traditionally the bread is in a spherical shape but my family likes to make it into a donut-like shape. Its origins can be traced back to the 700s and has travelled from Spain to Colombia and other Latin countries. People typically eat it for breakfast with their morning coffee and some butter, meaning breakfast is the role of the item.
Throughout this process I learned about the cultural significance of the bread as well as how to make it myself. The steps we used were very simple, we used a food processor to grind up the cheese and then mixed the egg, water, cheese and corn flour mix together. At the end we realised we used too much water and had to open another box to make the dough dense enough to shape. In the end they tasted delicious as always and the family loved them.
To further my practice in spanish we used the spanish portion of the instructions and practiced our spoken spanish as well.
This is what the finished product looked like. For a clearer look at the recipe look to the next page the bibliography is there as well underneath.
Bibliography
- My number one source was my grandmother.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almoj%C3%A1bana