Ecocreoteam

Although England has a long history of making meat and fruit pies, and it was the inspiration for the American versions, there is nothing that is more synonymous with American desserts than the apple pie. In the United States, apple pies are found everywhere from big grocery shops and restaurants to coffee shops and home bakers, baked until the double crust is golden brown, filled with cinnamon-sugar coated apples.

Homemade American apple pie is a source of great pride, causing arguments about which apple variety is the most suitable for the best pies. Some swear by Granny Smiths, but they are sour and require too much sugar, resulting in a soggy crust.

Chorizo is a Spanish sausage consisting of chopped pork meat and fat that is seasoned with paprika, and sometimes garlic. The combination of these ingredients is then stuffed into a natural casing. Chorizo is characterized by its red color, due to the usage of special paprika known as pimenton, which is the key ingredient that differentiates the Spanish chorizo from other similar sausages.

It has a unique, hearty, and spicy flavor. Different version of chorizo also exist in countries such as Mexico, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Panama, Argentino, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, and Uruguay. Some claim that chorizo has origins in the Catalan xoriço, while others say that it has roots in morcilla, or blood sausage.

Often dubbed the king of fruit, durian is an unusual tropical fruit that grows throughout Southeast Asia. A large spiky outer shell reveals a creamy, almost custard-like flesh, which, besides boasting a mildly sweet flavor, is notorious for being incredibly rank-smelling.

Highly nutritious and healthy, durian fruit goes well in both savory and sweet dishes, and it is used to prepare specialties such as durian cakes and puffs, durian ice cream or shaved ice, durian fritters, tempoyak (fermented durian), and lempok durian (a sweet candy with durian).

This is one of the oldest types of confections, and varieties can be found throughout Italy, Spain, France, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Although each region has its own distinctive type, most nougats are made of whipped egg white mixed with roasted chopped nuts such as almonds, pistachios, walnuts, and hazelnuts.

The result is a sweet treat with a chewy consistency. The exact origin of nougat is hard to trace, but the first recipe for a sweet resembling white nougat called natif was recorded in a 10th-century book found in Baghdad. Nougat can be divided into numerous categories, but the most basic distinction is made between soft or hard nougat, depending on whether it is made with honey or sugar.

One of the most commonly utilized seaweeds in Oriental cuisine, kombu or konbu has long been a dietary staple in Japan, and refers to a type of brown seaweed, namely kelp of the Saccharina japonica species that is native to Japan but also extensively cultivated in China and Korea where it's known as haidai and dashima, respectively.

Apart from the great nutritional and healing values, kombu is also used for its flavor-enhancing properties: it is an invaluable natural source of glutamic acid whose powdery crystals emerge to the surface of the dried seaweed and easily dissolve in water, giving any food cooked with kombu its rich, umami flavor.