Mahalabia, Medleys & Milk Pudding

We are all connected by more than divides us

I read this quote in an AA Gill book, I forget which. I wrote it down on a Post-It and have had it stuck on my desk and in my mind ever since.

I don’t like the word fusion when it comes to food, or more specifically cuisines. It sounds a little too electrical. Also, I think it is misleading. When we cook using a variety of ingredients and methods that come from different places, often people describe it as ‘fusion’ food, sounding as thought the various cuisines and their respective ingredients/methods become one joint thing, blended rather than separate, like mayonnaise.

The way I cook could be described as a sort of ‘fusion’ of all the cuisines I know best, and have learnt to cook over the years in various restaurants and from people in places I have been lucky enough to travel to. But I would never describe it as fusion cooking. Also because I think this implies an arbitrary blending of lots of thing which may have absolutely no relation to each other. If I make a ‘traditionally’ Greek dish here in Sardinia, I will respect the Sardinian ingredients that I have at hand and so the dish becomes more of a medley of the two cultures, a tapestry telling the story of two different cuisines, both Mediterranean, both unique and defined but bubbling with connections, which is why the dish is transportable between one place and another. I think there should be context behind such mixing and meddling, there should be logic and thought.

This being said, it is always funny once you dig a little into the context of any dish how much of a medley of different influences and iterations it is already, even before you begin to tamper with it.

Which brings me to Muhellabi. Or Mahalabia, or Mahalebi, or milk pudding, or Biancomangiare, or Blancmange for that matter. It seems most of the world has its own version of a set milk pudding, and this long summer two of them have crossed my lips, in two very different places. In Sicily I ate a beautiful Biancomangiare, prepared by Leah, the cook at Anna Tasca Lanza, which she made with home-made almond milk (from home-grown almonds) and a little sugar and cornflour and nothing else. It was sprinkled with the lightest dusting of cinnamon and crusted with buttery chopped pistachios and it ended our first perfect meal there, sitting under the pergola in the courtyard. Creamy, delicate, ethereally delicious with the light cinnamon spicing and almond undertones, and yet also – to use an unforgivable word – somehow homely – as only milky puddings can be.

Then, in Andros, I remembered a beautiful milk pudding I had eaten long ago in Israel. It had been called something like Mahalabia, and it had been decorated with that exquisite colour combination of pink pomegranate seeds and lime green chopped pistachios. It was flavoured with rose water and felt a bit like eating the most beautiful scented silk scarf. I decided to put it on the menu for the guests.

A pudding of extraordinary simplicity, this is essentially a milk jelly not unlike a Panna Cotta, or the traditional European Blancmange, though these are usually set with gelatine and Mahalabia is set simply with cornflour, meaning that it barely sets at all, and remains both irresistibly wobbly and creamy at the same time. When a tea spoon breaks the surface it eats more like a posset, or some kind of cooked cream. Researching a little into it, European versions (and the Italian Biancomangiare) are most commonly flavoured with almond, whilst the various Middle Eastern iterations are flavoured with flower waters, rose water being most common though orange blossom water often crops up too. The Israeli version had one spelling, the Palestinian another. Some Jewish families break the fast of Yom Kuppur by eating the dessert (and thus it seems especially appropriate now, in early October, just after the holiday). I read that the Cypriot version, known as Mahalepi, is doused in rose petal syrup or cordial, providing the most beautiful scarlet and white colour contrast. The story goes that the dish was born, at least with its modern nomenclature, in Iran, and named after the general who enjoyed it so much, Al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra, in the 7^th century. Often it was thickened with rice flour, too.

In every version the pudding manages to be both comforting and exotic, a beguiling and unusual combination. It is also incredibly easy and adaptable; you can make it with almond milk if you are dairy-free.

It seems, whilst we can debate origin, division and rigid ‘tradition’ forever, whether in politics, food or wherever else, I am always surprised by how determined we are to focus on differences, on boundaries, on divisions and distinctions, when really what we should be celebrating is the messy and magical mix of everything, and the way food, like history, politics and like life too, is inevitably, wonderfully, muddy and muddled.

Ultimately, we are always connected by more than divides us.

If only we could all find peace in some kind of milk pudding.

RECIPE

I give the measurements for making one tea-cup sized pudding. Then scale up as you see fit.

125ml whole milk (or non dairy milk of your choice)

2 scant tsp of cornflour

3 scant tsp of caster sugar

A few drops of rose water (or use almond extract or orange blossom, if you prefer)

To decorate:

A few fresh pomegranate seeds

A few chopped pistachios or rose petals

A sprinkle of cinnamon (optional, and seems to be more common in the Italian version)

Heat the milk with the sugar in a small saucepan over a low heat until melted. Place the cornflour in a small bowl and mix a couple of spoonfuls of the milk mixture into it, until smooth and creamy. Add the cornflour mixture into the saucepan with the milk and place back over the heat. Cook, whisking continuously, until thick and custard-like (a good few minutes). Pour into your chosen vessel and leave to set for at least 4 hours in the fridge. Serve, decorated as you wish.