Peanut butter cookies...in Paraguay

March 11, 2010
I was so excited when I walked into my house and saw a large bolsa or sack of manduvikuera or peanuts sitting by the door that I decided today was finally the day I would enjoy peanut butter cookies and milk. (Kai Eligio delivered my 5 kilos of unshelled peanuts; that’s about 11 pounds). Thankfully, I was able to convince Ña Naty to sell me a liter of fresh milk this morning (it’s getting harder to convince people to part with their eggs, cheese, and milk since Semana Santa or Easter is just around the corner and all anyone eats for about a week is chipa and sopa*). I already boiled it and now it was chilling in the fridge. Peanut butter cookies on the other hand take a bit longer.
To make peanut butter cookies begin with shelling enough peanuts to make a half cup of peanut butter. Once shelled you must toast them so the papery skin breaks off. This process takes about twenty minutes. Now that you have toasted and skin free peanuts you must walk across the street to Ña Asuncion’s house to borrow her grinder. As it happens she is at the high school for a meeting, but thankfully her husband is home and thus you engage in a conversation about planting tomatoes and recipes for homemade pesticides while grinding all those peanuts to a fine paste. You can almost taste the peanut butter cookies the aroma from the nuts is so rich. You depart with the promise to bring some cookies back. Now you must make the peanut butter. You prefer to make it with honey, but alas you will have to substitute regular white sugar and miel de caña or molasses in addition to some oil and a pinch of salt. There is no real butter here (just margarine spreads which are not ideal for cookies) so you substitute oil (thankfully, you know from previous experience that the amount needed is almost half of what it calls for given the consistency difference between butter and oil). You mix all the ingredients together and even use the molasses again to make brown sugar. You end up with about 40 cookies, but then the best part is giving them away. And of course you remember that you originally had in mind to visit Ña Vinda, your first host grandmother. By the time you return to your house it’s nearly 6pm and time to go running. You are down to a half dozen cookies, but everyone loved the cookies and they declare you very guapa (hardworking). You even got 3 eggs, a tomato, and an onion from Ña Vinda. You decide your cookies and milk will have to wait until bedtime. You’re just grateful you got to skip a few steps and bought peanuts that had already been harvested and dried.
*Two weeks ago I finally tasted what I believe is the final dish consisting of corn, grasa de chancho or pig fat, Paraguayan cheese (not to be confused with any other cheeses, but it’s probably closest to mozzarella although it does age and will become a harder cheese) and a few other ingredients like onions, but it depends on the dish and the family. That dish was chipa so’o or chipa with meat stuffed inside. The other dishes are chipa(almidon) , sopa, chipaguasu, vori vori, and polenta. While all of them consist of the basic three ingredients they are each delicious and different (mostly). Chipa almidon or just chipa, as it is commonly referred to, uses mandioca flour in addition to the other ingredients (the corn is a cornmeal consistency). It’s a dense biscuit like texture and is squeaky when you bite into it. When you’re hungry on the bus you won’t have to wait long until a chipa doña steps aboard with her basket piled high with fresh, hot chipa. Sopa can best be described as cornbread without sugar. It’s my least favorite of the collection. Chipaguasu on the other hand is so delicious--especially when it’s hot out of the oven. The corn is of the sweet choclo variety and it’s not ground very fine. Chipaguasu is like cheesy, corn bread—yum! Vori Vori is like corn gnocci or corn dumplings. It is always served with piping hot soup. You probably already know what polenta is, but just in case you don’t it’s like cream of wheat corn style and don’t forget to add the cheese and grasa.