Caviar pie and
vegan chocolate cake

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

There are two  major things that drive developments in today’s food scene. One is the  continuing onslaught of foreign influences with globalization the momentum of which has been accelerated by cheap travel and the Pinoy diaspora. The other is the remarkable shift in priorities among foodies,  from one driven purely by taste satisfaction to the present movement towards health and wellness.

Thus, chefs have come up with things  like caviar pie, which is really just putting the things that go with eating this exquisite delight of a guinamos  into pie form and vegan chocolate cake, which presumably is the healthier version of the sinfully delicious dessert.

I’ve always thought of caviar as the “guinamos” of royalty , rare, exquisite and expensive, but really just salted roe of the sturgeon, salmon or the lumpfish which taste and feel like little salty beads  that burst in one’s mouth. The beluga sturgeon  caviar,  is the royal of the royal kind while the lumpfish, white fish or even carp caviar is the general public variety.

Caviar pie layers Philadelphia cream cheese and chopped onions with a spread of caviar on top. Some versions have lemon wedges  surrounding this, some are sprayed with chopped parsley. One version has this on cup-cake size and comes with a little spoon for convenience.

 Usually served on the side are crackers or flat breads,  grated boiled egg  -- the whites and yellows separated for more effect – and  lemon wedges . It’s just like getting caviar on crackers, really, where you put the chopped onions and cream cheese on the crackers to be topped by dollops of caviar and grated boiled eggs then drizzled with droplets of fresh lemon juice squeezed directly on it.

The pie  simply makes it a little  convenient for you.   Here you cut a slice, and from here do the ritual of putting top with boiled eggs and squeeze the lemon wedge before putting into your mouth. You can have your cake with your vodka, sure, but as in many other matters, I think the do-it-yourself version is in the long run better. You only get what you want, leaving no waste.

With the cake, it is difficult to just get what you can finish. What I mean is, you don’t have a choice here if you want it with little of one thing and more of the other – like you know, if you don’t exactly like a lot of cream cheese and more of caviar, you don’t have the option to drop some of the cheese and  go for more of the caviar.  You’ll have to accept things as they were proportioned by the pie maker. Come on, if you want cream cheese, go for it, but don’t spoil the caviar experience by putting an overpowering volume of it on my bread.

Despite its name and presentation, caviar pie is usually served as appetizer. There are, of course,  menus these days that call for  unsweet, meaning sour or salty, desserts. I guess the operating term here is take the cue from chef, and when he serves this pie. But don’t be surprised when it comes after the meal. I once had tart tiramisu for dessert and I nearly asked the waiter if the chef forgot the sugar. Live and learn.

As for the vegan chocolate cake, it is touted as being made with ingredients made only from plants: cocoa, soya milk, isomalt. No dairy, said the saleslady. Low sugar, low calorie, low cholesterol.

It is obviously made for people with health issues like diabetics, whose population is exploding, and therefore expanding as a particular market segment. Where  mass goes, the marketing men follow.* To be continued

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