As I wrote in Patti Chiari - Carob, the gold of Sicily, carob is a sicilian tree and fruit. Carob fruit is used to make flour, chocolate, biscuits and other desserts.
My friend Gino the artist makes a traditional pudding, a type of blancmange, from carob and has given me this recipe.
Ingredients
2 kilos carob pods, washed and bashed into pieces with a stone;
a little cornflour;
a little honey.
Preparation
Put the carob pieces into a bowl of water and leave them to soak for a few hours. Drain them. Boil the liquid and reduce it to about 0.5 litre. Mix a little cornflour with some of the liquid, then stir this into the remaining liquid. Spread a little honey into the base and onto the sides of some moulds and pour in the thickened mixture. Chill.
Carob seeds, of course, were used to weigh gold in ancient times and from this practice we derive the word “carat”, from Greek “keration”. So I like to imagine I am collecting gold when I join my friends in picking up carob pods from the ground in autumn.
