PASSIONATE RATIONS

There was a question on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” this evening about Karo syrup.   This stuff used to be a kitchen staple, but the guy who was responding didn’t know that it was a brand of corn syrup.  I found this to be a sort of blasphemy.   Of course, I was the kid with a sore throat who drank the stuff to ease the discomfort.  Whether the ease it gave was due to it coating my raw throat or just giving me a lovely sugar rush is debatable.  And there were the many times I was perfectly healthy, but still sipped it by the spoonful like liquid candy….

Anyway, I have three bottles of the stuff (light and dark) in my cabinet now.  However, I can only take credit for one of those.  As I’ve mentioned previously, my spouse seems to have some sort of weird ingredient-hoarding obsession and it has extended, apparently, to corn syrup.   Let’s just say I’ve pointed out the problem and, in return, have been promised that no more corn syrup will be bought without consultation with me or a licensed therapist.

I’ve primarily used the stuff over the years to make fudge, but I recently found that it makes a lovely glaze assist.  I was roasting hazelnuts for the purpose of sugar-coating them for use as a snack with some modicum of food value.  I did it wrong.  I attempted to make a granular sugar coating stick to the nuts using the nuts’ heat alone to melt the sugar.  Didn’t work at all.  So, without any idea what I was doing, I took some Karo syrup, heated it in a pan with some olive oil, dumped in the nuts to coat them and then added my granular sugar mix at the end.  The resulting glaze was sweet, chewy and satisfying.  So, I’m contemplating additional food projects using the stuff.  After all, I have a surplus to get rid of….