Have you ever heard of “Nanny Candy?”
If you’re Armenian, and you have or had a grandmother, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
My grandmother, Yeranuhe Nanny, always had candy in her house – but not American candy like Hershey’s Kisses or Snicker’s bars.
Her favorites were candy-coated dried chickpeas, and pastel-colored, sugar-covered almonds that were so hard you were afraid you’d break a tooth. Then there was the glass bowl on her coffee table filled with sugary, multi-colored hard candies that would invariably clump together from the humidity, making it impossible to separate.
Occasionally, as we’d be driving home from church, Nanny would rummage through her purse, pull out a crumpled but clean tissue, and offer us kids some of her “special” traveling candy. She’d carefully unwrap the tissue to display the selection, expecting us to joyfully pick a favorite.
Much to our dismay, we’d find that each piece was covered in tissue lint. She never quite understood why we rejected her sweet treat offer.
There’s only one candy that Nanny had that we didn’t reject. Bastegh, or Fruit Leather. Hers was a homemade delight. She didn’t make it often, but when she did, it didn’t last long because it tasted so good! Nanny used the grapes from her backyard vine and extracted the juice- a messy and tedious procedure. To make things simpler, the modern-day cook is wise to use bottled grape juice.
Here’s how to make Bastegh:
I don’t know about you, but in our family, we’re all about tradition when…
It’s that time of year again! St. Sarkis Day, the moveable feast day on the…
Way back in 2010 Ara Kassabian shared his family’s recipe for Nevik with The Armenian…
With Thanksgiving Day just hours away, I thought I’d share a few of our favorite,…
My family and I had the distinct honor of meeting George Mardikian at his restaurant,…
My first encounter with Antonio (Tony) Tahhan, the Syrian-American food writer, researcher, and storyteller, spans…
This website uses cookies. find out more.
View Comments
Help, we are looking for a recipe for rojeeg.
Thanks for your request, Carol. I'll post a full recipe for Roejig on December 29th - be on the lookout for it.
You have no idea how enlightening this post is. We are huge fans of the Syrian dried apricot paste that can be found in most Arabic / Mediterranean stores. My father always called it Bastegh but I never realized that it wasn't that specific product. Now I know!
Glad we could help! Now, if I could only master making it...
Thank you for posting this recipe. My kids are obsessed with bastegh but we only buy it from the church bazaars. My grandmother would make it from the grapes in our yard, and I've been scared to try it that way. But making it with grape juice sounds a lot easier!!!!
Have you ever made this with a food dehydrator?
Tamar, The last time I tried using the food dehydrator, I turned apricot halves into hockey pucks.
Does using a dehydrator work well for making bastegh?
Since my grandmother had an apple tree in the back yard, my only exposure to bastegh was from rendered apples. We called it apple candy. She would add a bit of lemon juice to it. The rendered apples were then spread onto bed sheets, sprinkled with corn starch, and then hung on the line to dry.
Just because something is "traditional" in no way makes it "correct" or even good. Consider how many ethic dishes still subject children to nothing more than a history lesson of how poor, culinary limited, and very hungry their ancestors were.
There is *no* rational reason to make Bastegh with flour. Fruit leather by any other name is fruit leather. The flour serves no other purpose than to thicken it, which can be done without the introduction of the unnecessary flavors of flour. Use Xanthan Gum, powdered sugar, and a food dehydrator. You do not have to cook it, so you do not drive off volatile flavor compounds.
You then can make something your great-grandmother would be proud of, like Mango Chili "Bastegh":
http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/mango-chili-leather/
Xanthan Gum is not healthy.