Nata amb nous

March 4, 2011

You’ve had a wonderful meal at a rustic restaurant: thick, crusty bread rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil and then spread with the pulp of a red, ripe tomato on top (pa amb tomàquet); grilled vegetables with pungent allioli that will make your entire body carry a garlickly cloud around it for a few days (let’s hope everyone around you ate it, too!); a big platterful of grilled meats and sausages seasoned only with salt and olive oil; and of course a hearty red wine to wash it all down.

The waiter asks if anyone would like dessert. Of course you do! So he hands out the menus. And there it is, amidst factory-made ice cream sundaes advertised with bells and whistles that look scrumptious on paper but are disappointing in reality, there is the simplest yet the most perfect dessert, perfection on a plate: nata amb nous.

Nata amb nous, literally whipped cream with walnuts. And yes, that’s it. It’s not whipped cream and walnuts on top of ice cream; it’s not whipped cream and walnuts on top of cake or brownies; it’s your fantasy, at least my fantasy, come true. My dream dessert. When you get whipped cream and nuts on top of ice cream or cake or brownies, the ice cream, cake, or brownies are the excuse, the vehicle: the whipped cream and nuts are what you really want. The Catalans have gotten rid of the middleman. They don’t need an excuse; they have no guilt. They get right to the point and eliminate the extraneous details.

The dish arrives, a large one piled high, with real whipped cream of course, and caramelized walnuts sprinkled on top. That’s it, nothing else. That is your dessert: a guilty pleasure right there before you, beckoning you to dig in. You plunge your spoon into the whipped ambrosia like a little kid in a candy shop: pure delight, velvety clouds punctuated by crunchy, candied little bits of heaven, the perfect counterpoint: creamy plus nutty; whipped plus crunchy; mellow plus sweet, a toasted kind of sweet, even better!

The crazy thing is that here in this country, we don’t hesitate to order a huge ice cream sundae which contains the equivalent of a whole plateful of whipped cream and more, but somehow ordering just a dish of whipped cream seems decadent. We gasp! We couldn’t do that! Not even in the privacy of our homes! Well we might… and then only guiltily confess it to our closest friends. It might be considered a bit… you know… obsessive, compulsive, food-disordered. At any rate, way too self-indulgent. Plus think about your waistline, your cholesterol.

Still, admit it: it’s what we really want.

The Catalans, they know how to live! They know that what we’re really after with that sundae is the luscious whipped cream. They have no compunction about fat and cholesterol; dessert is for enjoying, so if you’re going to eat it, eat exactly what you want. You’ll get back to healthy with your next meal. But for now, get to the heart of the matter; eliminate the incidental stuff. Fulfill every kid’s (and some adults’) dream and go for the gold.

Some indulgent Catalan grandmother must have invented this dish for her grandchild who whined, “Però Iaia, nomes vull la nata i les nous”. La Iaia Maria couldn’t resist the plea and long eyelashes batting, and after all, Grandma instinctively got it since her grandchild was expressing what she had secretly yearned for all along. Thus was born nata amb nous (as I like to imagine it). Heaven on earth. Thank you, Iaia.

So your spoon cuts through the white clouds, the cream sticks on your lips, just like a child, but you don’t care. It melts in your mouth, and then you fish around for a crunchy, caramelized walnut…

Could there be any better way to end a meal?