Living history with food

When tourist like you and I think of Florida, its beautiful beach would never fail to pop up into our minds. Inevitably, we would think that seafood is their main regional cuisine. 

But you are wrong...

Presenting you the Key Lime Pie

A trip to Florida will not be complete if you did not try this pie!So what makes this dessert so special to Florida? 

The main ingredient of this dessert is Key Lime

Not our usual lime. 

It is smaller than a golf ball with yellow-green skin. It only grow well in limited zones and the Keys are one of those places.

Key lime pies were first made in the Keys in the 1850s. No fresh milk and refrigeration was available in the Keys until the 1930 and there were very few cows on the Keys,  thus local cooks had to rely on canned sweetened condensed milk. 

The key lime tree, native to Malaysia was probably first arrived in the Florida Keys in the 1500s with the Spanish. Key lime used to grow all over Keys, until 1926 when a hurricane wiped out the key lime plantations in South Florida, growers replanted with Persian limes, which are easier to pick and to transport.

Key Lime Pie is officially Florida state pie. (1 July, 2006)

The traditional key lime pie filling contains key lime juice, sweetened, condensed milk, and egg yolks.

A funny thing happens when you combine lime juice and sweetened, condensed milk. It sort of "cooks" itself without any heat. Most importantly, the filling of authentic key lime pie is light yellow not green like this:

To commemorate the importance of its state cuisine, a Key Lime Pie Festival would be held yearly.

The recipe which I am going to attempt it now, and perhaps you too!

Living behind the dark side of the sun

Every state or country has something to hide, but masked themselves through media, tourism ads and books. This has brought up my interest towards "Spatial justice" regarding justice and democracy practices in Florida.

As multicultural as appeared, having a month that commemorates the African-Americans, yet there were many outcries and grudges by the Floridians due to racial injustice. Since 1976 death penalty regime was introduced, they have executed 84 people yet no white person has ever been executed for killing an African American! 

I cannot imagine how betrayed, outcast and unsafe the black community felt. Moreover, the issue of racial injustice was amplified by Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law; a law that encourages criminal act, increasing homicides of black people. 

The blacks were even disallowed to vote in election as they were "once a criminal". The significant criminal title given to the blacks, inability to cast a vote or hold office themselves, I call it injustice.

One of the most ridiculous thing I came across was that Florida criminalize homeless people, as a "solution" to its massive homeless crisis, cutting crime and draw in more businesses. 

The city spend $5 million to prohibit activities that homeless people do to survive, instead of giving them homes?  These people are being treated like trashes, to the extent that they are not even allowed to step into the city. 

Even though there are volunteering communities to sustain human dignity and fairness (which they can be fined), the power is still with the government to give them their rights to freedom.

Whenever I think of Florida, I would imagine its lovely weather, that Florida is beach filled paradise, family-oriented, good retirement location,  and it's Disney World. Now, I would be questioning myself  if Florida is still as amazing as i to think it was.