Rusks

I thought maybe you had to grow up dipping Ouma brand rusks in Milo or rooibos in order for them to take over a small corner of your heart, but the ease with which I have been able to distribute the vast surplus of rusks this recipe left me with suggests otherwise.

There isn't a great deal to recommend rusks: they're only very slightly sweet and otherwise quite bland, hard, dry, and a bit of a nuisance to eat--crumbling or, once dipped, dripping tea down your chin. Strangely, none of this keeps them from being completely addictive. Once you start eating them, you won't want to have tea without one. I sent a bag home with M. and she told me this afternoon she's been eating them at breakfast, tea time, and for dessert. If that isn't a recommendation, I don't know what is.

I found several recipes for South African buttermilk rusks by doing a Google search, but have so far only tried the one mentioned above, which I can certainly recommend. I look forward to trying several more recipes, though, in hopes of more closely duplicating the perfect rusk of memory. A fool's errand, maybe as these come very, very close, but one that will always leave me with at least one tin of rusks in the pantry.