South American Sweets: Alfajores

To learn some more about the foods of South America we take a trip to the international foods aisle of the grocery store. We find so many interesting items we’ve never noticed before…

Rows of soda in flavors like coconut and guava. We take home a few to try and find them less sweet and carbonated than soda in the states. The pink guava is the biggest hit.

All sorts of juices, chips and puffs. We try the plantain chips!

Lots of coconut, dulce de leche and sweet fruit desserts.

“Oat based smoothie”

The kids aren’t too sure about this one!

Many desserts across South America feature dulce de leche, a thick caramel sauce. We decide to make Alfajores, a favorite sandwich cookie made up of two vanilla wafers and filled with dulce de leche and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. We just learned how to make them for CZ’s international fair at school so now we are pros! In some countries you will find them edged in coconut or even dipped in chocolate, but we pick the most traditional version.

Here’s how to make Alfajores:

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup corn starch
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 stick of butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Dulce de Leche
Powdered sugar

Mix butter and sugar and then add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth.

In a separate bowl combine flour, corn starch, salt, and baking powder and then slowly add dry ingredients into the wet until it forms a nice dough. Cover dough and refrigerate for one hour.

Roll out dough between two pieces of plastic wrap. It should be about 1/8 inch thick.

Cut dough into 1.5 inch circles.

Use a fork to poke small holes in the surface of the cookie.
Bake at 350° for 12 min.

Allow cookies to cool and prepare dulce de leche filling or buy one premade like we did.

Fill cookies with a tsp or more of dulce de leche.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar…

And enjoy! Makes about 3 dozen.

Loom Weaving–An Ancient Art Explored

We read a bit about Argentina, Chile and Colombia, and find that like many of the South American countries, they are known for their beautiful woven textiles. The technique dates back centuries to the era that native South American’s first discovered they could weave the soft wool of the Llamas into fabric. The natives used the juice of crushed berries to die the wool and then wove them into bold geometric patterns.

We decide to explore the art of loom weaving and the girls discover that they are already practicing several versions without realizing it. It’s interesting to make these connections. First, we start with a more traditional loom. One very similar to the style that was used in ancient South America.

CZ loops the colorful yarn back and forth around the frame of the wooden loom.

She uses a large needle to weave the yarn back and forth. She pushes every few rows together with a wooden comb that came in the set.

When she reaches the last row she pulls off the little loops, cuts them and ties them together to hold the weaving in place.

The finished project! Perfect as a carpet next to her American Girl doll bed 🙂

AZ explores a more modern style of loom weaving. Something the girls have been loving for the last few months–The Rainbow Loom!

Colorful little rubber bands loop across the loom in a criss-cross pattern.

A little pick is used to overlap the loops and entwine them into place.

Next she carefully pulled the loops off the loom.

And attached a clear clasp to one end.

And that’s it! Her bracelet is ready to wear.

The idea of a woven bracelet reminds us of the beautiful bracelets that Papa brought back on his most recent visit to South America.

And in turn, these bracelets make us think of a geometric friendship bracelet and some of the more complicated rainbow loom creations.

The girls appreciate the amount of work that must have gone into these South American bangles!

Brazilian Carnival Creations: Making Masks

While most South American countries are Spanish-speaking, the people of Brazil, the continent’s largest country, speak Portuguese. This is because it was people from Portugal who, in the late 15th century, explored and settled in the eastern side of South America, which is now Brazil.

From the colorful book Festivals of the World: Brazil we learn about one of South America’s biggest celebrations, Carnival. When the Portuguese came to South America they brought their Catholic beliefs with them, just as the Spaniards did. Each year before Easter the new inhabitants practiced Lent, a solemn 40 days of personal sacrifice. They always enjoyed four days of celebration leading up to Ash Wednesday. This celebration has grown into a magnificent festival that takes place annually. While many towns and countries across South America take part in this celebration, the most famous Carnival festival takes place in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, where people come from all over the world to join in the fun.

During Carnival people dress in brightly colored costumes with lots of gold and silver detailing and wear masks and headdresses with magnificent feathers and plumes. Participants ride fantastic floats and fill the streets, singing and dancing in a parade.

The headdresses of the dancers remind us of the Native American headdresses that the chiefs wore hundreds of years ago. The costumes also show the influence of the African people who were brought over long ago by the Portuguese to help harvest sugar cane. Today the costumes and headpieces have become so intricate and ornate that they can weigh 50 pounds!

We decide it would be fun to make our own Carnival creations. Here’s how we made our Carnival masks:

We gather some goodies from our craft drawer. Pom poms, feather, gems, sequins and stickers. And lay out our art mat….

We found these plastic masks at Walmart, but you can also cut them out of cardboard or a paper plate.

The kids layout their feathers.

We tape them together before taping them to the inside of the mask.

The scouts get to work gluing and decorating their masks.

CZ cuts tissue paper into a fringe.

And adds it to her mask…

We use these 3D puffy paints from Elmers to add some details

And let the masks dry.
CZ:

HZ:

AZ:

And then give them a try. As a mask:

And as a headdress:

Ready for the party!

Machu Picchu–Lost and Found

Today, Machu Picchu is one of South America’s most popular tourist destinations, but for centuries it lay hidden in the peaks of the Andes mountains, and was the subject of many legends. Did this lost city, once an estate and religious sanctuary for the Emperor Pachacuti, really exist and how come the Spaniards never found it when they conquered the region in the 1500’s and destroyed so much of the magnificent Inca architecture?

According the story Lost City, it was in 1911 that the American professor and explorer Hiram Bingham set out to answer these questions and, with the help of local farmers and a Quechuan boy named Arteaga, uncovered one of the world’s most significant archeological findings. While he hoped to find some evidence that the city did once exist, he never could have imagined what he would discover high up in the peaks of the Andes mountains.

From the book Machu Picchu by Elizabeth Mann, we learn why the Incas selected such a remote spot up in the Andes for its location. They believed that mountain peaks were sacred because their snow caps provided the only dependable source of water. They thought that the mountain’s melting snow was the source of all the river and ocean water below. From this high sacred spot they could watch the rising sun, which they also prayed to, and make sacrificial offerings to their gods.

It is hard to imagine that this sophisticated granite city could have been planned and built before the invention of the wheel. With long winding roads and thousands of granite steps leading up and around the city it seems amazing that this all could have been constructed by hand and with only a basic pulley system to carry the heavy stones miles up the steep mountain.

We wonder what it must have felt like for Hiram Bingham to see the ruins of Machu Picchu for the very first time. Was it anything like what he had dreamed of? And this leads me to a little project for the scouts: Imagine discovering a mythical hidden city of your dreams. What would it look like?

This is what they come up with:

AZ’s has a castle covered in gems. And clouds filled with love. When it rains they cover the city with love.

CZ’s has three islands. The Island of Water Fun with waterfall water slides and purple sprinklers, The Island of Lollipops and the Island of Snowcones.

HZ’s is a sea of scribbles. Underneath it all he points out a whale and a crab and some dolphins. And then he shows us a circle that he says is his dog. (The dog that he has asked us to get him every day for almost a year!) He says he has found his dog in the lost city.

How telling about what we are looking for and what we hope to find!

Week 2–South America–Vamonos!

We say good-bye to North America wishing we had more time to learn about its history post revolutionary war and hola to South America with excitement because we have plans for some fun crafts and adventures to come!

From our DK Children’s Atlas we get a nice overview of the varied climate and terrain of South America. The Andes Mountains run along the west side of the continent from top to bottom. Since CZ just did a school project on Peru, she’s quick to tell us that the highest peak in the country reaches about 22,000 feet above sea level. To the west is the driest desert, while the area surrounding the equator is home to the world’s largest rainforest.

We turn to the interesting book Life in Ancient South America to learn more about the earliest inhabitants of the continent. We discover that many of the ancient civilizations developed in Peru (because the land was moist and ideal for growing crops). The scouts are excited to hear this as their Papa is from Peru! AZ is also excited to learn that the land was rich with gold and gems as she is partial to anything that sparkles 🙂

Around 6000 BC the people of the Andes discovered ways to irrigate the land and also how to cut flat platforms into the steep mountain slopes so that they could create terraces for planting crops. They were able to hunt, fish and live off the land. The Llama, thought to be domesticated around 1000 BC, provided a helpful form of transportation up the mountain as well as wool for warm clothing. The Chavin, the earliest known natives, invented weaving and would use cotton or alpaca wool depending on the season.

We learn that even the most ancient civilizations in South America were very organized and sophisticated, with city centers, surrounding farms and a strong government in place (including taxes!) Very different from the nomadic native American tribes of North America. It’s interesting to note that the native north and south Americans did share similar gods of nature and the south Americans offered many animal and human sacrifices to please their gods and ward off natural disasters or famine.

The Incas, with their strong army, rose to power in 1000 AD and ruled a vast area of the continent until the 1500’s when the Spanish explorers came looking for gold. We learn that the Spanish destroyed many magnificent Inca buildings and replaced them with Spanish cathedrals and monuments. As the Spanish settled across the continent Catholicism grew, and it remains the dominant religion in South America today.

Next we will read about Machu Picchu, the “lost” city, and we can’t wait to find out more about it and some of the other mysteries of South America tomorrow!