Barnard's Delight

Barnard's Delight is a type of sweet snack food served as a street food almost everywhere in Civilized Space. It bears a significant similarity to Lokum from Old Earth, and indeed it is widely believed that it was originally developed as a derivative of it. Barnard's Delight's primary component is starch from supermaize and sugar, which can be extracted from supermaize as well, but just as often comes from other sources. This is combined with water, citrus juices, potassium bitartrate, and the flavoring component. It can be flavored in a vast number of ways, often only limited by the imaginations of the person making it, though Mangot Sap, rosewater, and Centauri Limequat are favorites.   Barnard's Delight is created by bringing sugar, citrus juice, and water to a boil and rendering the components down into a syrup. While this is happening, the starch, water and potassium bitartrate are heated and mixed into a paste. The paste and the syrup are then combined and cooked together for about an hour. At this point the flavoring component is added, and mixed with the syrup-paste combination the delight is then poured out and cut into pieces (traditionally squares), and left to cool for roughly twelve hours. At this point the Barnard's Delight is ready to serve. Food vendors often prepare large quantities of the food and leave it to cool overnight selling last nights creations over the course of the day.   Barnard's Delight is a very common street food throughout much of Civilized Space being popular as a sweet snack or a desert. Typically more mild flavors are eaten as snacks, with the stronger flavors reserved for desert. More daring cooks don't just make sweet delights, some recipes for savory and spicy Barnard's Delight flavors have filtered throughout the galaxy. These alternative interpretations of the food have become increasingly popular, but traditional, sweet, Barnard's Delight remains the type favored by most.