Every person living in Panama knows that in every chinese grocery store and supermarket, you can find in the snack section little packs of a braided fried dough we call "mafá". It is something we eat as children, and as adults if we are not really counting the calories. It is the ultimate hunger-killer, a bit salty, but somehow sweet, crispy, and very, very cheap. I could even get them in my office, and I think I did almost every day.
But the thing is, I have not seen this little snacks in Italy. I have seen chinese grocery stores, I have bought other snacks, but there is no mafá. At least not where I live. And don't get the wrong idea, Italy is a real heaven for snack lovers like me. There is something about italian snacks that seem more, I don't know, more real. By more real, I mean they seem less fake, with a texture more like fresh food and much better flavor than your regular famous brand bagged chips.
Searching through internet, I discovered (thanks Wikipedia) that these things are called in fact "mahua" or "fried dough twists" and are a very welcome chinese contribution to panamanian pop culture. Why we renamed these things as "mafá" we will never know. But the real cool thing, is that I also found a recipe to make them in the washoku.guide webpage (https://washoku.guide/recipe/948413). I did not follow the recipe exactly, for example I used only one type of flour (normal cake flour, farina 00 as it is sold in Italy) and used half of the sugar. Once you have the dough ready, making the little twists is very easy, so easy it's actually fun. I fried them until they turned that golden brown color I remember and, in a matter of minutes, I had the most delicious plate full of fresh made mafá.
I don't think there is one single panamanian that has eaten a mafá of mahua freshly made until now. No more nostalgia for panamanian snacks, freshly make dough twists are 100% much better!
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