Does it come from southern France? That’s very hard to say, reader Peg. “Probably not” is about the best answer I can come up with for that excellent question. Brioche is a very old bread, or rather to be more precise, it is a very old word for bread. Brioche as we know it now, […]
READ ONThere really was a Saint Tropez, you know. Though in Catholic circles we know him as Saint Torpes of Pisa, patron saint of mariners (ship navigators). Almost nothing is known definitively about St. Torpes other than his given name was Caïus Silvius Torpetius and he was a Roman who lived during the time of Nero’s persecutions.
Details are sketchy at best, however it’s thought he was a member of the Roman military who was somehow “outed” to Nero as a Christian. For that he was summarily executed. What happened next is a legend and a weird one at that. It’s said that Nero had Torpetius’ head cut off and thrown into the Arno river. His body he had set adrift in a small boat along with a dog and a rooster as an odd sort of corpse disposal crew.
READ ONWhat a week for my air conditioning to break down! But I’ll get those delicate creams made somehow…if it’s the last thing I ever do!
READ ONActually it seems cicadas taste like peanuts, at least when they’re in ice cream. Who knew?
READ ONTarte Tropézienne is commonly linked to Brigitte Bardot. This is because St.-Tropez itself is commonly linked to Brigitte Bardot. She is credited with putting the place on the map, as it were.
Did she? In a way, yes. St.-Tropez was already a well-known as a tourist destination when Bardot showed up in 1956 to film the not-too-pretentiously-titled And God Created Woman. It was Bardot’s first “serious” acting role, and while the film is considered something of a dud these days, it caused an international sensation in 1957. The rich, the famous and the wanna-be rich and famous have flocked there ever since.
READ ONNot very, reader Sue, which is why we can say definitively who invented it: one Alexandre Micka. Micka was born in Poland, though his family emigrated to the Lorraine region in extreme northeastern France when he was but a lad, about 1915. It was there that Micka worked as an apprentice pastry maker. For exactly how long is unknown, or at least it is unknown to me.
What’s clear is that in time Micka relocated to St.-Tropez, probably about the year 1950, and opened his own pastry shop. He created Tarte Tropézienne soon after and sold it with only modest success. That is, up until the 1960’s when St.-Tropez caught on as a tourist destination and visitors began enjoying what they thought was an indigenous delicacy. Tarte Tropézienne has been famous ever since.
READ ONSt.-Tropez was big stuff when I was a kid back in the 70’s. That was the decade of the “savage tan” and sun tan lotions that bore the name of St.-Tropez were everywhere. I wasn’t a beach kid then. Being shy, pale and soft in the middle I gravitated more toward books and plastic models, especially of the military sort. My mental image of St.-Tropez wasn’t a sun-soaked playground for the rich and famous but rather a war zone, a city at the geographical center of the second largest sea invasion of the Second War War: Operation Dragoon.
READ ONA tarte Tropézienne is basically a big cream bun…not a tart at all. But who knows how these things get their names? A tarte Tropézienne is almost always made with brioche, but the fillings can vary. Supposedly the creator of this pastry was very secretive about his filling recipe, so pastry makers have used just […]
READ ONReader Mary James had an excellent idea for this week. Since it’s getting so hot, why not strike out for the beach? The French Riviera, specifically. Of course I’m way too poor and ugly to do that in person, but there’s nothing that says I can’t get a (literal) taste of it by making tarte […]
READ ONReader Adam submits this ingenious tip for rolling pastry in hot weather:
READ ONI’d like to share a tip I just discovered myself while making puff pastry. I’m living in Israel and now its the beginning of summer and starting to get pretty hot. This kind of weather makes it a bit difficult to roll out puff pastry as the butter soften very quickly. So in order to make it easier what I did was to pull out one of my fridge shelves and use it as a rolling surface. The shelf is made of tempered glass and since it’s cold – out of the fridge, it keeps the dough chill throughout the lamination process. It also feels pretty comfortable to work on a glass surface and since I have a tiny kitchen it gives me freedom to move the surface around or rotate it to the most comfortable position for rolling. When I finish a lamination session I just put the shelf back in the fridge with the flour and all. And at the end of the process I clean it and put it back in the fridge. I find this method very useful also for pie crust.