Ah yes, a good question indeed. Marjolaine is the invention of the late French master chef, Fernand Point, whose restaurant La Pyramide outside of Lyon was widely considered to be France’s premier eating establishment from the close of World War I up until Point’s death in 1955. It was there that Marjolaine was invented and […]
READ ONI know what you’re thinking: What the heck is that? It’s a fair question, since Marjolaine is one of the dark horses of the pastry world, not often spoken of, rarely served (at least in this country), but a certified winner nonetheless. Its name means “sweet marjoram”, but doesn’t it just figure that not only […]
READ ONOr I would be, had I not spent all last week getting caught up on work. But in my mind I was in the Caribbean, working on my savage tan.
READ ONI’ll be on spring break all week this week. Back next week with something fussy and frilly.
READ ONI know, I know, it’s not normal for most of us in this day and age to leave dairy products sitting out at room temperature. Most of our kitchen devices are designed to prevent spoilage, which — let’s face it — is pretty much what fermentation is. It’s therefore not surprising that so many of […]
READ ONThose of you who were with me through my hot cross bun project a few weeks ago may remember me talking about an Iranian fellow who runs a high-end gyro shop down the street (you know, the Budweiser Lent Headquarters). Back when he first opened the place about a year and a half ago, he […]
READ ONAll this talk of fermenting milk has resulted in several requests for a homemade crème fraîche recipe. In fact there’s already one on the site, right here. Have fun!
READ ONBased on what I’ve written on the subject of fresh-fermented dairy so far, you might be tempted to think that bacteria are the only microbes that can ferment milk. This isn’t so. There are a few oddball varieties of yeast that can do it too. What difference does yeast make in a yogurt culture? Quite […]
READ ONReader Thames asked me to comment on kefir, which is a yogurt beverage that originated in the Caucasus region (essentially the dividing point between Europe and Asia, roughly the area of extreme southern Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan). That part of the world is what you might call a hotbed of milk fermentation, and brother do […]
READ ONWhat an anticlimax this is going to be after all this talk — just a lot of shots of white things. But that’s the reality of fermentation: all the really sexy stuff is happening on scale that’s far too small to see. Hmm…maybe I should buy a microscope and become a lactic acid bacteria voyeur. […]
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