© 2024 KRCU Public Radio
90.9 Cape Girardeau | 88.9-HD Ste. Genevieve | 88.7 Poplar Bluff
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Every Tuesday at 7:42 a.m. and 5:18 p.m., Tom Harte shares a few thoughts on food and shares recipes. A founder of “My Daddy’s Cheesecake,” a bakery/café in Cape Girardeau, a food columnist for The Southeast Missourian, and a cookbook author, he also blends his passion for food with his passion for classical music in his daily program, The Caffe Concerto.

Culinary Disasters

kristanhiggans.com
A culinary disaster.

Perhaps you've heard the story about the lady who on Thanksgiving Day marched into the dining room with a magnificently prepared turkey and then accidentally dropped it on the floor. Without missing a beat, she picked up the bird and headed back to the kitchen. She wiped off the turkey and then returned to the dining room with it and announced, "Here's the other turkey!"

Such moxie sure beats the reaction of Francois Vatel, chef to the Minister of Finance under Louis XIV. Mortified at running out of food when the king and his retinue came calling, he vowed to redeem himself at their next meal. But thinking that he might run short again after what he mistakenly thought was the final delivery of groceries, he went to his room and ran himself through with his sword. His body was discovered by another deliveryman coming to tell him the rest of his order had arrived.

Cooking disasters are unavoidable, so the question is what you will do about it when it happens. Short of suicide, as it turns out, there are measures you can take when confronted with culinary catastrophy. The easiest thing to do is to simply pretend that nothing is wrong and to serve the dish anyway.  Thus in one of her books Alice Medrich features a recipe for Fallen Chocolate Souffl?é Torte. It's pictured on page 32 in all its glory with a note from the author saying, "I like the sunken-souffl?é look of this torte served right side up with a dusting of sugar." You have to wonder whether the dessert was planned to sag in the middle or if the shrewd Medrich is merely putting a favorable spin on things.

Obviously, not every culinary disaster can be peddled as a triumph. Sometimes corrective action is required. That is what StanlslasLeszczynski took when he poured rum over a yeast bun that was too dry for him. He also invented baba au rhum, now a classic dessert, in the process.

In the final analysis, however, perhaps the best defense against culinary calamity is to keep the number for Domino's posted prominently on your refrigerator door.

+++++ Tart Tatin +++++
This dessert was a specialty of the Tatin sisters, Stephanie and Caroline, at their hotel in the Loire Valley of France in the 19th century. Though now a classic, the original was quite probably a salvaged culinary disaster, the result of a harried cook mistakenly baking the tart upside-down. There's no mistaking this recipe, adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Pie and Pastry Bible," as the definitive version.

Pastry for a one-crust pie
10 cups thickly sliced apples
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
½ cup sugar
½ stick butter

Combine apples, lemon juice, and sugar. Toss and let sit for 30 minutes. Drain the liquid from the apples (there should be about ½ cup) and place in a skillet along with the butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until caramelized, about 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and arrange apple slices in slightly overlapping circles over the caramel, heaping them in the middle.

Cook, covered, over medium heat for 10 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking over high heat, stirring constantly, until apples are almost tender, about 10 minutes longer. Remove from heat and cool 20 minutes.

Place pastry evenly over the apples, tucking the edges into the pan. Cut a few steam vents near the center of the crust and bake in a 425-degree oven for 3o minutes.

Cook 10 minutes. Using a small knife, loosen crust from side of pan and invert the tart onto serving plate. Serve warm with crème fra?îche.
 

Tom Harte is a retired faculty member from Southeast Missouri State University where he was an award-winning teacher, a nationally recognized debate coach, and chair of the department of Speech Communication and Theatre.
Related Content