Culinary Byte

History of Crepes Suzette

Probably the most famous crepe dish in the world. In a restaurant, a crepe suzette is often prepared in a chafing dish in full view of the guests. They are served hot with a sauce of sugar, orange juice, and liqueur (usually Grand Marnier). Brandy is poured over the crepes and then lit.

The dish was created out of a mistake made by a fourteen year-old assistant waiter Henri Carpentier (1880-1961) in 1895 at the Maitre at Monte Carlo's Café de Paris. He was preparing a dessert for the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII (1841-1910) of England.

According to Henri Charpentier, in own words from Life A La Henri – Being The Memories of Henri Charpentier:

“It was quite by accident as I worked in front of a chafing dish that the cordials caught fire. I thought I was ruined. The Prince and his friends were waiting. How could I begin all over? I tasted it. It was, I thought, the most delicious melody of sweet flavors I had every tasted. I still think so. That accident of the flame was precisely what was needed to bring all those various instruments into one harmony of taste . . . He ate the pancakes with a fork; but he used a spoon to capture the remaining syrup.

He asked me the name of that which he had eaten with so much relish. I told him it was to be called Crepes Princesse. He recognized that the pancake controlled the gender and that this was a compliment designed for him; but he protested with mock ferocity that there was a lady present. She was alert and rose to her feet and holding her little shirt wide with her hands she made him a curtsey. ‘Will you,’ said His Majesty, ‘change Crepes Princesse to Crepes Suzette?’ Thus was born and baptized this confection, one taste of which, I really believe, would reform a cannibal into a civilized gentleman. The next day I received a present from the Prince, a jeweled ring, a panama hat and a cane.”

Taken from What's Cooking America

Culinary Byte

The Tempting Tomato

When the tomato, a rare and fascinatingly exotic plant native to South America, was first introduced to European culture, society shunned the red-skinned fruit under the pretense that it was poisonous.

But the myth was quickly dispelled once the French and Italians discovered the succulence of the ripe fruit's flesh. The once-feared tomato became known as the love apple, poma amoris or pomme d'amour depending on region. Slut-red in color with sweet, tangy flesh, it became the perfect symbol for the aphrodisiac qualities of food.

A member of the nightshade family, tomatoes have been cross bred with mandrake, another nightshade, to create narcotic red fruits, an experiment worthy of elevating the succulent, sweet tomato to new aphrodisiac heights. The tomato is also related to deadly belladonna, which may also help explain its aphrodisiac allure as well as but also sheds light on the fruit's initial classification as toxic.

The tomato has been linked to the Garden of Eden. Some even call it the “other” forbidden fruit. Even into the 19th Century, Catholics questioned the tomato's “morality.” It earned a place, as a matter of fact, on the brethren's list of forbidden dishes, along with any other food that put into question the ability of lust-filled young members of the church to maintain self-control within the scarlet tomato's presence.

Far-fetched as it might seem that one glance at a soft, fresh-picked tomato still warm from the sun could overpower the devout with desire, however tomatoes do certainly bring something to the table in the game of gastronomic foreplay.

Originally written by Amy Reiley, author of Fork Me, Spoon Me: the sensual cookbook for the website Eat Something Sexy

Culinary Byte

Corn By Any Other Name...

The word corn was first used to describe any grain, even of salt, as in corned beef. It also means the "small, hard seed or fruit of a plant," as in peppercorn. So when pre-Columbian Old World writings mention corn, they can mean many things, but maize is not one of them.

The word maize came from the Spanish, who picked it up from the Arawak Indians of the Caribbean, where maize means "stuff of life." Maize was domesticated in central Mexico by about 3400 B.C. It quickly became the basic crop and spread north to the cliff dwellers in the American Southwest and to Cahokia, and south to the Inca Empire.

Taken from Cuisine and Culture

Culinary Byte

Amethysts and Wine

The ancient Greeks loved wine and were always searching for ways to drink without getting drunk. They finally came up with what they thought was the antidote to the downside of Dionysus: drinking purple wine from a purple vessel made of semi-precious stone would cause the two purples to cancel each other out and negate whatever was in the wine that caused drunkeness.

In Greek, the prefix a means "not," methyein means "drunk" (from methy-wine), so the work for "not drunk" became the name of the purple stone the vessel was made out of - amethyst.

Taken from Cuisine and Culture