American Plate - Bite #88: Crème Caramel

Up until now, I've been content to defer to Libby O'Connell's research and expertise on each of the Bites. When it comes to crème caramel, however, the book's entry focuses on the introduction of French cuisine to standard American households via Julia Child's work, and O'Connnell's touching story of crème caramel's role in her own cooking and romantic background. That puts me in a strange position, which I'll get into in a moment. There's no denying that Julia Child had spectacular timing. Nobody can accuse 1950's America of having delectable gourmet cuisine. Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking opened up a whole new world of elevated food to home cooks all over the country, and The French Chef TV show that followed brought it to an even wider audience. Households that were used to eating nothing but meat and potatoes could now experience the wonders of vichyssoise and potage.

We tend to forget that while Americans have been obsessed with nutrition since the very beginning, treating the act of cooking as an art to be refined and appreciated is relatively modern. The American palate has been getting ever more sophisticated (for food enthusiasts, anyway) since the '60s, and today, there is no shortage of culture aimed at those who appreciate the world of cuisine. Julia Child and the upswing of classical French cooking deserves a lot of credit for this. And like O'Connell, I adore Julia Child. But...

There isn't a word of the crème caramel that refers to anything but French food. No disrespect to its French origins, of course, but I can't help but think that in its current form, crème caramel has switched allegiances. I live in St. Louis, a town founded by Frenchmen and that retains a wealth of French influence in its culture and cuisine. I don't get crème caramel at the local French restaurants, though. I get it at Spanish restaurants. I get it at Mexican restaurants. I get it at Brazilian restaurants. And at all those places, it's not crème caramel at all; it's flan.

If the purpose of this Bite is to celebrate the fact that Americans have expanded access to elevated food, and in particular the deliciousness of this custard and caramel delight, I'm all for it, but we should include a hearty "Gracias" alongside the "Merci" that this book extends.

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American Plate - Bite #14: Beaver Tail

Well, this is surprising. Some of the Bites on the American Plate list are so common that it'd be an event if I didn't eat them twice a week. Some are more specialized, but I know exactly where to go to pick some up. A few present a significant challenge. And then there's beaver tail, for which I fully expected I'd have to skip and substitute something else. I even called it out with some certainty in my initial post as being impossible to track down. Turns out, I was wrong! Tiddy has a list project of his own, which involved stopping by the Soulard Farmer's Market, and lo and behold, one of the vendors there was selling full beaver carcasses, complete with tail. I jumped at the chance, and good thing I did, because the vendor told me I was snagging the last one of the season. Are beavers secretly popular?

The book's entry on beaver tail essentially breaks down into two topics: The fact that people don't really eat this anymore, and a description of the two groups that did, in fact, eat it more out of necessity than anything else. Early Native Americans, of course, had very active lifestyles, and needed the caloric bomb that the fatty beaver tail provides. The other big group was fur trappers, who had to spend the winter out tracking down materials for coats, collars, and hats. Beavers were extremely handy from a trapper's point of view; the pelt could be sold, and the tail could be eaten. Beaver populations actually dwindled in the east because of all this trapping, which helped spur western expansion. Heck, I live in St. Louis, which was founded by fur traders.

Buying beaver was the first step; figuring out what to do with it was the next challenge. The book includes a preparation for grilling the tail, but we had an entire animal on our hands. Lots of internet articles and YouTube videos were consulted. The tail was relatively simple, once the messy work of chopping it off was done. Tiddy did all the butchering work on this one (for which I definitely owe him one), and we took it over to his parents' place. They were excited to be part of the process, and his stepdad grilled the tail on a charcoal grill until the skin bubbled up and I could peel it off. I prepared a quick marinade of Cajun seasoning, butter, and black pepper, and we brushed it on the meat and re-grilled until it was done.

How did it taste? Well, the book refers to it as "gamey-tasting fat with swampy overtones," and I can't improve on that description. I'm glad I ate it, but am not in a hurry to do it again. As to the rest of the beaver, Tiddy carved off a pound or so, and incorporated it into a gumbo with andouille sausage and other Cajun seasonings. Served on rice with some corn on the cob on the side, it was pretty damed tasty! Again, probably not worth the work of carving up a rodent, but made for a decent lunch, and a fascinating experience.

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American Cake - Cake #7: Lemon and Molasses Spice Marble Cake

Time Period: 1800-1869

Marbling is not an American invention. European bakers used this technique long before we did, but by the mid-1800s, it caught on here, most likely thanks to German immigrants. Professional bakeries offered this eye-catching design, but home cooks soon discovered that if they just dyed part of their batter with molasses and spices, they could recreate the effect. Or, they could use the method of just making two separate batters and swirling them together, which is what this recipe does.

It took until the end of the 19th century for chocolate to be incorporated into the dark batters, improving the range of marble cake flavors even further. No chocolate in this one, though. Half spice cake, half lemon cake, this cake uses the neat trick of dividing up the eggs; the yolks went into the molasses cake, and the whites went into the lemon one. In order to punch up the overall lemon flavor, there's also a simple preparation of lemon glaze to pour over the top.

That doesn't mean the overall preparation is simple, though. When a recipe requires two separate cake batters and egg whites whipped into soft peaks, you can either own three stand mixers, or you can prep one batter, transfer it to a bowl, clean the mixer, prep the second batter, transfer it to a bowl, clean the mixer, and prep the egg whites. I do not own three stand mixers, so this cake took...a while. In order to ensure a good swirl, I looked up a YouTube video about how best to combine the batters without making it look muddy.

It wound up looking pretty good, though my tube pan tends to give cakes that sad streak - I'll need to research if there's any way around that. And it wound up tasting pretty good - like the Martha Washington Great Cake, it tasted better on the second day. Unlike Martha's cake, though, I'm not sure the flavor justifies the work this cake requires. If I ever MUST make another marble cake and have a half day to devote to baking it, this is a perfectly enjoyable recipe, but it's doubtful that this one is going into the dessert rotation, unless I'm really in the mood to wash every dish in the house twice over.

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American Cake - Cake #6: Strawberry Shortcake

Time Period: 1800-1869

Wild strawberries were one of the tasty items awaiting American colonists when they crossed the Atlantic. The berries got put into jelly, syrup, and sweetened drinks, but it didn't take very long for people to figure out that they could combine the berries with the already-popular shortcake recipe to get something special. Crumbly shortcake/biscuits had been served since the very beginning of America, and despite a warning in an 1835 book claiming shortcakes were unhealthy, their popularity did not wane.

Strawberry shortcakes were a luxury, but humbler recipes for it began to pop up around the Civil War. Barely a handful of years later, it was already considered an American institution, helped along by the ability to ship the berries by rail. It's easy to see why they caught on so forcefully. Strawberry shortcake is extremely tasty, and simpler to prepare than a lot of other cakes.

As my delightful assistant hulled the berries and tossed them with sugar, I pulled together the dough. From there, it was a simple matter of cut, bake, and stack, with some homemade whipped cream on top for added effect. It's a perfect little summer dessert.

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American Cake - Cake #5: Shoofly Pie

Time Period: 1870-1899

Shoofly Pie is the first creation I made from this time period. This is the era that railroads became firmly entrenched in America, which radically altered the baking landscape. Recipes that were once considered regional began to spread, and ingredients/equipment that were once inaccessible became readily available to average home bakers. Shoofly, named after a popular circus mule (who in turn was probably named after the popular song of the 1830s), and whose name was branded onto the molasses this pie is made from, radiated out of its Pennsylvania home and became popular nationwide.

So, let's address what has to be everyone's first question when they see this recipe. Why is a pie included in a book named "American Cake"? Not only does it have the spongy texture of a molasses crumb cake, but according to historian William Woys Weaver, Shoofly started life in 1876 as "Centennial Cake", and was eaten without any crust. The crust was added later so that people could eat it with their hands. Shoofly may be one of the few recipes that has successfully jumped families like that.

Shoofly is one of those rare baking creations that does not use eggs, making it perfect for cold weather baking. Hens don't lay eggs in the cold, and heat ruins molasses. Thankfully, we live in the 21st century, so temperature regulation isn't an issue for us, and I could make this pie any old time.

In addition to molasses and spices, this recipe incorporates coffee, which I think added a very nice flavor. You can tell from that picture that the expanding baking soda in the filling burst through the crumb topping and broke it up somewhat, but overall, I was pretty pleased with this one, and am definitely using it as my go-to Shoofly Pie recipe the next time I need to whip one up.

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American Cake - Cake #4: Classic Pound Cake

Time Period: 1650-1799

Pound cake was not invented in America; like a lot of our early culture, it was imported from England. However, it's got plenty of history here, being mentioned in American recipes dating back to 1754. Electric mixers make its preparation a lot simpler than in those days. Baking a pound cake in the nineteenth century involved steps like washing salt out of butter and then rubbing it to a cream-like consistency with a wooden paddle, and finely grinding sugar with a mortar and pestle. One thing that hasn't changed is adherence to its name. Now, as then, it's made with a pound each of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs.

Using unbleached flour would be closer to what original American cake makers would have done, but we work with what we've got, so all-purpose it was. I also got what's known as a "sad streak" - that circular dip around the top center of the cake. The book absolves me of any guilt about this, since not only is it considered good luck in the American South, but the artfully-arranged photo used to show off pound cake in the book has an even deeper one.

So, how was it? Not bad, not great. The outside crust was pretty tasty, but the the center was what Mary Berry would call "close-textured". It was extremely dense, and a bit dry. Maybe I left it in the oven too long? Maybe the batter was overmixed, and I knocked the air out of it? I'll likely attempt pound cake again in the future, and will try to make these kinds of tweaks, along with some flavor experimentation, like the addition of some lemon zest. Some cakes are best in their purest forms, but pound cake has probably stood the test of time because of its adaptability and constant change. Maybe it's American, after all.

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American Cake - Cake #3: Martha Washington Great Cake

Time Period: 1650-1799

Back before elections assumed national importance, local votes were a big deal for a lot of communities. In the earliest days of America, towns would have a holiday on election day, and gigantic Election Cakes would be baked to mark the celebration. Similar cakes were baked to mark other festive occasions. Around Christmastime in 1797, George Washington returned home to Virginia after his two terms as president, and Martha Washington is said to have baked a great cake much like this to honor his homecoming. "Great" cakes were called such because they held a huge quantity of spices and dried fruit and were extremely dense.

Fruitcake does not enjoy an admirable reputation in America these days, but colonial Americans wouldn't recognize what modern citizens rightly despise. There's good news for fruitcake, though: People are beginning to realize that if you can ignore what fruitcake has become and adapt an old-fashioned recipe, instead, it can be downright tasty.

This cake had a lot of interesting facets to it. For one, the first step was to wake up at the crack of dawn so I could begin soaking currants in white wine. Once the fruit was in a covered bowl to stay warm and happy while it sucked up the booze, I went back to bed. A couple hours later, I sprang up to get to work. The batter itself started pretty standard; eggs, flour, sugar... The usual stuff. But then instead of adding milk for the liquid component, it was the remainder of the wine once the currants were strained out.

That wasn't the final twist. Once the currants were stirred in, and the batter went into the loaf pan, it was time to bake. Most cakes go into a hot oven for a short burst of time. This one was the complete opposite. It went in at an extremely low temperature and baked for more than two hours.

Once it was out and cooled, Tiddy and I sliced into it. It was fairly decent, and I looked over the recipe again, noting that it promised that this cake gets better the more it sits. We tried some more hours later, and lo and behold, it was true. The flavors had melded even more, and the texture had firmed up. So, it's time to see what a little patience will bring: I'm writing this just before bedtime, and am looking forward to seeing what another overnight rest will do for this cake.

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