The Particular Bitterness of Endive Tatin

Friends who know me well know that I love to read – I’m always working on at least four books at any given time and I have hundreds of books on my shelves.

Recently, I finished reading “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by American author Aimee Bender.  A brief quote from the book jacket:

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the slice.

She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother – her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother – tastes of despair and desperation.  Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.  Anything can be revealed in any meal.  She can’t eat her brother Joseph’s toast, a cookie at the local bakery is laced with rage, grape jelly is packed with acidic resentment.

While I would never wish to have such a gift, I do think it is possible to taste something of a person’s emotions in their cooking.  You can tell when a chef is distracted and disengaged – just think of Sunday brunch at most places, where the taste of the Chef’s hangover is often so profound I half expect to find a note crying for help under my toast.

I know I could certainly taste my emotions in my food this week – in particular the bitterness in the endive tatin I made on Wednesday.  For the first time this semester, I actually screwed up a dish.  Nearly every possible thing was wrong with it, and my mood deteriorated as the class progressed.   It was overcooked, messy, and the caramel in my sauce hardened to cement on contact with the plate.  And my other dish from that class wasn’t much better.  Scallops in phyllo pastry that didn’t brown, and a cold sauce and cold garnishes.  Neither dish was difficult to execute, but it seemed like nothing was going right – Chef 2 was definitely not impressed.  I didn’t even bother to take pictures of my dishes because I’m hoping to wipe that episode from my memory – so these are pictures of Chef 2’s versions from the demo.

 

 

 

When I got home that night I didn’t have much in the fridge for dinner, so I sunk my fork into my plastic container of class leftovers.  They tasted terrible – bitter, frustrated and angry, with a sticky note of embarrassment.  Dreadful.

Thankfully, Thursday brought a new day and another “black box” workshop.  This time, I made red snapper with sauce Maltaise (an orange Hollandaise) and salsify frites, and braised pork stuffed with endive and green apples in a veal stock, star anise and clove sauce.  Other than the sauce on the snapper gumming up on me (my own fault – and it won’t happen again!), both dishes were excellent.  Chef 2 was pleased, and even said “congratulations!”  And the leftovers?  They tasted like happiness, joy, and redemption.

 

 

I guess that, good or bad, we leave it all on the plate.