How the Hot Dog Found Its Bun (9 page)

According to Charpentier’s 1934 autobiography,
Life à la Henri
, the Prince sent over “a jeweled ring, a Panama hat, and a cane” the next day in gratitude for his creation.

There are numerous experts who question this story.
The Oxford Companion to Food
insists it was developed at Paris’s Restaurant Paillard in 1889 and named after an actress who played a chambermaid serving pancakes in a contemporary comedy. The food encyclopedia does point out that this original version did not have liquor and was not flamed at the table like Charpentier’s bungled effort.

However preposterous, it’s hard not to root for the veracity of Charpentier’s story. Late in life, he found himself in the Southern California seaside town of Redondo Beach financially broken with just ten dollars in his pocket. He secured a very small space—described once as “unglamorous as a hamburger stand”—and began serving a single dinner to one party a night. Groups of between twelve and sixteen guests would beg to score a table and indulge in the master’s cooking, for which he charged an extremely reasonable eight dollars a head. His patrons had to be incredibly patient: It took
four years
to get in for a meal.

Charpentier, who passed away in 1961, could have cashed in on his notoriety, but he seemed pleased to take things slow. “I only make enough money to live. . . . My reward is the joy of good eating, good companionship, and happy diners,” he said.

His crêpes Suzette story is likely a tall tale, but if that’s the only reason he’s remembered today, I’m buying.

Granny Smith Apples: Garbage discovery

Quick quiz: Which of the following was an actual person: Betty Crocker, Granny Smith, or Aunt Jemima? As we’re talking about those great green apples in this section (America’s favorite apple pie filler), I’m sure you’re not surprised that the correct answer is Granny Smith. Before she was a granny, Maria Smith had lived a lot of life. Born in 1800 in Sussex, England, Maria, along with her husband, Thomas, and their five children, emigrated to New South Wales, Australia, in 1838. After a number of years in the new country, the family bought a thirty-four-acre farm for £605 (approximately $56,000 in today’s dollars) and started growing fruit.

Although the Smiths were producing a number of fruits, the famed apples that bear Maria’s name weren’t a part of the crop. Truth be told, with five children and, by that time, grandchildren (hence the granny sobriquet), Mrs. Smith probably wasn’t intently focused on picking or growing in the farm’s early years. But by the late 1860s, Thomas had become infirm, forcing the aging grandmother to take over the business.

It was during this period that Maria made her discovery, which was, without a doubt, never planned. Smith’s grandson Benjamin Spurway recounted years later that Smith had been given French crab apples from Tasmania by a fruit agent and Granny used them to produce apple pies. She discarded the unused peels and cores through an open window next to the kitchen. Sometime later she noticed a seedling growing near her wall with an odd new apple. Another variation on the story has Granny dumping rotting French crabs beside a nearby creek and discovering a wee new apple tree there.

In either case, this type of serendipitous creation through open pollination isn’t incredibly uncommon. Still, it rarely produces such a perfect fruit. (The dual purpose Granny Smith apple is great for both cooking and eating raw.) The beauty of the new apple wasn’t immediately identified by all. When she showed some to neighbors in 1868, the apples received little fanfare. Granny died in 1870, but her apples continued on as members of her family began cultivating the new variety. In 1890 they were exhibited at the Castle Hill Agricultural and Horticultural Show. The next year they won top prize for cooking apples at the event.

Granny Smith apples really gained attention after World War I when Australian industry looked to mass ship its produce abroad. They became popular in the United States in the 1960s and by 1975 Granny Smiths represented 50 percent of all Australian apple exports (and 40 percent of the country’s overall crop). They are also produced in such Southern Hemisphere locales as New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, and South Africa. The reason for their popularity? Along with boasting excellent acidity and texture when stewed and offering a good combination of sweet and tart, Granny Smith apples also have another key characteristic—they’re tough. The apple remains edible after up to six months in cold storage and it “is nearly as resilient as a tennis ball and holds up well in shipping,” according to food author Roger Yepsen.

It seems appropriate that the apple that bears Maria Smith’s name would be as hardy as the woman who moved from one side of the world to the other, raised five children, tended to an invalid husband, and ran a farm.

Rhubarb: Bumbling builders

Rhubarb, when combined with strawberries, makes such a perfect crumble or pie that it’s often known in foodie circles as “pie plant.” In fact, although rhubarb is a vegetable, the US customs court in Buffalo, New York, broke with reality—and the fact that it’s often used in savory sauces—and decreed it a fruit in 1947 because it was so popular as a dessert stuffing. But it wasn’t always like that. Without a construction mistake, rhubarb might have never truly developed into a good go-to dessert option.

Humans have been aware of rhubarb for more than two thousand years (some suggest even longer than that). In the wild, it’s common in cool climates. Gatherers in places like Mongolia and Siberia were the first to pull its roots. While some stout Siberians stuck the veggie in pies, most people recoiled at adding early rhubarb to a regular diet. The celery-looking stalks were extremely acidic and not too pleasing to the palate.

Instead, rhubarb was used for medicinal purposes. Though it can be toxic if you take too much of it (chomping on the leaves can make you really sick), the veggie is full of oxalic acid. Today oxalic acid is used in cleaning supplies, but the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese, and even the more modern British thought it was helpful for such maladies as a persistent cough. Henry VIII supposedly used rhubarb-based medicine for a long stretch late in his life. In the seventeenth century, its dried root was so coveted in England that it cost three times the price of opium. Despite the high street value, I somehow have a hard time seeing rhubarb pushers sneaking around back alleys.

As a cherished commodity, rhubarb was grown in a small plot at the posh Chelsea Physic Garden in London. Nevertheless, it must not have been too much of a focus because when some workers were brought to the garden to dig a trench near the rhubarb patch in 1815, they didn’t give the vegetable any thought. Rather than dumping the spoil from the ditch into an unused area, they tossed the dirt right on top of the garden’s rhubarb crowns.

The rhubarb was then forgotten until it was time to fill the trench again (what work was being done isn’t known). Once the spoil was cleared, the garden’s curator William Anderson made an unexpected discovery. Instead of the normal cherry-red-stalked rhubarb, up popped a paler, more tender variation of the vegetable. Anderson must have taken a taste and found the flavor to be far mellower than rhubarb’s normal eye-watering tang. He started testing the discovery and in 1816 sent off his findings to the Royal Horticulture Society. It turned out that when rhubarb was packed in extra soil (and fortified with manure) it thrived. Special pots were created to help the process.

An area of Yorkshire in northern England—dubbed “the rhubarb triangle”—developed into the center of its cultivation. Over time, those exacting gardeners up north learned that a little additional luck probably further aided the London discovery of the far more edible rhubarb. It turns out that not only is a load of dirt needed for what is now known as forced growth rhubarb, but temperatures also have to be just right (approximately 55°F to 65°F). Though the weather can be notoriously temperamental in London, it must have stayed just constant enough at the Chelsea Physic Garden following the worker’s flub to ensure that we have the finest rhubarb-strawberry pies today.

Tarte Tatin: Ditzy sister

The history of the popular French dessert tarte Tatin is a tale of two sisters. In 1888, Stephanie and Caroline Tatin inherited the Hotel Tatin from their father. Located in the Loire Valley in the small town of Lamotte-Beuvron, the hotel, which also featured a restaurant, was a success under the sisters’ stewardship.

There were two key reasons why it thrived. The first was the bounce the hotel received from Napoleon III. The monarch owned an estate not far from the hotel and stocked the area with game. As a result, hunters flocked to this part of the Sologne region. With the hotel strategically located across the street from the train station, it picked up tons of patrons. The second reason was Stephanie was a really good cook. While the younger Caroline—nicknamed “the little princess of Sologne”—was a socially adept hostess, the older Stephanie showed exceptional talent in the kitchen, while also having a reputation as somewhat of an airhead.

It was the combination of these factors that many claim led to the invention of the tarte Tatin. One day during the height of the hunting season in the 1890s, the hotel’s restaurant was incredibly crowded. Stephanie was trying to keep up with demand, but the scatterbrained chef neglected a pan full of apples she’d left simmering in butter over a fire. Alternatively, some believe that she had planned to line the pan with pastry dough before putting the apples on but neglected to do so in her rush. Whatever the case, many cooks might have been unsure about what to do with the seemingly wasted apples, but proving her space cadet reputation may have been a bit unwarranted, Stephanie improvised by putting a pastry shell over the now caramelized fruits and shoving the combination into the oven. When it finished baking, she turned the pie upside down and, voilà, the tarte Tatin was born.

Serious foodies hate this story. Many have pointed out that similar tarts—some with apples and others with pears—were popular in the Sologne region before Stephanie’s supposed mistake. One particularly inspired Tatin-ologist has argued that a chef from the estate of a local count was the actual inventor of the dessert. This claim suggests that the Tatin family was given the recipe details and Stephanie simply followed the directions. But nothing has been proved conclusively and, as Florence Fabricant pointed out in
The New York Times Dessert Cookbook
, the tarte Tatin—probably thanks in part to the fun accident story—has received “excellent PR” over the years.

By the 1920s word of the invention story and the fantastic new recipe had reached Paris. Maurice-Edmond Sailland, who was known by his pen name Curnonsky and was considered the “Prince of Gastronomy,” discovered the tarte Tatin and included it in his influential survey of French cuisine,
La France Gastronomique
. The famed Parisian restaurant Maxim’s would soon include the dessert on its menu, leading to another popular (though likely apocryphal) tale that the happening Paris hot spot sent a spy posing as a gardener to the Tatins’ restaurant to snatch the recipe.

Neither Stephanie, who passed away in 1917, nor Caroline, who died in 1911, was alive to see their confectionary namesake make it to the big time. The sisters never even called the dish the tarte Tatin and reportedly never wrote down the recipe. Accident or not, the caramelized, buttery treat was proudly prepared for all the patrons who came to their hotel. The restaurant, which still exists today, continues to have one rule about the dessert: It has to be served hot out of the oven.

Candies and Snacks

Cheese Puffs: Rabbit food

Junk food haters who say cheese puffs—aka cheese curls—aren’t fit for human consumption may be unconsciously referring to the product’s origin. Best known by such brand names as Cheetos and Cheez Doodles, this powdered mess of a snack got its start from a machine that manufactured food for animals.

In the 1930s the Flakall Company based in Beloit, Wisconsin, ran a successful business creating corn-based livestock feed. The company’s machine was particularly useful because it broke down dangerously sharp corn hulls by flaking the grain into easily digestible small pieces. The feed became popular, particularly for rabbits, who were the first to indulge in the mashed-up food. With demand high, the equipment, known as an extruder, would often run continuously. This was an intense process and parts could get extremely hot during the flaking procedure. To solve the problem, workers would pour moistened corn kernels into the extruder to cool things down and ease clogging.