[Sca-cooks] Re:Pistachio Marzipan was OT: Evil Spawn,

[AEllin Olafs dotter]

I have no interest in that kind of stuff myself... Nice that someone 
does, but not me. I opened that book once, after hearing raves, said 
"How pretty!" and closed it fast. Pancakes, however, are right up my 
alley... *G*   Used to make a great baked German Apple one. Couldn't be 
easier, and impressed anyone who got to eat it...

However, the reason this had stuck in my mind was that, when my friend 
mentioned it, I thought it was the first (almond flavored...)  and he 
said it was the second, which I had never heard of. So, a recipe at the 
Library...

AEllin
4 days and counting until the end of Retail Madness. I seem to have hit 
a stage where I need to talk to someone other than a customer...

Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

>
> Maybe. I'm a Paula Peck's Art of Fine Baking and Gisslen's 
> Professional Baking man myself. I've been a pastry chef, but normally 
> I don't have the patience for that type of precision. My most 
> breath-taking stuff has always been interesting not for its complexity 
> or elaborateness, but something that, while an everyday dessert in a 
> two-square-mile area in southern France, seems hugely exotic to the 
> inexperienced diner, and comfort food to the more experienced 
> traveller. ;-)  As a result I find some of the stuff in The Cake Bible 
> a bit... not exactly intimidating, but more a challenge I haven't 
> found it necessary to face...
>
> So, for example, while fooling around in the kitchen in La Colombe 
> d'Or on a slow day, I sent out a comped dessert that I prepared on the 
> spur of the moment. The waiter came in and said the customer said they 
> were the best crepes he had ever eaten; he wanted to know what this 
> dish was called. "Pancakes," I said. "Pancakes??? What kind of 
> pancakes?" "Irish pancakes," I said. "Irish pancakes? What the &*%$#@ 
> does that mean?" "It means they're pancakes of a type eaten in 
> Ireland. Specifically, they're Shrove Tuesday Teatime Pancakes, if 
> that clarifies anything for you..."
>
> And this is just one of the 57 reasons I prefer the saute station to 
> pastry.
>
> But pistachio marzipan in the modern sense seems to come in two types: 
> almond marzipan flavored and colored to look like pistachio goo, and 
> marzipan actually made from pistachios. The medieval stuff would be 
> the latter.
>
> Adamantius
>