[Sca-cooks] Thoughts on Adam Gopnik's Sweet Revolution in the New Yorker

[James M. Dorsey]

L.S.,

 

Adam Gopnik’s excellent piece on the evolution of desert and the role of
pastry chefs in culinary innovation raises interesting questions. Based on
interviews with prominent Catalan chefs who see themselves as the inheritors
of the French mantle of desert, the article explores the relationship
between savory and sweet. That exploration, however, dates much further back
in history to the Persian and then the Ottoman kitchen, with its high degree
of specialization and separate guild for pastry chefs. Sweet and savory was
not limited to deserts but played a prominent role in Persian and Ottoman
main dishes. But to stick to deserts, Europe was exposed to Ottoman playing
with sweet-savory combinations as far back as the 14th century when it
became enchanted with tavuk gögüs (chicken breast), shredded chicken in a
sweet milk pudding. Known as blanc manger or white pudding, tavuk gögüs
maintained its chicken content in contemporary Turkish cuisine but lost it
in Europe over the centuries.

 

James