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| Custard Flan, in the French style |
This tart is the equilibrium of all things: flavour, texture and simplicity.
* In a moment of insanity, I asked the counter server, at a patisserie, if she sold gateau Basque. Her response was a horrified: Vous me posez cette question en Provence??! (You have the nerve to ask me this in Provence??!) I am not generally culturally insensitive but this place feels SO French-meets-Spanish that it seems natural that one would find that delicacy (aka the best thing on the planet) here. The woman was actually quite friendly - she had a gleam in her eye when she took me to task - but I was momentarily afraid she might run me out of the store. Thank God we were alone or my embarrassment would have been palpable.
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Oh, that request could have gone horribly wrong! ;-) Glad you survived with your tart intact!
ReplyDeleteI know. After I said it - I actually shivered!
DeletehA! They do have that big-ass, old-school, bull-fighting arena, do they not? But of course, the Basque aspect of that gateau has some political implications -- In Bordeaux, the link is much more obvious and regularly acknowledged. . . . Arles is perhaps a bit too far East? But ahhhhh, geography, politics, language, cultural sensitivity, all fade in your description of that beautiful cream. . . . (Portugal does a nice job of the custard pastries as well, btw)...
ReplyDeleteLoving your culinary travels, btw, just loving them!
They do! And we even went to see a bull fight (which does not end in death or violence here - I'm not up for that! - even though I still found the spectacle mean and completely bizarre). Have you ever been here? It's like hanging out in Spain (more so than being in France, IMO). I'm just on the hunt for food...
DeleteIt looks and sounds like what we called custard pie when we were growing up. And I've been craving a slice here recently.
ReplyDeleteYou either need to make it, or hop on a plane Faye :-)
DeleteC'est creme caramel, n'est pas? Or does the pie-slice shape make it something else?
ReplyDeleteNon! C'est different! It's like a strawberry tart filling (pastry cream). I'm not nuts about creme caramel. The texture puts me off.
DeleteI also love custard pie, and try as I might I just can't make it just like you get in France. I once had a version with prunes in, which was lovely. Looking forward to eating some when we go on holiday to France.
ReplyDeleteI know! I've tried too! Could be that the flour used to thicken the creme has diff properties than in NA. Or altitude. Or other small variables.
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