Tarte Tropezienne Part 1 Of 2 – Background

CATEGORY	CUISINE	TAG	YIELD
	Mexican	Tart	8	Servings
INGREDIENTS

See part 2 for recipe
INSTRUCTIONS

Recipe by: Author Unknown  This Tarte Tropezienne recipe is not my
original creation. It's based  on a recipe in a cookbook entitled La
table d'un ProvenÃ§al by Mr.  Guy Gedda, a noted authority on
provenÃ§al cuisine, and incorporates  some adaptations we've made to
accommodate our own tastes.  According to Mr. Guy Gedda, the recipe was
developed by Alexandre  Micka, a Pole whose family immigrated to the
Lorraine part of France  in 1914. WWII brought Mr. Micka to St.-Tropez.
He fell in love with  the sun and sea and decided to stay after the
War. Relying on his  pre-War apprenticeship in a pastry shop in
Lorraine, he opened his  own pastry shop in St.-Tropez. Using local
ingredients, he re-created  as best he could a pastry that he recalled
from his youth in Lorraine  and called it Tarte TropÃ©zienne. The
people in St.-Tropez didn't  give much regard to his creation at first.
It was considered just a  "local curiosity" until the 1960's when
St.-Tropez began attracting  beautiful people from around the world who
fell in love with his  creation.  Mr. Micka's biggest turning point
came in 1970, when he was offered a  one-month Mexican vacation by an
American businessman who owned a  chain of Mexican restaurants in the
U.S. The offer was conditioned on  Mr. Micka cooking up his Tarte
Tropezienne at various restaurants to  introduce to North American
palates. This sojourn in North America  introduced Mr. Micka to the
convenience of frozen foods and he  launched a line of frozen Tarte
Tropezienne upon his return to France  to increase his market base.
Today, the authentic Tarte Tropezienne is made fresh in Cogolin, a
town adjacent to St.-Tropez. Mr. Micka will not reveal the secrets of
his creme patissiere. But a pastry chef named Roland Delmonte in
Bormes les Mimosas, the home of Mr. Gedda's restaurant, has  re-created
it to a level of 19.5 authenticity on a scale of 20! Here  is his basic
recipe with a few of modifications added in.  This is an ambitious
recipe which takes about 5 hours from start to  finish.  Entered for
you by: Bill Webster Posted to MC-Recipe Digest V1 #870  by Bill
Webster <thelma@pipeline.com> on Oct 27, 1997
A Message from our Provider:

“Find God and you find everything”