Tarte Flambée or Flammekueche; Alsace’s Signature Slow Fast Food.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 


 
Cooking inside the oven at the Taverne de l’Ackerland
Tarte Flambée is also known as Flammekueche or Flammen Kuechen


The traditional tarte flambée or flammekueche
   
Tarte flambées, locally mostly called flammekueche have been made in the Alsace for at least one hundr ed years. International tourism’s enormous growth than began some seventy or so years ago brought this family dish into local restaurants. The tarte is a rolled out, very thin, pâte à pain, bread dough, covered with crème fraîche and a soft white cheese, usually a local cheese called bibeleskaes. Over the cheese are spread thinly sliced onions and lardons, (smoked or fried bacon bits), and then all will be baked in a wood-burning oven for about ten minutes and served.
       
A tarte flambée.
www.flickr.com/photos/nicestalan/4535793428/
   
Public demand from tourists, including French tourists, have changed the size of the portions.  Most restaurants now offer tarte flambées, in both small and large sizes. The small size makes an excellent entrée, the French first course, or together with a salad a light lunch. A large tarte flambée will be the plat, the French main course. Dessert versions have also been created, and a dessert tarte flambée comes with fruit, often with a taste of a strong eau-de vie, a fruit brandy, while some may have ice cream added just before serving.  Tarte flambée, the French name, remains the name most often used in English as there is no other accepted English name. Menus may offer Tarte Flambée Salée, savory or Sucrée, sweet versions. The options are endless, but a few of the favorites are noted below:
     
Tarte flambée on French menus.
                                   
Tarte Flambée Classic or Nature, Traditionnelle or à l’Ancienne -   All these names indicate a tarte flambée made with the traditional recipe. A very thin, pâte à pain, that’s bread dough, is covered with crème fraîche and a soft white cheese usually a local cheese called bibeleskaes. Over the cheese are spread thinly sliced onions and lardons, (smoked or fried bacon bits).
    
Tarte Flambée au Magret de Canard Fumé  - A traditional tarte flambée with added slices of smoked duck breast.
  
Tartes Flambées au Feu de Bois - Tarte flambées cooked in a traditional wood-burning oven.

The menu.

Tarte Flambée aux Bananes Flambée au Rhum – A banana dessert tarte flambéed with rum.  A dessert Tarte Flambée flambéed with rum. Dessert versions of tarte flambée like this one were created much later than the traditional versions when tourists arrived with a taste for restaurant theatre.  The tarte flambée dessert versions now often include a brandy or an eau-de-vie, which will be, flambéed,  set alight in front of the diner; shades of Crepe Suzette!

La Tarte Flambée aux Pommes, Flambée à l'Alcool de Quetsches –  An apple, dessert tart, flambéed with the plum eau-de-vie, brandy,  made from the Alsace and Lorraine's famous quetsche plums.  Like all other plums this plumb’s origin is Asian, and like many other French fruits reached France, Germany, Spain and the UK with the Romans.  The quetsche plum is, in fact, a German cross and in Germany is called a Zwetsche.

A dessert pear tarte flambée.
www.flickr.com/photos/15472273@N07/29822040700/

For the citizens of the regions of Alsace and Lorraine, the quetsche plum is a native son. The quetche is a mauve to almost black plum has fragrant and sweet yellow flesh; it is oval shaped with nearly pointed ends; its nearest UK relation is the damson plum which is not as sweet.  In season, these plums are on sale all over France, and out of season, you may request, for a digestif, the 40% alcohol quetsche eau-de vie.
   
A Gisselbrecht quetsche eau-de-vie

Tarte Flambée: Formule à Partir de 6 Personnes par  Table: Tartes Flambées à Volonté Salée, Sucrée et Salade à Volonté - An all you can eat option of sweet and savory Tarte Flambés accompanied by mixed green salads. With the addition of a couple of bottles of Alsace white wines  who could ask for anything more!   N.B. The salads served with tarte flambées are usually small. so unless noted on the menu, do not expect too much..
        
Tarte Flambée Gratinée à l'Emmental/ Gruyère/Munster,  Salade Verte Mélangée (Supplément par Personne) –  A traditional tarte flambée baked with added French Emmental, Gruyere or Munster cheese. A mixed green salad is offered with a per person surcharge.
Tarte Flambée Forestière
A traditional tarte flambée with added Champignons de Paris
www.flickr.com/photos/near_fantastica/3572534526/
   
Tarte Flambée Moitié/Moitié ... C'est vous qui Composez  - Moitié-moitié means half and half; and no, this tarte flambé is not made with that American coffee cream!  Here, moitié-moitié is on the menu for a tarte flambée made to your order with two different additions. Moitié-moitié is also what you say, in parts of France, when you ask for two different dishes to be split between two diners; each diner will have one half of the other's meal.
    
The wine to accompany your tarte flambée.
   
Order Alsatian wine with your tarte flambée, and you may enjoy the perfect light Alsatian lunch or dinner. Choose a white two or, at most, three-year-old semi-dry Alsatian Gewürztraminer or a white semi-dry Alsatian Pinot Gris, and you will not regret it as the Alsace has some of the best white wines in France.
     
The traditional wine glass used for Alsatian wines.
www.flickr.com/photos/toolongtobepractical/15084628166/
        
The history of the tarte flambée.
    
Some guide books call a tarte flambée an Alsatian pizza; however, those who wrote that obviously know zero about pizza and zero about tarte flambé. Tarte flambée and pizza are entirely different dishes and have different histories, different doughs, and the tarte flambée has no tomatoes and no mozzarella in its history. Making breads in wood burning ovens is
 
The Alsace together with région of the Lorraine were, over hundreds of years, ruled by France and or Germany in turn.  The result today is while the Alsace and the Lorraine are indisputably French a large percentage of the locals also speak German dialects along with perfect French.  Flammen kuechen remains one of the names for a tarte flambée in the Alsatian-German dialect called Allemand Alsacien or Elsässerditsch; in the dialect or in French the  the words mean cooked in flames.

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Copyright 2010, 2013,2018, 2019.


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