Mont Blanc; Another Shoe Dropping

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

MONT BLANC

(ADS-L ARCHIVES)
Item #28583 (7 Jan 2003 07:21) - Re: California drivers
Benjamin Barrett
Bringing tiramisu and mont blanc to Seattle

MONT BLANC + CHESTNUTS--581 Google hits, 33 Google Groups hits
MONTE BIANCO + CHESTNUTS--49 Google hits, 9 Google Groups hits

   "Mont Blanc" is not in the revised OED.  Just...amazing.
   I felt like eating some of the full-color pages of those Italian cookbooks.


PATISSERIE OF ITALY
by Jeni Wright
New York: McGraw-Hill Book COmpany
1988

Pg. 57:  MONT BLANC  MONTE BIANCO
   Monte Bianco takes its name from the snow-capped mountain peak Mont Blanc in the French Alps.  The dessert originated in Lombardy, although it is now popular in restaurants all over the world.


(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
HOUSEKEEPING IN FLORENCE.; Cold Rooms and Brick Floors -- But There's Domenica's Cooking
The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: May 17, 1908. p. E3 (1 page):
   You taught us also to love the minor Italian cheeses, Strachino di Milano, Pecorino, and that the coarse, black bread of the people was infinitely superior to the best white flour products of the English bakery.  Macaroni, spaghetti, vermicelli, were stuff that dreams were made of in your skillful hands, and I prefer your Monte Bianco of chestnuts and whipped cream to any ice from the best patisserie in Paris.

News of Food; Mont Blanc, Good European Dessert, Can Be Made Here in Next Six Weeks
By JANE NICKERSON. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Feb 5, 1949. p. 12 (1 page):
   A gentle reproach arrived from Mrs. Alfred M. Brooks of Gloucester, Mass., who asked why in discussing Italian chestnuts this department failed to mention "that delicious dessert which one used to get so often in France and Italy and which makes such a good dinner party dessert--Mont Blanc.  It is a mound of chestnut puree sweetened and forced through a ricer, topped with whipped cream."
   This letter struck a happy note of memory with THE TIMES home economist, Mrs. Ruth P. Casa-Emellos, who herself used to enjoy "Mont Blanc" in Europe.  Working out the recipe in our test kitchen, she used both the chestnuts that come fresh in their shells and those that are imported only after shelling and drying.
  She paid 30 cents a pound for the fresh and 40 cents for the ried, but since there is so much shell waste to the fresh, the dried turn out to be a bit cheaper.  And being shelled, they are much easier to use, too.  Soak them overnight to partly rehydrate them before boiling with other vegetables or for stuffing or desserts.  Roasting is the only use to which they cannot be put.
   This Mont Blanc dessert is especially timely now.  In fact, it won't be possible in another six weeks because chestnuts, which no longer are grown here owing to the blight, are only imported from October through February.
   The directions on the preparation appear below with the picture on the left.  Finishing touches are illustrated by the picture on the right.

Chestnut Paste Proves an Elusive Commodity in District Stores but Anne Tells How to Make Your Own
The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Mar 1, 1950. p. B7 (1 page):
   However, there are directions for making your own paste in this recipe for Mont Blanc from "Tante Marie's French Kitchen," by Charlotte Turgson (Oxford).
   _Mont Blanc_
   Take a pound of chestnuts and, with a sharp-pointed knife, make an X on the flat side of each nut.  Plunge the nuts in rapidly boiling water and boil 10 minutes.  Remove from the water and, while they are still hot, remove the shell.  Scald 2 cups milk.  Add 1 cup sugar and cook chestnuts in milk 40 minutes.  Force through food milk or strainer.
   Heap chestnuts on dessert platter in shape of pyramid.  SMooth sides with moistened blade of a knife and decorate with sweetened whipped cream forced through a pastry tube.  Serve warm or cold.

Chestnuts, Walnuts and Pecans
By JANE NICKERSON. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jan 11, 1953. p. SM38 (2 pages)
First Page:  MONT BLANC
1 1/2 pound chestnuts
3 cups milk, scalded
1 two-inch length vanilla bean
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups cream, whipped.
   (1) Cut a gash or cross in the flat side of each chestnut.  Cover with water and boil fifteen minutes.  Drain, cover with cold water, shell and peel off brown skin.
   (2) Scald milk with vanilla bean in a double boiler.  As each chestnut is peeled add it to the hot milk.  Cook over boiling water till chestnuts are very tender (about thirty minutes) and drain.  (If desired, milk may be used later for a thickened pudding.)
   (3) While chestnuts are cooking, boil sugar and water to 236 degrees F. (soft ball in cold water).
   (4) Puree chestnuts using a sieve or food mill.  Add sugar syrup and butter to the puree and blend thoroughly.
   (5) Rub mixture through a sieve, letting it fall lightly into a nine-inch ring mold.  Place any puree that falls outside in the mold.  Turn out on serving plate and chill.
   (6) Serve with center of ring filled with whipped cream, plain or sweetened and flavored, if desired, with vanilla.  Yield: twelve servings.

News of Food: Eating in Italy; Macaroni Magnate Picks Top Restaurants in His Native Land Returned Visitor Lists Also His Favorite Menu in Each
By JANE NICKERSON. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jan 25, 1956. p. 34 (1 page):
  At Giggi Fazi: ... and Monte Bianco (pureed chestnuts with whipped cream and shaved chocolate).

Chestnuts Fill the Bill, Fowl Too, for Holiday
Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Nov 20, 1961. p. A12 (1 page):
   Mont Blanc, an Italian dessert, is a white mountain of chestnut puree topped with whipped cream, garnished with candied fruit or pistachio nuts and whole chestnuts.
   Bottled chestnuts in a sweet vanilla sauce, called Marron glace, are delicious over vanilla ice cream.
   MONT BLANC
1 lbs. chestnuts
1 qt. milk
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 tablespoons Strega or rum or 1 teaspoon rum flavoring
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
  Candied fruit or pistachio nuts
   Cut a long gash on round side of chestnuts.  Drop into boiling water.  Cook 20 min. or until shells andskins are easily removed.  Combine milk, sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla in top of double boiler.  Add shelled and blanches chestnuts.  Cook over hot water until nuts are mealy and tender.  Drain.  Reserve a few chestnuts for garnish.  Force chestnuts through a food mill or ricer to make 1 cup puree.  Blend in Strega, pressing ingredients firmly together to form a half moon.  Place in center of platter.  Puree remaining chestnuts so that they fall on top of the half moon and form a mound.  Whip cream until stiff.  Fold in 1 teaspoon vanilla and confectioners' sugar.  Spoon whipped cream over chestnut mound so that it cascades down the sides.  Garnish with candied fruit, pistachio nuts and whole chestnuts.  CHill thoroughly before serving.  Makes 6 to 8 servings.


(GOOGLE)
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/cookbooks/searchresultswithin.cfm
Mont Blanc
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1896.

MONT BLANC CAKE
Breakfast, Luncheon And Tea. By Marion Harland [Pseud.]. New York, Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1875.
(This doesn't have chestnuts?--ed.)


(GOOGLE)
http://www.stratsplace.com/rogov/mont_blanc_aux_marrons.html
There may be no winter-time dessert more adored in all of France than the one known as "Mont Blanc aux Marrons". What most Frenchmen do not realize, however, is that the dessert, named after Mont Blanc, the highest of all the Alps, and the mountain that forms a critical point along the French-Italian border, was probably first made by an Italian.

The first mention of the dessert, based on a sweetened puree of chestnuts piled high with whipped cream, is found in Giovanni Platina's "The Honest Cook" which was printed in Florence in 1475. By the beginning of the 16th century the dish was popular through- out all of Italy and was a special favorite in the households of Cesare Borgia and his sister Lucrezia. The first actual recipe, nearly identical to the one used today, appears in Bartolomeo Scappi's "Cooking Secrets of Pope Pius V" which was published in 1570.

A dessert this popular could not help but make its way across the French border and in 1620 a baker in Chamonix claimed the invention as his own. Once it had been established as a French recipe, the burghers of Paris, Lyon and Grenoble adopted it as their own. The dessert that had been born more than one hundred and fifty years earlier in Florence had been converted once and for all into a famous French dessert.

---------------------------------------------------------------
ANOTHER SHOE DROPPING

   No one remembers?  I'd posted this on ADS-L, 7 September 2002:


   20 March 1921, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. BRM5:
   If nine out of ten of us hadn't heard that "drop that other shoe" chestnut
and molded our lives accordingly for the sake of the neighbor below us, what
would be the end of us?

   20 May 1933, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 12:
   How soon will the Japanese enter Peping and Zientsin and so drop that
other shoe?

   12 July 1938, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 18:
   A sound meter will no doubt register every decibel of a man dropping his
shoe on the floor overhead at midnight.  But a meter will not lie awake and
twitch, waiting for the man to drop his other shoe.