Food Notes: 4/7: Quiche
Quiche Lorraine, new food magazines, Veselka back to being all night and more
Americans typically think of quiche as a brunch food. But a slice of quiche with a light salad is actually a wonderful lunch or dinner, especially when you’re looking to use up extra milk and eggs.
Quiche is an ancient foods with origins as far back as ancient Rome, though back then it was closer to cheesecake. But eggy cakes persisted, and Medieval European cooking methods saw those dishes evolve into something more recognizable to modern, with more egg, less cheese.
Across Europe, variations on these egg cakes came into existence. Italians have the Frittata, crustless quiche fried in a pan. In Spain, the Tortilla Española is a crustless egg omelette with potatoes. Germans have a Badischer-Zwiebelkuchen, an onion and egg tart.
Perhaps the best known style of quiche in the United States is Quiche Lorraine, which comes from the historical region in eastern France. But until the 20th century, few people outside of Lorraine had ever even heard of the Quiche Lorraine, a basic recipe of egg custard baked with bacon lardons.
But then America was re-introduced to the quiche in 1962 during season 1 of The French Chef, Julia Child’s first show on PBS. Child helped make quiche a trendy dish beginning in the 1960s.
I taught myself to make quiche a few decades back while I was cooking through Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I only got through a few recipes when I realized Julie Powell had started a similar project and was much farther along. It really burned me up that Powell sold a book based on cooking every recipe in the book within a year, although she was almost finished before I had even gotten past sauces. I suppose Ian & Julia isn’t nearly as witty a title as Julie and Julia.
By the 1970s, quiche was a trendy food, and it wasn’t long before the simple Quiche Lorraine recipe was becoming Americanized. “Why Leave French Quiche Alone?“ asks a 1968 newspaper, “Will Americans’ penchant for changing quiche Lorraine spoil it? You Decide.” Some of the suggestions that follow include Corny Quiche filled with corned beef hash, and Crab Quiche with Alaskan King Crab. So yes, you decide.
By the mid-1970s, quiche was on trend, and American cooks couldn’t stop American-ing adding all sorts of unhinged fillings. For instnace, there’s even a Quiche Americaine, with flaked tuna in place of chicken. (Yes, adding chicken to an egg custard was another American innovation of the 1970s).
All this might be why quiche’s popularity began fading in the 1980s. Sure, you could find it on the brunch menu of a baby shower, and maybe even as a frozen Hors d’oeuvre at a fancy party. But it ceased to be a symbol of trendiness. The world was moving on.
But back in Europe though, it’s common to find sensible varieties of quiche on lunch and dinner menus. Served with a side salad, it’s a delicious, light meal.
With spring break approaching, I was looking to use up things that would spoil in the refrigerator while we were gone, including the milk, eggs, and the opened package of bacon. In addition to the bacon lardons, I add to my quiche a bit of cheese, onions, and spinach.
My wife volunteered to make the pie crust, but I’m also perfectly happy to cheat on this and use a store-bought frozen crust for the sake of expediency.
I ended up rolling out the pie dough and stuffing it in a cake pan. Julia Child uses a shallow pie dish, but this has always left me with a mess and an over baked crust edge. She also suggests a spring form pan to easily pop the quiche out of the pan, but this can leak, particularly if your quiche crust is imperfect.
Quiche Trés Américain
INGREDIENTS
6 to 8 strips of leftover bacon
4 eggs
1 cup of milk
1 onion
1 big bundle of spinach
1 pie crust
Salt, pepper, onion powder
INSTRUCTIONS
Dice the bacon into fine pieces and cook until crispy
Reserve bacon, allowing to cool
Cook down the spinach and onion in the bacon grease
Reserve and cool
Shred the cheese
Par bake your crust
Combine eggs, milk, salt, pepper, onion powder and whip it, whip it good.
Layer the bacon and and cheese on the partly baked crust (the fat helps protect the bottom layer from moisture)
Spread out the spinach and onion and last bit of cheese
Pour egg over everything, keeping in mind it will expand
Bake at 375F for 30 to 45 minutes
The Latest
Another Week, Another Food Magazine Launches
Ravenous, a new worker-owned food-focused cultural web magazine launched this week with six founding editors who have had, among other work experiences, written for or edited Eater, the one-time standard in food media. (Eater’s staff has since been gutted by round after round of layoffs). The subscription-based publication aims to build a “place where we can cover the world of restaurants, food, culture and labor with the sort of depth, edge, curiosity, and care that are increasingly disappearing from food media.”
Nutella In Space
A jar of Nutella floated by during a livestream with Artemis II, highlighting how zero gravity environments are wild places to work and eat, and also that the astronauts have good taste.
Jalapeño Peppers Are So Over
José Ralat at TexasMonthly says that science has turned venerable pepper into a mild shell of its once great self. He calls the serrano, an actual hot pepper, a better chile.
The New Food Influencers
Everyone is tired of the food influencers. The TikTok stars who obnoxiously shove their camera into trendy food spots for content, often demanding payola from business owners, are finally starting to lose momentum. The new food influencers are acting a lot more like old fashioned journalists, talking to food vendors and showing themselves on camera talking about the actual food. The New York Times profiles a few of these newest influencers and looks at how they connect with audiences.
The War on Raspberries
We might have been pulled back from the brink of global nuclear war, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t feeling the impact. I’m not talking about the sky high gas prices, at least not directly. I’m talking raspberries, one of the most perfect sweet fruits you can eat. Perishable and delicate, they are energy intensive to produce and ship, and the price is already rising fast.
Chicken Ice Cream
The Yankees finally released their new menu items just in time for their home opener (we updated the big list of baseball foods), and one of the totally unhinged menu items has sold out after two days. The “chicken” is actually ice cream molded like drumsticks over chocolate covered pretzel bones and covered with candy cornflakes.
Veselka Back to 24/7 Service
New York City’s iconic Veselka, the Ukrainian diner, is back to 24/7 service, according to their Instagram. The overnight service was shuttered during the pandemic, and staffing issues prevented the restaurant from reopening,.