1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (148 page)

As its name suggests, the shimmering glass-green dessert is native to the Florida Keys, the home (in a manner of speaking) of the teasingly sweet-sour Key lime that inspires this enticingly cool treat. The pie is a deceptively simple
affair based on pungent Key lime juice, sweetened condensed milk, and enriching egg, all combined to make a custard that is poured into a crushed graham cracker crust and topped with whipped cream. Complexity comes via the spicy and sunny flavor of the lime itself, in contrast to the sugar and the gentle sweet cream.

The golf-ball-size fruit botanically known as
Citrus aurantifolia
also travels under the monikers of Mexican lime and West Indian lime, after the two areas where it is actually most commonly grown. Small, yellowish, highly acidic, and nose-twitchingly aromatic, the fruit is originally indigenous to Malaysia, from where it made its way around the world, courtesy of Arab traders and the Crusaders, and was introduced to the Caribbean by the Spanish.

The fruit’s association with Florida dates back to the early 1830s, when the prominent botanist Henry Perrine (then U.S. Consul in Campeche, Mexico) fortuitously planted limes from the Yucatán on Florida’s Indian Key. In 1906, the pineapples that were the area’s cottage industry were wiped out by a hurricane, and the limes presented an opportunity. Sadly, it was to be a short-lived success, as by 1926, severe hurricanes had also wiped out commercial Key lime production in southern Florida. These days, the larger, greener, hardier, seedless Persian limes are the prime crop grown in the Florida Keys, but a few locals do still grow the Key limes.

Where:
In Key West, FL
, Pepe’s Café and Steak House, tel 305-294-7192,
pepeskeywest.com
; Kermit’s Key West Key Lime Shoppe at two locations, tel 800-376-0806,
keylimeshop.com
;
in Miami Beach
, Joe’s Stone Crab, tel 305-673-0365,
joesstonecrab.com
;
in Brooklyn
, Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies, tel 718-858-5333,
stevesauthentic.com
.
Mail order:
Key West Key Lime Pie Co., tel 877-882-7437,
keywestkeylimepieco.com
; for bottled Key lime juice, Nellie & Joe’s Famous Lime Juice, tel 800-546-3743,
keylimejuice.com
; for whole fresh Key limes, except during summer months, Melissa’s Produce, tel 800-588-0151,
melissas.com
; for dwarf Key lime trees,
keylimepietree.com
.
Further information and recipes:
My Key West Kitchen
by Norman Van Aken and Justin Van Aken (2012);
saveur.com
(search key lime pie miami; frozen key lime pie on a stick).
Tip:
Some chefs dress up the pie by using true, baked pastry, but natives believe that this classic icebox pie turns soggy when anything but graham cracker (sometimes cinnamon-spiked) is used. Likewise, purists scoff at the practice of replacing the topping of whipped cream with meringue.

A light and luscious layer cake.

With three cloudlike layers of airy white cake alternating with a filling featuring dried fruits and a crunch of chopped pecans, and enveloped in an elegant satiny-white frosting, the Lady Baltimore cake stands tall as a symbol of the pastry kitchen of the American South.

One of many tearoom treats favored by ladies throughout the South toward the end of the nineteenth century, the cake was named for Joan Calvert, wife of the first Lord Baltimore. (The English colonizer who settled Baltimore is recognized by his own cake, the Lord Baltimore,
but his—made with egg yolks and a filling of macaroon crumbs, toasted almonds, and maraschino cherries—never really took off.)

Although the city of Baltimore gets credit for the cake’s name, recognition for its popularization belongs to the city of Charleston. When the baker Alicia Rhett Mayberry, who owned a café there, served Lady Baltimore cake to the visiting writer Owen Wistler at the turn of the twentieth century, he liked it so much that he used the name as the title of his next book. Published in 1906 and set in a fictionalized Charleston, its plot turns on a pivotal scene in which the narrator falls in love with a baker while ordering his own wedding cake—a Lady Baltimore. “Oh my goodness,” the character effuses. “Did you ever taste it? It’s all soft, and it’s in layers, and it has nuts—but I can’t write any more about it, my mouth waters too much.” The book was well received, but the cake became the real star. For a while, it was the most-requested wedding cake at the café.

It’s difficult to find a Lady Baltimore cake in a restaurant these days, but recipes abound in good Southern cookbooks. Technically, it is what’s known in baking terminology as a silver cake—one made with egg whites only, no yolks. The resulting lightness is offset by the sweet, toothsome filling of raisins, nuts, and diced dried fruits like figs and dates moistened with a splash of sherry or brandy. The cake’s beautiful snowdrift of icing is made by gradually pouring hot sugar syrup over stiffly beaten egg whites and whisking the mixture until it’s utterly smooth and glossy.

Where:
In Baltimore
, Gertrude’s restaurant in the Baltimore Museum of Fine Arts, tel 410-889-3399,
gertrudesbaltimore.com
;
in Palo Alto, CA and environs
, The Prolific Oven Bakery & Café,
prolificoven.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Southern Foods
by John Egerton (1993);
Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking
by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart (2012);
epicurious.com
(search lady baltimore cake);
marthastewart.com
(search lady baltimore cake).
See also:
Irish Whiskey Cheesecake
;
Schwärzwalder Kirschtorte
.

Finding ways to prepare food the quick and easy way seems an especially American pursuit, one that came into full flower between the 1920s and 1950s as kitchens became more convenient and women grew busier outside of the home. So it was with lemon meringue pie, a classic dessert that came in for its share of conveniencing with a shortcut that does not detract from the cool, sunny tartness of its custardy lemon filling or the showy cloud of golden-brown meringue that crowns it.

In the place of a cooked egg custard, the filling gets its gentle sweetness and satiny
texture from condensed milk flavored with freshly squeezed lemon juice and a generous amount of grated rind. A store-bought, ready-baked pie shell doesn’t hurt either.

6 to 8 servings

One 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

⅓ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, strained

Grated zest of 1 small lemon

3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature, separated

1 empty, baked, 9-inch pie shell, in the pie pan

Pinch of salt

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

⅓ cup sugar

1.
Combine the condensed milk, lemon juice, and grated zest with the egg yolks in a medium-size bowl and stir until smoothly blended. Do not whisk. Chill for 30 minutes. Pour the chilled mixture into the baked pie shell.

2.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.

3.
Beat the egg whites with the salt in a large bowl until the whites become frothy. Beat in the cream of tartar and, as the whites begin to form soft peaks, beat in the sugar 2 teaspoons at a time, until the whites are stiff but still shiny, about 4 minutes.

4.
Heap the whites onto the lemon filling in the pie shell and, with the back of a metal spoon, spread and fluff the whites into peaks until the filling is completely covered, being sure that the whites are spread to the very edges of the pie crust.

5.
Bake in the upper third of the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, or until the meringue peaks are golden brown. Cool at room temperature for at least 2 hours and up to 4 hours before serving. It is best not to chill the pie in the refrigerator, as that may cause the meringue to leak or wilt. Store loosely covered at room temperature.

Where:
In New York
, Bubby’s, tel 212-219-0666,
bubbys.com
; Grand Central Oyster Bar, tel 212-490-6650,
oysterbarny.com
;
in Brooklyn
, Grand Central Oyster Bar Brooklyn, tel 347-294-0596,
oysterbarbrooklyn.com
;
in Highland, IL
, Blue Springs Café, tel 618-654-5788,
foothipies.com
.
Further information and additional recipe:
Hallelujah! The Welcome Table
by Maya Angelou (2007).

A wonderful and nearly bygone accompaniment to beer, Leiderkranz is a descendant of the odoriferous German cheeses Limburger and Bismarck schlosskäse, with a meltingly soft, golden crust and a runny, ripe, and creamy interior. The cheese was developed by Adolphe Tode, owner of both a Manhattan delicatessen and the Monroe Cheese Company in Monroe, New York, in response to requests for old-country cheeses from his immigrant German clientele. He challenged his employees to come up with replicas, and in 1882, Emil Frey, one of Tode’s cheesemakers, came through. As a test of its appeal, the cheese was served to New York’s German American
singing group, the Liederkranz Society, where it received high praise and was christened with the group’s name, which means “wreath of song.”

Some forty years later, few Americans know their Liederkranz from their Limburger—a shame, as the spreadable ivory cheese is spectacular atop thin, dark pumpernickel rye toast or any of the crackling Scandinavian crispbreads, especially when sprinkled with minced onion or chives. But there may be reason to sing again. Although the cheese nearly disappeared when it was discontinued by the Monroe Cheese Company in the mid-1980s, in 2010 Wisconsin’s DCI Cheese Company launched a line of Liederkranz, and it is once again being sold in blocks, fittingly staging its comeback in the American capital of cheese.

Retail and mail order:
In Milwaukee, WI
, West Allis Cheese & Sausage Shoppe, tel 414-543-4230,
wacheese-gifts.com
.
Mail order:
Hefti Creek Specialties, tel 608-237-1992,
hefticreek.com
.
Further information and recipe:
The German Cookbook
by Mimi Sheraton (2014)
dcicheeseco.com/liederkranz
.
Tip:
Broadly speaking, Liederkranz is classified as one of Germany’s handcheeses (
handkäse
); see
listing
.

Although its name suggests the lowlands of the American South, lobster Savannah is actually a Boston original, an opulent dish of snowy boiled lobster meat blushed with rosy paprika and adorned with sherry, mushrooms, green peppers, pimientos, and a froth of béchamel sauce—all spooned back into the shell for a final baking under a sunny sprinkling of grated Parmesan. The result is a colorful, quintessentially rich, and aromatically complex blend of briny, buttery seafood, heady wine, and pungently sweet peppers.

The dish is strongly associated with Locke-Ober, once a stalwart on the Boston restaurant scene—an upscale hangout for politicians both local and national, as well as for affluent Harvard students and alums, ever since it opened in 1875. (Former habitués of the clubby dining room included Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy Jr.)

Lobster Savannah first appeared on the menu in the late 1930s, relatively expensive then as now and bearing more than a passing resemblance to the already-classic baked dish, lobster Thermidor; the latter is made of cooked, chopped lobster meat mixed with a béchamel sauce flavored with white wine and shallots. In those days lobster was plentiful and cheap, and adding butter, sherry, and other luxurious ingredients was a way of fancying it up to justify high prices. These days, the lobsters pack their own price punch, and although they’re exquisite accompanied by nothing more than sizzling-hot melted butter and lemon, this elegantly stuffed presentation is entirely worth “shelling out” for.

Where:
In Boston
, Abe and Louie’s, tel 617-536-6300,
abeandlouies.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Boston’s Locke-Ober Café
by Ned and Pam Bradford (1978); for lobster Thermidor,
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook
, 13th edition, by Marion Cunningham (1996);
foodnetwork.com
(search lobster savannah).