11/15/2004. And the winner is...

For years, Denis has been trying to get me to enter the local apple pastry baking contest at St.-Valéry-en-Caux, a pretty seaside village about 6 miles from our house in Normandie. I'd always refused. On Saturday, as he was reading the Courrier Cauchois, our local paper there, he announced the contest yet again. The apple bake-off forms part of the festivities at the fall herring festival.

At first, more out of habit than anything, I demurred. But then...I felt stirrings of a desire. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I've now been living here long enough that I feel more natural and confident. Maybe it was because I remembered that I had a kilo of absolutely the best apples I'd ever tasted on hand. I quickly reviewed the state of my larder, mentally ticking off the crucial ingredients. I looked at my watch. It was 2:30.

"By when do you have to deliver your tart?" I asked Denis. He lowered the paper, his eyebrows arched in surprise. "By 6 p.m. Are you going to enter?"

I hesitated, then took the plunge. "I'll do it if you'll deliver the tart on your own. I'll be too busy preparing dinner at six." We had a deal.

Denis has been after me to enter this contest for so long first because I admittedly do make a very good apple tart, and second, because he thought it would be such a hoot for an American to win the apple tart contest deep in Norman apple country. Plus, it would probably get mentioned in his beloved Courrier Cauchois, and that, in his mind, would be a real claim to fame.

My feelings were more complex. I have to say that my apple tart is pretty much my signature dessert. I've probably made thousands of pies and tarts over my lifetime, and the apple tart in its current incarnation is pretty much the crowning achievement of a lifetime of impassioned experimentation on a theme I remember from when I was 3 or 4 years old: the apple tart of my Swiss grandmother. The truth is, I'd probably be pretty disappointed if my tart didn't win, simply because in all honesty, I've never tasted a better one. Disappointed? Hell, I'd be humiliated, crushed might not be too strong a word!

Meanwhile, if I was serious about entering the contest, I had to get to work. I had less than three hours to produce a tart from start to finish, and that had to include two chilling periods for the pastry. I whipped up that pastry, using a butter from Autize which my cheese monger had taught me is the best butter for pastry making, as it is the "driest." I never make my pastry in a food processor; it doesn't allow a fine enough control of the mingling of the butter and flour, which musn't be allowed to go too far. I use a good old fashioned American "pastry cutter" (with 4 heavy-gauge wires bent into a D-shape) to do the job. Importing two of these tools was one of the first things I did after I arrived to find that this item is unknown in France.

While the pastry was chilling, I peeled and sliced the apples. I let the peelings and cores fall into a medium saucepan, and cut the apple quarters radially into slices about 3/16" thick. Fortunately the apple variety I was using (Orange de Somerville) virtually did not oxidize at all. Nevertheless, I tossed the slices with the juice of half a lemon and a couple of tablespoons of sugar.

The peels and cores I covered with water, adding 3/4 cup sugar, and put on the stove to boil. After about an hour of gentle cooking, I strained out the apple syrup and reduce it to a rosy concentrate that I used to glaze the tart after it came out of the oven.

I rolled out the pastry, lined a large metal tart tin with it, and put it in the freezer for half an hour to chill. I am always amazed at how easily pastry made with French butter rolls out as compared to one made with American butter. French butter is much softer--even when cold--then American butter.

While the crust was chilling, I prepared the custard that I pour over the apples. I whisked 4 egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of sugar and the seeds scraped from a plump, fragrant vanilla bean. To that, I added 2 cups of raw cream that we had bought that very morning at the market in Fécamp from my favorite cream vendor--a lady in her seventies who has a small farm with about 20 cows. (I'll write about her and Fécamp in my next postcard.)

Now that the crust was good and frozen, I took it out and began arranging the apples in it in concentric, overlapping circles. One thing I've learned over the years is that the manner of arranging the apples is important. They should be laid flat and not overlapped too heavily. If they are arranged on edge or too thickly, the tart will be too wet and less perfect.

With the oven preheated to 400 degrees (convection), I slipped the tart in with only the apples--no custard yet--and left it to bake for about 12 minutes. When the crust was at the "prebaked" stage and the apples starting to soften, I took it out and poured over the custard, then dusted the top with a couple of tablespoons of sugar. It then went back in the oven for about another 20 minutes.

During this time, Denis had come home from his walk on the beach. "Where is the tart?," he asked me anxiously. I assured him it was baking and would be out just in time, but that he'd half to be very careful transporting it. As it would still be hot, it would be very fluid and the slightest tilt would cause it to run over.

When the custard was puffed up around the apples and the top deeply colored, I took the tart out of the oven and set it to cool for a few minutes. Then I used a tablespoon to drizzle the glaze all over it (this works better than trying to brush it on). I placed it on a large wooden tray for easy handling and followed my delivery man out to the car. I had to rig up an absolutely level surface using books on the front seat of the car. With a final admonishment to keep the tart level, I sent my delivery agent on his way. My last words as he pulled away were, "Do we get the leftovers back?"

Well, you can't enter your tart in a contest and eat it too, I found out. The winners were to be announced at noon the next day. We arrived at St.-Valéry-en-Caux around 11:30 and had to park a long distance from the center of the herring festival. But we didn't mind, as this led us in a pleasant promenade along the beautiful port of St. Valéry, where the water always has a beautiful jade color.

We stopped by the village bookstore, the appointed place where contestants were to be able to pick up their tart pans and other dishes. I think Denis thought that by showing up early we'd have some hope of capturing some leftovers. But no such luck. "But no, Monsieur," the bookstore owner intoned. "The judges just took their apéritif at 11! They haven't had a chance to wash the pans yet!" Ah, well...

We strolled down to the bandstand where the winner ceremony was to begin in a few minutes. We both got rather excited as it was festooned with banners of the Courrier Cauchois, meaning surely that my moment of fame or ignominy would receive the hoped-for media coverage!

The master of ceremonies, the mayor, and the chief judge (a professional patissier) gathered on the stage. They began by announcing in countdown fashion, beginning with fifth (!) place, the winners of the miscellaneous dessert category (which I had not entered). The lower three places received as prizes sacks of apples and--poor ladies!--sacks of fresh herring! I, who dislike herring, thought the presentation of plastic sacks of bloody raw fish rather cruel, but Denis assured me that the herring would be appreciated. The winner of the category, who had made a cake of coconut, crushed biscuits de Reims, and evaporated milk, seemed to have expected to win. Her name was scarcely off the judge's lips before she had charged up on the stage and gathered her prizes in her capacious arms.

The general category concluded (the winner had won a small trophy, a fondue set, and flowers), the judges now turned to the pivotal event which, this being Normandy, the land of apples, was the apple pastry contest. Again, there were five places, and again, they began at the bottom. Third place was won by a delightful elderly lady who had to be consoled by the judges, who told her that the top three had been very close. "She made the apple-pear tart I told you about," Denis confided to me knowingly.

Second place was a pleasant-faced blond woman of about my age. Well, I hadn't been called yet. It was either all or nothing. I reassured myself that it was far better to have nothing than second-best or worse. If I hadn't even placed, I could melt back into the crowd to nurse my wounds unobserved!

"Et en première place, pour la meilleure patisserie de pomme, Mme. Wilde de Routes!" "Weeeyyyy!"exclaimed Denis at my side, yelling that uniquely silly French cheer in his excitement. "Elle est américaine, d'ailleurs!" (What's more, she's American.) Denis announced gleefully to the officials on the podium and the crowd at large.

Silence fell for several long seconds. Then, without missing a beat, the master of ceremonies announced, "Donc, cette année, dans le Concours Internationale de la Patisserie de la Pomme de St.-Valéry-en-Caux... (So, this year, in the International Contest for Apple Pastry of St.-Valéry-en-Caux...

We walked away from the stage giddy with giggles. "I didn't tell them you were American before, you know," Denis confided. "I was afraid it might prejudice the judging." Crafty Denis...

It was, for all its provincialism, a wonderful moment. People called out "Bravo!" as we walked past. And I felt a surge of emotion. It wasn't so much elation at having made the best apple tart in the region, but more a flush of warmth at having vanquished once and for all the invisible zone of "apartness" of the expatriate. I took Denis' arm, snuggling into the warmth of being--at least on the weekends--a real Cauchoise.

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