Le lait

Le lait est un liquide nutritif généralement de couleur blanchâtre produit par les mammifères femelles (y compris les monotrèmes). Cette capacité des femelles est une des caractéristiques définissant les mammifères.

La fonction première du lait est de nourrir les petits (nourrisson chez l'homme) jusqu'à ce qu'ils soient capables de digérer d'autres aliments (sevrage).

Le lait des mammifères domestiques est un produit de consommation courante dans la plupart des civilisations humaines : lait de vache, de brebis, de chèvre, de jument, de dri, de chamelle, de dromadaire ou de bufflone.

Le lait des mammifères marins, tels les phoques ou les baleines, est bien plus riche en graisses et nutriments que celui des mammifères terrestres.

Le lait est produit par les cellules secrétrices des glandes mammaires ou mamelles (appelées « sein » chez la femme et « pis » ou « mamelles » chez les mammifères domestiques). Le lait sécrété dans les premiers jours après la parturition s'appelle le colostrum.

Tarte tatin

Tarte Tatin is an upside-down apple tart in which the apples are caramelized in butter and sugar before the tart is baked.

Tradition says that the Tarte Tatin was first created by accident at the Hotel Tatin in Lamotte-Beuvron, France in 1889. The hotel was run by two sisters, Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin. There are conflicting stories concerning the tart's origin, but the predominant one is that Stéphanie Tatin, who did most of the cooking, was overworked one day. She started to make a traditional apple pie but left the apples cooking in butter and sugar for too long. Smelling the burning, she tried to rescue the dish by putting the pastry base on top of the pan of apples, quickly finishing the cooking by putting the whole pan in the oven. After turning out the upside down tart, she was surprised to find how much the hotel guests appreciated the dessert. An alternative version of the tart's origin is offered on the Brotherhood of the Tarte Tatin website (see link below), according to which Stéphanie baked a caramelised apple tart upside-down by mistake. Regardless she served her guests the unusual dish hot from the oven and a classic was born.

The Tarte became a signature dish at the Hotel Tatin and the recipe spread through the Sologne region. Its lasting fame is probably due to the restaurateur Louis Vaudable, who tasted the tart on a visit to Sologne and made the dessert a permanent fixture on the menu at his restaurant Maxim's of Paris.

Tarte Tatin has to be made with firm dessert apples: cooking apples will not do as they mulch down into a purée. In North America, Tarte Tatin is typically made with Golden Delicious apples, which are not the type used for American-style apple pie.

Tarte Tatin can also be made with pears, peaches, pineapple, other fruit, or vegetables, such as onion.

baguette

A baguette (French for "little stick") is a variety of bread distinguishable by its much greater length than width, and noted for its very crispy crust. A standard baguette is five or six centimeters wide and three or four centimeters tall, but can be up to a meter in length. It is also known in English as a French stick or a French loaf.

Shorter baguettes are very often used for sandwiches. These sandwich-sized loafs are sometimes known as demi-baguettes or tiers. Baguettes are often sliced and served with pâté or cheeses. As part of the traditional continental breakfast in France, slices of baguette are spread with jam and dunked in bowls of coffee or hot chocolate.

Baguettes are seen as closely connected to France and especially to Paris, though they are available around the world. In France, not all long loaves are baguettes — for example, a standard thicker stick is a flûte and a thinner loaf is a ficelle.

French food laws define bread as a product containing only the following four ingredients: water, flour, yeast, and salt. The addition of any other ingredient to the basic recipe requires the baker to use a different name for the final product.

The baguette is a descendant of the bread developed in Vienna in the mid-19th century when steam ovens were first brought into use, helping to make possible the crisp crust and the white crumb pitted with holes that still distinguish the modern baguette. Long loaves had been made for some time but in October 1920 a law prevented bakers from working before 4am, making it impossible to make the traditional, often round loaf in time for customers' breakfasts. The slender baguette solved the problem because it could be prepared and baked much more rapidly. [1]


Freshly baked baguettesIn recent years, an amusing myth about the history of the baguette has sprung up, probably created by the imagination of Madison Avenue's advertising industry, according to some sources [2]. The story goes that the baguette was developed during Napoleon's campaigns against the Russians. His soldiers were told to pack extra clothes for the cold weather in the East but this left minimal space for food. The baguette was shaped so that it could be stored down the soldiers' trouser legs. The myth becomes less convincing, however, when it is known that Napoleon's armies traveled with mobile bakery units,[3] making it less likely that the individual soldier would have had to carry his own bread. Furthermore, a glance at the uniforms would dispel any remaining suspicion that the trouser legs might have had room for loaves of bread. [4] Napoleon did, however, help influence the shape and size of the baguette; in the past, there was a competition to see who could bake the longest baguette, but due to the association with excess consumption, Napoleon denoted the current length.