Reading about the upheaval caused in the restaurant trade by the ban on
trans fats in NYC, I was wondering whether say a fine restaurant in
Paris also uses Crisco-style shortening for their tarte tatin. And if
they don't, how come American restaurants are struggling so much to
reproduce the taste and texture of something that was inferior in the
first place to the original (ie. they're working hard to make the food
taste like it was cooked with trans fats)? I'm thinking of french
fries, cookies, pastries of any kind... the original recipe couldn't
have used hydrogenated oils because that didn't exist at the time...

Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward wrote:
>
> Reading about the upheaval caused in the restaurant trade by the ban on
> trans fats in NYC, I was wondering whether say a fine restaurant in
> Paris also uses Crisco-style shortening for their tarte tatin. And if

I presume they use lard.

> they don't, how come American restaurants are struggling so much to
> reproduce the taste and texture of something that was inferior in the
> first place to the original (ie. they're working hard to make the food
> taste like it was cooked with trans fats)? I'm thinking of french
> fries, cookies, pastries of any kind... the original recipe couldn't
> have used hydrogenated oils because that didn't exist at the time...

Lard has a bad reputation in the U.S.

I heard that U.S. restaurants are switching
to "heat-resistant" canola oil. I don't know
what that it, but I imagine it is the opposite
of a winterized oil. It could be a by-product.

Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward wrote:
> Reading about the upheaval caused in the restaurant trade by the ban on
> trans fats in NYC, I was wondering whether say a fine restaurant in
> Paris also uses Crisco-style shortening for their tarte tatin. And if
> they don't, how come American restaurants are struggling so much to
> reproduce the taste and texture of something that was inferior in the
> first place to the original (ie. they're working hard to make the food
> taste like it was cooked with trans fats)? I'm thinking of french
> fries, cookies, pastries of any kind... the original recipe couldn't
> have used hydrogenated oils because that didn't exist at the time...
>


Butter, lard, goose and/or duck fat, tallow, and maybe coconut oil.

Best regards,
Bob

In article om>,
says...
> Reading about the upheaval caused in the restaurant trade by the ban on
> trans fats in NYC, I was wondering whether say a fine restaurant in
> Paris also uses Crisco-style shortening for their tarte tatin. And if
> they don't, how come American restaurants are struggling so much to
> reproduce the taste and texture of something that was inferior in the
> first place to the original (ie. they're working hard to make the food
> taste like it was cooked with trans fats)? I'm thinking of french
> fries, cookies, pastries of any kind... the original recipe couldn't
> have used hydrogenated oils because that didn't exist at the time...
>
Some interesting insights on these questions are to be found in two
books by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. One is "Eat Fat, Lose Fat", which
is basically a diet book that covers three diet regimens (weight loss,
health recovery and health maintenance), and includes some good recipes.
The other is "Nourishing Traditions", which is a cookbook with many,
many of good recipes. Both books shed a lot of light (at least for
laymen like me) on the complex topic of human fat metabolism, among many
other dietary and nutritional topics, and also shed a lot of light on
the creeping industrialization of farming and food supply over the years
in this country. Either one will help you understand how we got from
the "original recipe" to where we are today.

Bob

On 11 Dec 2006 09:29:12 -0800, "Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward"
> wrote:

>Reading about the upheaval caused in the restaurant trade by the ban on
>trans fats in NYC, I was wondering whether say a fine restaurant in
>Paris also uses Crisco-style shortening for their tarte tatin. And if
>they don't, how come American restaurants are struggling so much to
>reproduce the taste and texture of something that was inferior in the
>first place to the original (ie. they're working hard to make the food
>taste like it was cooked with trans fats)? I'm thinking of french
>fries, cookies, pastries of any kind... the original recipe couldn't
>have used hydrogenated oils because that didn't exist at the time...

For tarte tatin it's butter:
http://frenchfood.about.com/od/frenc...tarttatin1.htm
--

modom

http://www.koyote.com/users/modom/home.html