Well, here we are – mid-January and talking about fruit normally in season from May to Sept in the US, July to September in the UK. Oh and topped in ice cream. Brrrrr.
But nevertheless, here we are on Peach Melba Day.
There are so many obvious ways to start this post. “Well, isn’t that just peachy?” or “Peachy keen!” or something like that. But as I say – they are so obvious. Why not start the whole thing by mentioning that Ms. Melba (for whom Peach Melba is named) was apparently an a-class pain in the neck.
Now you won’t find that tidbit on the Wikipedia page for Peach Melba but the page about Nellie Melba herself lays it out pretty clearly with this quote from a contemporary:
If a singer’s greatness can be gauged by how detested she was by colleagues, then Melba would undoubtedly be the greatest singer of all time.
That said – her singing impressed Escoffier enough for him to bother inventing a dessert for her and stick her name on it. He is entitled to his opinions like everyone else and he certainly knew how to create a dessert so let us not judge the eponymous dessert by it’s namesake. Let us judge it by it’s taste.
If you are lucky enough to have a restaurant near you with Peach Melba on the menu – this will be easy. But I confess it has been quite a while since I’ve seen such a thing on any menu. It’s a bit – um – not fussy, exactly. Because it’s not really that fussy logistically – it’s mostly an assembly job when all is said and done. It’s just that it has an old-fashion-y sort of reputation – and you know how restaurants are.
So remember, even annoying people can inspire a good dessert. Happy Peach Melba day.
P.S. – and yes, Melba toast was named for her as well. Did toast need someone of Escoffier’s magnitude to create it? Who knows. But he did. And César Ritz named it. So from a name-dropping standpoint, it is even stronger than the flashier dessert created 20 years before
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