Chef John Ash

With the Olympics in Paris right around the corner, French recipes seem in order.  One of my favorites is Quiche with all of its variations.  This was one of the first recipes I learned to make. Its great appeal is that almost anything can be added to flavor it and it can be made ahead of time.

Quiche has a long history, with recorded dishes going back to the 12th century.

It is believed to have originated in Germany. The word quiche is French, but the dish itself originated in Lothringen, in Western Germany, which became “Lorraine” when the French annexed that territory. The term quiche is French for the German küche, which was a diminutive form of kuchen, meaning cake.

The most famous variation ‘quiche Lorraine’ was an open pie originally made with a yeast dough crust. That morphed into a more delicate shortbread or puff pastry crust with a filling of an egg and cream custard with smoked bacon. Over time, cheese was added to the dish that we now call quiche Lorraine.  Now of course you’ll find quiche made with all manner of ingredients added to the custard including seafood, herbs and smoked meats.

Vegetarian versions of quiche abound, and this was thought to be a cause for rejection among males which found the dish “emasculating”. The expression “Real men don’t eat quiche,” became popular, and indeed, many men started refusing to eat quiche. Quiche had been very popular during the 1970’s, but during the 1980’s quiche consumption

plummeted.

The origin of this phrase was the title of a book by humorist and screenwriter who wrote Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. The title, and the content, was satirical. The ‘real men’ in the book supposedly sat around eating steak, drinking beer and wore flannel shirts, and never shared their feelings. The “Quiche-eaters” or wimps, otherwise known as “sensitive new age guys”, not only made and ate quiche, but also did the dishes, and of course, supported the feminist movement.

The book was a satirical examination of masculine stereotypes. The subtitle was “A Guidebook to All that is Truly Masculine”. This proved however, that as with most stereotypes, many men failed to see the satire.

The phrase took on its own life, and most of the people who repeated it had never read nor even heard of the book. The book started out as a facetious piece published by Bruce Feirstein in Playboy magazine:

A “Crustless” quiche is basically a frittata. A frittata, an Italian recipe, is something like a big baked omelet without the crust. I’ve included a recipe for my favorite frittata or the “crustless” quiche below for those who are intimidated by crust making. You shouldn’t be however.  The crust that I’m suggesting is really simple. 

Included here are Quiche Lorraine and a “Crustless” Frittata with Bacon, Potatoes and Walnuts.