When I was 17 I had a friend called Jorg Clifford who was from Germany( in fact I bumped into him in Cork last Spring and he looked just the same- he didn’t recognise me ’till I told him my name) .
His mother, as I remember, had come to Ireland as a war widow from Germany
and had married again to an Irish man over here.
Jorg, although 100% German had been reared entirely in Ireland and was in school with me in Cork.
Around that time when we were finished school and waiting to go to college Jorg’s mother decided to take a long holiday in Germany and to reintroduce Jorg to his German side.
Jorg decided that a month alone with his mother would be too much so asked me to come along as well.
So I ended up in the extremely privileged position of doing an extensive tour of Germany in the course of which I was welcomed into houses belonging to relations and friends of Jorg and his mother.
I have a particular memory of travelling to Duderstadt which was a small town just near the Eastern border and being brought under cover of darkness to the border where the East German guards were perched high in sentry boxes, armed with rifles and sweeping no-mans land with searchlights.
It is perhaps of the deep impression made by that sight that I remember being brought back to his aunts’ house afterwards and being fed a most delicious tart which was called Zwetschgencuchen.
It is a tribute to my nerdishness that I can remember the name, it was so unusual to me that I must have spent days muttering it to commit it to my memory.

Fast forward some 44 years and yesterday Síle and I were at a Vide Grenier in Bedarieux.
There one stall holder had a basket of small purple/ green plums with a sign on them offering a taste for nothing and a kilo for €1.50.
They were delicious, both tart and sweet and I thought they would make terrific jam for breakfasts.
I asked M. what sort of plums they were, “Quetsch” he told me, “they are commoner in Alsace than here.”

I little bell rang in my mind and I remembered the Zwetschgencuchen in Duderstadt.
Surely a Quetsch must be the French for a German Zwetch
And so I discovered it was.

Furthermore I discovered in at least one web site a recipe for the tart fed me all those years ago by the German Aunties.

I will give you a cursory impression of the recipe I put together.

It will take me a bit to get the measurements correct but here is my first attempt and it looks good.

I made some Pate Sucree, in the Magimix with 200g flour mixed with 100g of butter and a tablespoon of caster sugar then bound with one whole egg.

Having let this rest I used it to line a tart tin and then almost halved the plums
and laid them upright from the edge to the centre of the tart as I remembered it many years ago.

At this stage it looked a little like a lotus flower.
Then I sprinkled this with caster sugar.

Then I mixed together about four large tablespoons of Creme Fraiche with two whole eggs and another tablespoon of sugar and poured this over the plums.

I baked it for about 35 minutes at 175 C.
It which time the custard was just set.
I havn’t tasted it yet, it is for tonights guests.
My hopes are high- and high hopes are a great appetiser.