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Glaçe au Melon de L’Île St. Jacques

March 15, 2007
13:13 PM

It was never like Elizabeth David to get fanciful but there was one occasion when she was seduced into getting just a little OTT.
The man who did it for her was the auther I am currently enjoying so much; Patrick Leigh Fermor.
In French Provincial Cooking Ms. David gives a recipe for a melon ice cream which she christens;
Glaçe au Melon de L’Île St. Jacques.

I will quote her directly while she tells us why;

The melon ice has a strange, almost magical flavour and that is why I have called it after that French Caribbean island so unforgettably conjured out of the ocean, only to be once more submerged, by Patrick Leigh Fermor in The Violins of St. Jacques
Heady stuff from ED!
Inspired by this evocative prose I tried many times and with many different types of melon to capture this subtle flavour but found on all occasions that the cream overpowered the melon taste. Perhaps ED’s taste buds were more sensitive than mine? Maybe Melons in the fifties were more flavoursome?

The only similar concoction I have made successfully with Melon was a melon sorbet, cream free, and even then I found that a little chopped ginger helped to bring out the melon flavour.

Comments

  1. isabel

    on March 15, 2007

    Serio though Mart, there really MAY be a difference in the tast of melons since the ‘fifties. Try making it in France and see if you have more success. We bought a melon here since we came back to COrk and had to throw it out, it was merely polystyrene.
    ps I DO still love you (more than I did 43 years ago, less than I will next decade) Your birthday text just got stuck somehow…….

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