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Blancmanger (Carême's receipt)

A pound of sweet almonds and twenty bitter ones, pounded raw into an uncooked jelly.

From
Kettner's Book of the Table
Published
1877
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Exactly as printed, 1877

It is needless to give the old receipt for this, because nobody would eat it. In the days of the English king Richard II. it was a fowl first roasted, then - Blancmanger cut to pieces and served in syrup which was whitened with milk, rice, and almond paste. As late as the days of Madame de Maintenon-that is, at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. --the court physician, Fagon, ordered it to be prepared of the breasts of fowls and almond milk for consumptive patients; and later on, when we come to the article Gallimawfrey, it will be seen that the title of the dish implies a fowl.

For the modern receipt, the best and simplest is that of Carême, and depend upon it when Carême is simple he has right upon his side. He is loud in his praise of it, and hazards the prophecy that Blancmanger prepared in his simple way will always be preferred to other creams, and even to the most beautiful jellies, because of the pleasant, nourishing, and soothing qualities of the almond. Unhappily for his renown as a prophet, Blancmanger is losing its popularity, because although the almonds may be as good and as loved as ever, the world has ceased to believe in isinglass, and laughs to scorn the gelatine which is too often used instead of it.


Kettner's Book of the Table, 1877. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Twenty bitter almonds to the pound is the conventional historical proportion, and it is still a real quantity of amygdalin going into a dish that is never heated.

Kettner records that physicians prescribed it for consumptives, which is the part that lands worst: a cyanogenic dish, uncooked, fed to people with wasting disease.

Notes from the 21st century

  • You could not make it now anyway. Raw bitter almonds are prohibited or tightly restricted for sale in the US and much of Europe.
  • Carême is not a crank either. The founder of French haute cuisine. The proportion is his, and it was standard practice.
  • The dish survives without them. Modern blancmange is sweet almonds or none at all, and loses only the sharpness of the almond note.

Also in this book

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