I've had requests for food porn, so today I paid a visit to La Maison Berthillon and this time I brought my camera. The artisinale glacier located on Ile Saint-Louis is widely reputed to be the the best ice cream maker in the world (a claim that I'm not sure I support), but those in the know also recognize the salon as being one of the best places to get Tarte Tatin in Paris. My Irish friend has been missing her mom's apple pie, and been unimpressed by her encounters with French tarte aux pommes, so I brought her along as an expert judge.
We each ordered a slice of the tarte, with a boule of ice cream alongside. She stuck with classic Vanille, while I went for the Caramel au Beurre Salé, one of Berthillon's best-known parfums, a delicious if somewhat-overwhelming combination of sweet, salty, and creamy flavors.
The tarte was, essentially, perfect. Served cold, it is of a slightly mushy consistency which scoops easily into a spoon. The carmelized apple top is sticky with just a hint of bitterness from burnt sugar, and the body of the tarte transitions gradually from firm fruit to a sponge-like medium portion that gives way to a crisp pastry crust. As I dug into the tarte with my spoon, juices from the apples started to pool on the plate, intermingling with the melting ice cream. Delicious.
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And now for the miscellanea: The Strangest Thing I've Seen in Paris this Week
(Two weeks ago it was a two-foot-long, thick strand of hair that had been removed from a woman's ovarian cyst and preserved in formaldehyde since the end of the 19th century and is on display at the Musée Dupuytren)
This week, it's a tie! Between the witch who lives in my neighborhood and a table from the Museum at the School of Medicine. The witch is an elderly woman with a severe case of hyperhyphosis (her back is bent forward from the waist, so that her torso is always facing downwards as she shuffles along my street, small dog in tow). There are colored tatoos all across her face and hands, and she is constantly muttering incantations of some sort (as far I can tell, it's not French). I think she must live on Rue des Cinq Diamants, I see her walking with her dog most mornings as I come back from the market or head out for the day.
The other strange sight is this table which is on display at the Musée de la Médecine. Constructed by an Italian Doctor names Efisio Marini in 1866 as a gift for Napoleon III, it is a sort of mosaic composed of petrified ears, cross-sectioned vertebrae, lungs, liver, brain, gland tissue, blood and bile. Featured at the center is a petrified foot, plated in silver with an inscription by Marini dedicating his gift to the emporer. I can't find any information in english on who this Dr. Efisio Marini was or why he would have been so possessed as to create such a work or art, or how one even goes about petrifying blood, but if any of you speak italian, please read the following wikipedia entry and then fill me in.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efisio_Marini
Sorry, but no photos. Not sure you would really want to see a picture, anyways.
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