Pancake Day

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 154, 26 March 1938, Page 5 (Supplement)

Pancake Day

Crepe Suzettes Have A History “Dominion” Special Service.—By Air Mall. London, March 4. London did not forget Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day—nor did London’s hotels. Pancakes loomed large on. hotel and restaurant menus on March 1. At the Savoy, M. Latry started the day, .as usual, by cooking more than 200 pancakes for the members of his staff. But M. Latry himself ate none of his own. His were cooked by the youngest chef, a nerve-racking ordeal planned to test his progress. It is M. Latry who calls this dish the most difficult and shortest-lived of luxuries. “Pancakes,” he says, “should be eaten within a minute of leaving the pan.” Hence the trollies at West End restaurants and the cooking before the customers. This year he has invented Crepes Marie Walewska, as a variation for those who may like a change from the always popular Crepe Suzette. Mlle. Suzette, by the way, owes her gastronomic immortality to the part of a maidservant she once played at the Comedie Francalse, where, in the nineties, she was a star. Her role required that she should serve pancakes, and these were supplied each night by a restaurant next door to the theatre. The proprietor had the idea of pouring a glass of liquor over the pancakes and then setting them alight so that the audience could see them burning. When the proprietor, Joseph Duigniol, came later to the Savoy he introduced the sweet to Londoners. The secret of Crepe Suzette lies in two things. One is the melted sugar and orange juice mixed into the butter with which the pancakes are spread. The other is the glass of brandy or Armagnac poured over them and set alight immediately before serving.