Sampling the Foods of the Alsace-Lorraine (France) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
One of my favorite places to go out for a light lunch was Patisserie Bechler in Pacific Grove, California.
I called my editor at the Monterey
County Weekly (Circulation: 200, 000) and told her how cute the
decorations were at Bechler in addition to having nice food.
She gave me the go-ahead to
write the article that follows:
Pastry Heaven
The stork on the roof of
Patisserie Bechler signals your arrival at Pacific Grove’s own bit of Alsace
off Highway 68. The stork is a symbol of
Alsace, France’s eastern region bordering Germany and the native region of
pastry chef G. Bechler.
When you enter Bechler’s a
wall mural depicting an Alsatian village with its steep, roofed homes held
together with wooden beams greets you. I
am tempted to walk down the mural’s winding streets in search of shops
selling the famous wines of the region like Riesling and Gewurztraminer and
the region’s fragrant yet zesty cheese, Muenster. Luckily, to find beautiful pastries all I
have to do is look around Bechler’s.
Sometimes I have chosen to
eat pastries with coffee in this room and just look at the adorable mural,
because its lace curtains separating it from the main dining room remind me of
being invited to a French friend’s house for a lunch.
While there, I like to leaf
through wedding magazines and Bechler’s notebooks of cake creations he has made
for film stars and opera stars. I am
reminded that the great chef Careme once likened pastry to the art of
sculpture.
I usually eat in the
restaurant’s main dining room when I go to Alliance Française lunches.
Alsatian charm permeates the
room. Most notably, Bechler has
installed a two-tiered fountain with lion faces in the center of the room like
the ones you find in Alsatian villages.
Arms from the town of Colmar
close to Bechler’s village of Bergheim decorate the walls along with a picture
of beehive signs like the ones that hang from buildings in Alsace. Later, Bechler told me that the same beehives
decorate shops in Germany.
“Alsace has been fought over
many times,” Bechler told me.
“Now all we want to do is
drink together,” he said. I just smiled
at him.
The menu reflects light
French fare rather than hearty Alsatian dishes like choucroute (sauerkraut with
assorted pork sausages). Quiche, soups,
and salad are the restaurant’s mainstays with daily specials adding variety.
Quiche is the specialty of
Alsace’s neighboring region, the Lorraine, which also has a history of contact
with Germany.
The name “quiche” actually is
derived from the German word “kuchen,” meaning “cake” according to Jean
Ferniot’s La France des Terroirs Gourmands. It is worth noting that the “ch” in French is
pronounced “sh,” making the French pronunciation of Bechler “Beshler” not
“Bekler.”
The day we went, we ordered
the salmon and spinach quiche and the spinach quiche. Bechler’s creamy custard-like fillings always
make the savory ingredients taste even better.
What I liked most about the
salmon and spinach filling was that the chef had used enough salt in the
preparation, so that the end result was not bland, but actually brought out the
flavor of the salmon.
The same was true of
Laurent’s spinach quiche. The real test
of a successful quiche lies in its crust.
Bechler’s crust is tender and perfectly absorbs the flavors of the
ingredients.
My favorite dish at Bechler’s
is the onion soup. Julia Child once
said, “It’s hard to imagine civilization without onions.” Surely, she must have been thinking of onion
soups like Bechler’s.
This famous bistro
dish gets its start by sautéeing onions in butter. You add beef bouillon to
these onions when they have become golden.
After this, you add toasted bread and place cheese on the bread. Then, you grill everything for several
minutes.
On other occasions, I have
tried the restaurant’s pork pie. This
pork pie turned out to be a very sophisticated potpie.
The flaky crust melted in my
mouth while the ground pork and onion interior made me eat more slowly, so it
would last longer.
These foods are all good, but
the real reason for going to Bechler’s is to sample the desserts. One of my daughter’s favorites is the
meringue cookies. These cookies really
do not have a lot of calories. Laurent
likes to indulge in chocolate eclairs.
Bechler’s version features a pastry cream rather than a chocolate
filling.
I like the passion fruit
mousse made of a thin, moist, layer-cake, which serves as the base for the
mousse on top of which is a clear icing.
Bechler sets a raspberry in the center of this on white frosting.
Bechler looks as professional
as his desserts when he comes out of the kitchen in his double-breasted, white
chef’s uniform.
Bechler perfected his pastry
making at the three-star Michelin restaurant, L’Auberge de L’Il before coming
to the U.S. in 1984.
End of Article
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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