Peach Melba (french: pêche Melba, pronounced ) is a dessert of

peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and others (the glossy-skinned, n ...

es and

raspberry The raspberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus ''Rubus'' of the rose family, most of which are in the subgenus '' Idaeobatus''. The name also applies to these plants themselves. Raspberries are perennial with ...

sauce with

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus '' Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla ('' V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the plants produce the fruit from whic ...

ice cream. It was invented in 1892 or 1893 by the French chef

Auguste Escoffier Georges Auguste Escoffier (; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoi ...

at the

Savoy Hotel The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August ...

, London, to honour the Australian

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880& ...

Nellie Melba Dame Nellie Melba (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 186123 February 1931) was an Australian operatic dramatic coloratura soprano (three octaves). She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th centur ...

.Avey, Tori
"Opera, Escoffier, and Peaches: The Story Behind the Peach Melba"
August 22, 2012, accessed 9 April 2015

History

In 1892, operatic soprano Nellie Melba was performing in Wagner's opera ''

Lohengrin Lohengrin () is a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which first appears in Wolf ...

'' at

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

. The

Duke of Orléans Duke of Orléans (french: Duc d'Orléans) was a French royal title usually granted by the King of France to one of his close relatives (usually a younger brother or son), or otherwise inherited through the male line. First created in 1344 by King ...

gave a dinner party at the Savoy to celebrate her triumph. For the occasion,

Escoffier Georges Auguste Escoffier (; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoi ...

presented Nellie with a dessert of fresh peaches served over vanilla ice cream in a silver dish perched atop an ice sculpture of a swan, which is featured in the opera. He originally called the dish ''Pêche au cygne'', or “peach with a swan.” A few years later Escoffier created a new version of the dessert: when Escoffier and

César Ritz César Ritz (23 February 1850 – 24 October 1918) was a Swiss hotelier and founder of several hotels, most famously the Hôtel Ritz in Paris and the Ritz and Carlton Hotels in London (the forerunners of the modern Ritz-Carlton Hotel Compan ...

opened the

Ritz Carlton The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC is an American multinational company that operates the luxury hotel chain known as The Ritz-Carlton. The company has 108 luxury hotels and resorts in 30 countries and territories with 29,158 rooms, in addi ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

(after both were sacked from the Savoy for larceny, embezzlement, and fraud), Escoffier changed the recipe slightly by adding a topping of sweetened raspberry purée and renamed the dish ''Pêche Melba''.

Variations

Other versions substitute pears, apricots, or strawberries instead of peaches or use raspberry sauce or melted redcurrant jelly instead of raspberry purée. The original dessert used simple ingredients of "tender and very ripe peaches, vanilla ice cream, and a purée of sugared raspberry". Escoffier himself is quoted as saying, "Any variation on this recipe ruins the delicate balance of its taste."

''Pijama''

Peach Melba is claimed to be the ancestor of the ''pijama'', a dessert in

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

cuisine. 7 Portes, a famous restaurant in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

founded in 1836, is credited with its creation in 1951, when officers of the U.S. Sixth Fleet stationed in the nearby harbor would often dine at 7 Portes and order peach Melba for dessert. The name mutated to ''pijama'' (,

for ''pajamas'') among the Catalan-speaking kitchen staff. From there the recipe, or the essence of it, spread throughout Catalonia. Variations are countless, but ice cream, flan, and fruit in syrup (peach and/or

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centuri ...

) are its staple ingredients. Though regarded as an extravagant and somewhat outdated dish today, the pijama was considered part of the corpus of the

Catalan cuisine Catalan cuisine is the cuisine from Catalonia. It may also refer to the shared cuisine of Northern Catalonia and Andorra, the second of which has a similar cuisine to that of the neighbouring Alt Urgell and Cerdanya '' comarques'' and which ...

and its recipe was included in the inventory published by the Foundation of the Catalan Institute of Cuisine and Gastronomical Culture.

Cultural significance

In tribute to Escoffier an elaborate deconstruction of the peach Melba was served as the last dish at elBulli prior to its closure in 2012.

References

{{Nellie Melba, state=autocollapse Food and drink introduced in the 1890s Frozen desserts Fruit dishes Vanilla ice cream Peaches Nellie Melba French desserts

History

Variations

''Pijama''

Cultural significance

See also

References