IN DEFENSE OF QUICHE

About a decade ago, quiche became an object of scorn. What with the publication of Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche in 1982 and the restaurant industry’s bastardization of the concept throughout the Eighties, the innocent egg-and-cream pie didn’t have a chance.

The population at large may have given up on quiche, but cooks who have the courage of their culinary convictions are rediscovering its virtues. English food authority Elizabeth David, for instance, recently addressed the ravaged image of quiche as we know it, in an article in which she attacked those gastronomic miscreants who decided they “could get away with putting anything they chose into a pastry shell and calling it a quiche.”

David harkens back to quiche as it was meant to be, as described by Andre Theuriet, a native of Lorraine, France, in L ’Art du bien manger, published in 1904: “It will emerge puffed up, golden, blistered, alluring, filling the house with its savory aroma. . .and you will appreciate what good cheer means.”

On this side of the Atlantic, Austin American Statesman columnist Mike Kelley is another impassioned defender of quiche. He claims that in French, quiche means “breakfast of butt-kickers.”

I don’t know about Kelley’s etymology, but this much is certain: a properly made quiche is a simple glory and, with a green salad and light red wine like a French Beaujolais or a California Gamay Beaujolais, it makes a swell spring supper. (What’s more, it’s a nifty way to use up any egg interiors left over from Easter craft projects.)

My favorite recipe to achieve “puffed up, golden, blistered, alluring” results is from Party Spirit: Some Entertaining Prin ciples by Robert Farrar Capon. Capon’s recipe is in the tradition of Theuriet’s quiche, in that it involves bread, not pastry crust.



QUICHE WITH CRUMB CRUST



Butter your quiche dish or pie pan very liberally with soft butter. Make coarse, soft bread crumbs; drop slices of fresh bread one by one into the blender, or pull the bread apart and rub it to the desired consistency with your hands.

Put the crumbs into the buttered dish and press them gently but firmly into the layer of butter. Get as many as you can to stick (leaving no bare spots), shake out the excess, and put the dish in the freezer or refrigerator to set.

Make the egg mixture and, when you’re ready to bake the quiche, pour it into the dish and bake it in a 350 degree oven till the center is puffed and an inserted knife comes out clean. Serve immediately,

What kind of egg mixture? Capon recommends a Lorraine filling that includes onions and Swiss cheese, but I like a lighter-tasting version: put into the crumb-lined dish four strips bacon, crumbled, and 1 cup cottage cheese; then beat four eggs with 2 cups half-and-half, season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, pour into the dish, and bake at 350 degrees.