The Quiche Lorraine

“many a gourmand has licked his fingers”

And so, even in the heart of Lorraine, no one knows who invented the quiche, a virtuous and nourishing preparation that has been served on Nancy's best tables from René le Victorieux (René II, 1451 - 1508) to the present day. - G. Contesse, Le Monde Illustré, 23 December 1893

“This word is not found, I believe, in any Dictionary, and it is so bizarre that I would not dare to use it, if the thing it designates were not even more so. “

Thus opens the definition of the word quiche in the strangely named culinary dictionary Manuel de la Cuisine ou l'Art d'Irriter la Gueule par une Société de Gens de Bouche (Cooking Manual or the Art of Annoying the Gullet by a Society of People in the Food Industry) published in the city of Metz in the Lorraine region of France in 1811. 

Quiche - both the word and the object - is so common today, such a recognizable icon of French food that it is hard to believe that it was still unknown across the country as late as 1811. And yet it was. Unknown and, evidently, bizarre. 

The author continues by explaining “Few people know that a quiche is a tart baked in the oven, and that the quiche par excellence is the one made with olivette or white poppy seed and onion. We can't call this pastry the nec plus ultra of gourmandise; but many a gourmand has licked his fingers, and perhaps credited the Romans with the glory of this invention.”

We have already taken a deep dive into the history of the tourte au fromage, or the cheese tart in another post, discovering that this rich yet rustic treat has been made and eaten since time immemorial, the first known recipe for a cheese tart appearing in the treatise De Agri Cultura or De Re Rustica, written about 160 BCA by Roman statesman, historian, and philosopher Cato. Savory tarts (single crust) and tourtes (double crust) have been a staple in France for centuries, but the quiche is actually quite a recent addition to the country’s culinary repertoire. And yet, similar dishes have been making their way familiarly into cookbooks for a while.

François Pierre de la Varenne’s Tourte de Lard in his 1654 cookbook Le Vrai Cuisinier François is a sweet tart in which the bacon is added to a filling of egg yolks, ground pistachios or almonds, and sugar and baked on a pastry base. François Massialot has the same recipe in 1722 in his Le Nouveau Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois Tome 2.

Pierre de Lune’s 1656 Le Cuisinier includes recipes for a tourte de crème au naturel in which milk, egg yolks, salt AND sugar, as well as butter make a filling to be cooked in a pastry shell. François Massialot’s Tourte de Lard (Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois, 1691) instructs to blend cured or aged lard into a batter made of egg whites beaten until firm, yolks, sugar, diced candied lemon peel, lime zest, orange flower water, creating a sweet, flavorful tourte. 

Even the recipe offered in the 1811 Manuel de la Cuisine ou l'Art d'Irriter la Gueule par une Société de Gens de Bouche isn’t quite recognisable as what will become known as the quiche or, in our case, the quiche lorraine, the most familiar of the quiches: they make a thick bouillie or batter of porridge-like consistency with white poppyseeds, milk and cream, and several chopped onions that have been cooked in butter. This filling is then baked in a freeform pastry shell, the quiche being no thicker than a finger.

Illustration by Courboin, Le Monde Illustré, 23 December 1893

While the first mention of the word quiche as a food (the word had many other meanings and connotations up until this point) in French might very well have been in an 8-page song written to recount the tragic death of the director of the prison in Nancy (the former capital of the Duchy of Lorraine in the east of France), Relation de la Mort Tragique de Martin Gabriel Rochette, in 1772, “he brought the great people to his table; it is said that one day quiche was eaten there”, it apparently wasn’t the first time the word was seen in the country. Jean-Jacques Lionnais claims to have come across it in the accounts of Charles III’s, Duke of Lorraine, household of 1586. The Duke’s statements of expenses for the month of March shows a payment: Baker for échaudés & Quiches 9 gros. (The same day he paid 1 fr 9 gros 2 den for 4 dozens of 4 breads for dogs); the following day, payments were made: To the Baker: 23 dozens 10 breads including six breads for cooking; The same for échaudés & Quiches; The same for 4 doz. 4 breads for dogs.” Lionnais follows these entries in his history with the brief explanation: “Quiche, a kind of pastry still made with leavened pastry and covered with eggs and cream, has a long history in Nancy. Our Dukes used to have them served on the days meat was not eaten (les jours maigres). Only the baker (boulanger) had the right to make échaudés & Quiches; the right to make products using puff pastry and baked fruit dishes was reserved for the pastry chef (pâtissier).” According to Henri Lepage’s 1882 book Un Table Princière en Lorraine aux XVI et XVII Siècles (A Prince’s Table in Lorraine in the 16th and 17th Centuries), the appearance of the word quiche was pretty much limited to this single document supposedly seen - and only seen - by Lionnais, a document that is now lost. 

We have at least placed the quiche at its place of birth and tradition: the Lorraine, the region of France bordering Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg, later to be fused into the regions of Alsace and Champagne-Ardenne, known as Le Grand Est, “The Great East”. The word quiche, seen also occasionally written as kiche, apparently came from the German word kuchen (cake), although some attribute it to the Yiddish word kichele or the Alsatian word kichel, both meaning cake, as well. Any one of these words could have slipped into the dialect of the region to become the local word for cake or galette. It’s part of the family of savory cream-based tarts of that side of France along with la galiche, la flamiche, la tarte à la flamme de Lorraine, all variations of the German lichen or kuchen. It is said that the word quiche was first cited in the dialect of the Lorraine in 1605, not being used in French until 200 years later….

…in 1804, Grimod de la Reynière very briefly mentions quiches in his Almanach des Gourmands only as part of 2 different dinner menus (potage à l’oseille, quiche lorraine, pommes château, and rissoli di populo; potage aux choux, quiche lorraine, salade de legumes, and mousse au chocolat). In his 1810 issue of the same magazine, he simply states that one M. Liévin, whose bakery stood at rue Neuve des Petits-Champs n° 11 in Paris, makes, among a multitude of other savory and sweet pastries, quiches. (I must note here that Grimod de la Reynière himself doesn’t explain what it is until 1932, referring to it specifically, and possibly for the first time, as a Quiche Lorraine: “The Quiche Lorraine is a tart containing cream in which fatty bacon and ham are immersed in admirable proportions.” It wasn’t until 1932 that he finally includes a recipe.) After Grimod de la Reynière’s first curious mentions of quiche, one will have to now wait nearly half a century for the word to appear again in culinary circles.

It isn’t until 1853 and the Count Cousin de Courchamps’ Dictionnaire Général de la Cuisine Française Ancienne et Moderne - note that the word quiche found its way into French culinary dictionaries well before ever being included in language dictionaries - where the quiche is defined as “a kind of egg custard, the recipe for which comes from the Lorraine and Vosges regions of France.” He only includes a recipe for quiche au maïs or corn quiche in which the filling is made of milk, salt, butter, nutmeg, and either corn flour or Turkish wheat (blé de Turquie), finely ground and sifted, and egg yolks. Oddly, recipes for this quiche au maïs appeared earlier than the quiche or quiche lorraine, including in both Alexandre Dumas’ 1882 Petit Dictionnaire de Cuisine and Sophie Wattel’s Les Cent Mille Recettes de la Bonne Cuisinère Bourgeoise in 1886, both specifically designating the quiche au maïs as a “garniture”, cut into small squares to accompany a main dish.

Remember the book with our favorite title Le Cuisinier et le Médecin et le Médecin et le Cuisinier ou Le Cuisinier Médecin et le Médecin Cuisinier (The Cook and the Doctor and the Doctor and the Cook or the Cook Doctor or the Doctor Cook) written in 1855 by “a society of doctors, chemists, chefs, and food professionals”? The quiche made its way into this illustrious tome, although not in the best light: "Quiche: is a kind of cake or flan made with eggs and a lot of salt. This pastry is not suitable for delicate stomachs or convalescents. Those who are able to eat it should do so in moderation, as it is a rather heavy dish.”

Ouch! A negative review even before the quiche had made its way out of its home region of the Lorraine and onto the national scene!

The first French language dictionary to list the word quiche was Bescherelle’s Dictionnaire national ou Dictionnaire universel de la langue française in 1856, defined as “a type of egg custard (flan).” A simple, straightforward inclusion.

When the quiche finally began appearing in cookbooks, it was often listed as both quiche and galette lorraine. Properly speaking, the traditional quiche is a galette, a freeform pie or tart shaped and baked on a baking sheet rather than a tart pan or mold. Émile Dumont includes quite a simple, very traditional recipe in La Bonne Cuisine Française in 1877: he first pre-bakes his pastry crust, a simple pâte brisée, his filling just 2 eggs beaten with a cup of milk and a pinch of salt. This batter is poured into the pastry shell, dotted with butter “the size of hazelnuts”, and baked for a quarter of an hour. Sophie Wattel doesn’t even offer a recipe in her 1886 cookbook Les cent mille recettes de la bonne cuisinière bourgeoise à la ville et à la campagne, she only has an index listing for Quiche: see Galette Lorraine, and for Galette Lorraine: see Quiche. I guess we can be grateful for her for including this local delicacy in her book at this time in culinary history at all.

We’re finally beginning to understand what the traditional quiche is; the quiche is a galette - a thin, free-form savory tart - whose filling is just eggs, milk or cream, salt, and butter, often with the addition of lard or bacon, a local specialty of the Lorraine region of France. And as we have said before of local specialities in France, these dishes, breads, and pastries are guarded jealously; no matter the small size of the country and how close we all are to each other, “local” in France means truly and emphatically local, these foods rarely traveling beyond the city or regional limits. Or quite possibly these foods remain in their regions of birth because there is special local meaning and significance. Some of these local culinary traditions do find their way out and beyond the borders, soon becoming familiar across the country, often becoming symbols of French cuisine as a whole, like the gâteau breton or boeuf bourguignon. And now the quiche.

Astra ad, 1950

Jules Renauld discusses this in Les Hostelains et Taverniers de Nancy (The innkeepers and Tavernkeepers of Nancy) in 1875. He admonishes the Dictionary of the Académie Française as not even mentioning the quiche, adding “however, this appetizing galette, served as often on the Dukes' tables as it is popular in the tiniest hamlets, is, par excellence , the national treat of Lorraine.” Renauld describes the quiche as “a thin, round, oven-baked pastry strewn with pieces of fresh butter and covered with a mixture of eggs and cream, a salty, liquid preparation no thicker than a sheet of cardboard.” He shows his love for this rustic delicacy by concluding rather poetically, “Successfully baked to perfection, the quiche looks like a beautiful sky lit by dawn, with a few light, golden-tan clouds floating here and there.” P. G. Dumast, echoing Renauld in his own book Nancy: Histoire et Tableaux, published in 1847, concludes "Correctly baked, between brown and blond, the quiche must be eaten burning hot. It takes the place of oysters as a lunchtime starter, served with a white wine. A boarding school master, M. Michel, author of a collection of non-French expressions published around 1806, in writing his entry for quiche (because the word is not in dictionaries), added this joke “Parisians will soon adopt the word if they had the good fortune to know about the thing.”

“What is the quiche?” asks columnist Jean-Marie Janot for a column in the regional newspaper L’Express de l’Est et des Vosges, October 2, 1939. “The thing and the word are Lorrain, says Littré (the French language dictionary). Le paysan - the peasant or farmer - took advantage of the communal baking of his bread to roll out a very thin layer of bread dough, raise the edges all around to create a sort of tart casing, dot the bread with fresh butter, then pour on a blend of eggs and thick cream, to the proportion of 1 egg for 5 “good” spoonfuls of cream. Scatter dots of butter, or, better yet, pieces of lard or bacon without excess - not ham - the lard must be fatty enough to moisten the quiche and smoked to perfume it. The quiche must not be thicker than a centimeter and cooked quickly in a very hot oven until golden….The quiche will be served piping hot: the cook will bring it to the table, in the tourtière (the baking pan) spitting steam, and the hostess will have cut it and distributed it to the guests, panting in front of this extraordinary spectacle, before it definitively deflates.”

Henri André offers a quiche recipe as simple as it is good in another local journal, L’Abeille des Vosges, June 17, 1939: one rolls out pastry dough with a rolling pin as thin as possible dotted with fresh butter. One beats egg yolks, mixes it with thick cream, salts it, then spreads this flavorful mixture on the pastry dough and carries it to the baker. Five or six minutes of baking and no more! André Theuriet makes our mouths water and makes our nostrils quiver on presenting us this quiche hot from the oven. Golden, puffed, mouth-watering, rich, silky, and fragrant with its delicious smell. Eat it very hot, washing it down with a light Pineau wine.”

F. Marlier in the 1952 issue of France à Table concludes: “Keep an eye on the pastry, as it may blister and puff up, in which case you need only pierce it briskly with the tip of a knife, but be careful not to pierce the dough. Eat warm... and serve with a vin gris (a rosé) des côtes de Lorraine.” Prosper Montagné in the first Larousse Gastronomique in 1938 insists: “the true quiche, that of the Lorraine, is always served as an hors d’oeuvre or starter.” He also notes that one sometimes garnishes the quiche with fine slices of gruyère cheese that one alternates with the slices of lard or bacon.” He also, as is the tradition, insists that the quiche lorraine be served burning hot.

Quiche Lorraine

This recipe is close to the traditional quiche lorraine although I chose to make it in a pie dish and not freeform on a baking sheet. While traditionally, the quiche lorraine is served as a starter or hors d’oeuvre, we usually eat it as a main course with a large mixed salad. And while it is best eaten hot, it does make great picnic fare. 

Pâte brisée or quiche pastry for a 10-inch (25/26-cm) pie dish

1 cup + 2 tablespoons (150 grams) flour + extra for rolling

½ teaspoon salt

Big pinch sugar

8 tablespoons (120 grams) unsalted butter, very slightly softened and cubed

4 - 4 ½ tablespoons cold water

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

Lightly but thoroughly butter the sides and bottom of a 10-inch (25/26-cm) glass pie dish.

Blend the flour, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the cubes of butter to the flour, tossing to coat with the flour so they do not clump together. Using only the tips of your fingers and thumbs, rub the butter and flour together rapidly to “push” the butter into the flour until the butter cubes disappear and the mixture resembles damp sand or ground almonds. Make sure to continuously pull up the dry flour from the sides and the bottom of the bowl so all the flour is rubbed with butter. Do not overwork this; you want no more clumps of butter but you can have tiny dots of butter still visible.

Add 4 tablespoons of the cold water and, using a spoon or fork, stir the water into the flour/butter mixture vigorously until all of it is dampened and begins to pull together into a scraggy dough; add a bit more cold water to any pockets of flour as needed. 

Using a soft bench scraper or spatula, scrape the dough out of the bowl onto a well-floured work surface and knead the dough firmly for just a minute or two until it is a smooth, soft, homogenous dough. 

Roll the dough out very thinly until it is just larger than the pie dish. Carefully roll the dough up around the rolling pin and place on the pie dish. Lift and pose the edges of the dough down into the pie dish to line; press in place all around the edges of the dish then trim the excess dough. Prick the bottom of the pie shell all over with a fork. 

Line the pie shell with a large piece of ovenproof parchment then weigh the paper down with lots of dried beans of pastry weights. Prebaked the shell in the preheated oven for 8 minutes then carefully remove the pie dish from the oven, lift out the parchment with the beans or weights (save the dried beans in a clean jar to use again and again and discard the parchment), then put the pie shell back in the oven for an additional 5 - 8 more minutes until baked. Remove from the oven and prepare the filling. 

Quiche lorraine filling

5 ½ ounces (150 grams smoked lardons or bacon, cubed or sliced into bite-sized pieces)

3 large eggs

1 ½ cups cream or half cream + half milk (I use 1 cup light cream + 1/2 cup low-fat milk)

½ teaspoon salt

Ground pepper, optional

Pinch nutmeg, optional

Cook the lardons or bacon over medium-high heat until crispy. Remove from the heat.

Whisk the eggs together with the cream or cream + milk until very well blended. Whisk in the salt, pepper, and nutmeg. 

Scatter the lardons evenly over the bottom of the rebaked pie shell (I spooned on some of the fat that was left in the frying pan). Pour the cream filling over the lardons in the pastry shell. 

Bake in the hot oven for 30 minutes or until puffed and golden. 

Remove from the oven and allow to sit for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Best with a big green or mixed salad. 

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