Mes Tartes: The Sweet and Savory Tarts of Christine Ferber

`Mes Tartes' by Christine Ferber, subtitled `The Sweet and Savory Tarts of Christine Ferber' is a highly polished gem of a book and a rare find if you are fond of classic MittelEuropean pastries. While the book was originally written in French and finely translated into English by Virginia R. Phillips, the book's contents show a broad influence of France, Germany, Italy, and Austria, the powerhouses of western pastry traditions. This is only appropriate, as Ms. Ferber is headquartered in Alsace, near the borders with southern Germany and Switzerland.To my knowledge, this is the second of Mme. Ferber's works available to us in English. The first, fittingly, was on preserves and confits, the classic ingredient in sweet tarts. While this earlier book is a leader in its class, its audience is a bit limited. The audience for fine pastries, at least the audience of those willing to make fine pastries is a lot larger than the readers willing to make preserves.Aside from the quality of this book, the most important thing to know about it is that it covers a range of pastries much broader than what you commonly describe as tarts. While it covers both sweet and savory flat pies with pastry crust and cooked fillings, it also covers galettes, quiches, Tatins, and clafoutis (custard or flan based cherry filled pastry), although almost all recipes produce something which has a fairly strong family resemblance to a tart or pie.I have read many fine books on pastry making lately and this book will certainly never replace some of these better texts such as Rose Levy Beranbaum's `The Pie and Pastry Bible' or Nick Malgieri's `Perfect Pastry' or Flo Bracker's `The Simple Art of Perfect Baking' or Gayle Ortiz' `The Village Baker's Wife', but this book is by far the finest presentation of the very French techniques of making pie and tart pastry by working the butter into the flour with a cold work surface and the heel of your hand which `smears' the cold butter into the butter. There is no way this method is easier than either a pastry cutter or even better, a food processor, but the results are so distinctive, I feel anyone with a love of pastry techniques will want to see Mme. Ferber's use of this technique.While Ferber does not go into the depth of explanation as, for example, Ms. Beranbaum, about why certain flours are better than others for pastry making, Mme. Ferber is very careful in describing the needs of the flour in each case and typically specifies one of two French style flours and approximates how you can reproduce these products with mixtures of American wheats. The general introduction on techniques and equipment is not as big as you may find in some books, but it is more important than most in that Mme. Ferber recommends a very typically French selection of dark iron pans which may not be readily available in the United States. Knowing this is important because one may wish to pay just a little more attention to baking times if your equipment did not fly in on a plane from Strasbourg. The only piece of equipment that gave me reason to rush to the Sonoma-Williams web page was the tart pan with the detachable bottom and NO FLUTEs. Most of the finished products in the book's photographs show tarts done in fluted pans, but more than a few are done in fluteless pans.Like her book on confits, this book is arranged by season. Two years ago, this organization did not appeal to me as much as it does today since I do much more cooking and baking today than I did two years ago, and I find myself going more and more to cookbooks organized by season, now that I have a pretty good collection of them. In fact, I believe this organization doubles the value of this book as the variation in quality and price of fruits is much more than with vegetables. A cabbage is a cabbage the year around, but a peach is only a prime Georgia peach for two months of the year.Another really delightful find in this book is some of the more unusual recipes, such as the sauerkraut and Munster tart. You can almost pinpoint on the map the site of this recipe's birth, as Alsace is `sauerkraut' central, just north of Munster, Germany. You can almost imagine that in pizza was invented in the Rhineland, this is what it would look like. And, adding a little corned beef and Russian Dressing to the recipe may bring you achingly close to a great Reuben flavored appetizer.All measurements are given in units familiar to American cooks. When the `professional' unit is metric weight and the U.S. amateur cook would use a volumetric measurement, the primary unit is given in cups. Aside from the great variety of recipe types, the classic fruit tarts are done to a level of perfection you may not see outside of a very fancy patisserie. Fruit fillings have carefully prepared flavored glazes that I simply do not see in my average Martha Stewart recipe. This is no reflection on Martha Stewart Living's recipe writers. It is an indication that these are extremely serious recipes with no compromises to easy baking.For a book originally written in French, the list of American suppliers and resources is very good. In fact, this is the first and only reference I have yet to see to a web site for doing measuring unit conversions. As I thing this alone may be worth the price of the book, I suggest you buy the book and check out page 285.If you bake or collect books on baking or are especially fond of French cooking techniques, this book should be high on your list of future purchases.Very highly recommended indeed. My deepest thanks to the Michigan State University Press for making Mme. Ferber's books available to us.

I love Christine Ferber's jams and have her other book of confiture recipes in French - she is a master of seasonal flavor combinations, but as others have noted this book is not so well translated and is aimed at experienced pastry cooks. Examples:- 3.5 tablespoons of milk is *not* equal to 50 grams of milk when making pastry cream- when making the almond cream (frangipane), you should add the egg yolks one at a time or risk the mix separatingExperienced cooks will know to do these things and can guess at which quantities are correct, but a beginner could not just follow the recipe word for word and expect success.I made the strawberry mint tart - it was okay but the pastry cream was too congealed for my taste (the word 'glop' comes to mind; I suspect this is down to the use of too much cornstarch and the 10 minute cooking time) and I was not impressed with the rich nut pastry shell.The combinations of fruit, vegetable and herb flavors are beautiful as are the photos, so I will use this book as a resource, but I'm afraid I will turn to Rose Levy Bernbaum or Michel Roux for more reliable basic pastry shell and cream filling recipes.

This is a super book to read and to work from. The translation is a little difficult for beginners to follow, partly because it is badly edited - the recipes don't always flow logically, and measures are inconsistent. However, if you know what you're doing, there is endless inspiration here, yet the techniques and patterns of ingredients are deeply grounded in the traditional cuisines of careful French cooking.

If you love Ms Ferber's cuisine, you will love her books. The problem, as others have noted, however, is the lack of equivalents for ingredients commonly available in France but rarer elsewhere. Still, if you are adventurous and brave, you will not only try her recipes, you will love them!

The recipes are clear, concise and mouth-watering. The fresh ingredients are easily available and American substitutions suggested when French varieties aren't available. The photos are beautiful making this well-loved and used cookbook just as lovely for a coffee table as the kitchen shelf. If you like fresh, savory, sweet and simple...this is for you!

production of culinary pastries

I baked, and baked and want t bake some more. These recipes are inspiring, and easy to follow. Tarts come out and everyone is just wows them!

I am LOVING this book. Every tart so far has been incredible and the directions are so clear.

great quality book. good content.bought it for my mother and she was delighted.only thing to add is this book is not for beginners.

Ms Ferber is one of France's great Patisseirs, I do not doubt it, but the book is not for me. There is no proper Contents Page (the tarts are organized by the 4 seasons, mixed sweet and savoury recipes)and, more importantly, there is enormous reliance on locally produced/sorced ingredients (e.g. Bougon & Carbecou goat cheeses, wild "mara" strawberries, "gariguette" strawberries, "vineyard" peaches, Reinettes apples, "aged Muster",Morbier cheese,King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour, Wondra flour (or pastry flour), Cantal cheese, Belle de Fontenay potatoes, and lots more). Substitute ingredients are either not offered or are unreasonable (e.g. use "home grown" peaches). I went through the pages and every recipe I contemplated on preparing had at least one major ingredient that is not avalable in the UK market. These recipes I guess will be great for Alsacians who have access to all of Ms Ferber's marvellous local foods.The book is very expensive (nearly £30)in spite of it being black & white with only resonable paper quality and very little colour pages or pictures of the cakes. The reason I bought the book was the picture of the pear tart on the cover; I love pears and the tart's presentation. Why I kept it is entirely my "fault" (I bought it during a long illness period, when ordering loads of books on Amazon kept me sane). I would have sent it back, if I could, I do not think I will ever use it, even if I wanted to. As the book has hardly any pictures it is not a great coffee table either unfortunately.Ms Ferber is "France's number 1 Jam Master" and she lives in a a small village in South Alsace, in the region of the Upper Rhine, called Niedermorschwihr, where she sells her jams. I would have expected from someone like Ms Ferber, who are in the patisserie business which requires focus on presentation as well as flavour, to put just a bit more of an effort into their book. The book is a translation from French so perhaps it is only aimed at the Frence market.Shame, it could have been a great book with a bit more work by the publishers to adjust it to the UK market. Translating such recipes is not sufficient sorry!----------------------------------------------------------------------------HOWEVER if you are contemplating buying this book, below you will find some detail of what it offers, to help you determine whether it is suitable for you.Please note all recipes require making the pastry "the day before".Contents (as published in the book):*A Gourmet's Passion, by Gilles & Laurendon * Techniques & ingredients *Successful flaky pastry* Secrets to good pastry *The ams *Glazing and finishing tarts *Equipment & utensils * Spring* Summer * Fall * Winter * Acknowledgements *Sources * IndexDETAIL (this list is unfortunately NOT available in the "Contents"; it is "my" content partial summary to give you a taste of the recipes. I only included one season, as example):CREAMS recipes: flan cream, pastry cream, crème anglaise, almond cream, hazelnut creamGlazing recipes: apple jelly, raspberry jelly, redcurrant jellySPRING: asparagus and fennel tart; carrot orange & cinnamon tart; flaky pastry galettes with carrots orange & cardamom; spring carrot & lily may onion tart; white cherry & raspberry tart; white cherry & rose tart; kugelhopf pain perdu tart with black cherry jam; grandfather's tart; black cherry clafoutis with fresh mint; morello cherry tart with crunchy almonds; morello cherry tart with apple & lemon zest; morello cherry tart with fromage blanc; brioch tart with morello cherries & crème fraiche; little cabbage tart with sautéed salt pork & carbecou goat cheese; spinach tart with salmon & soft goat cheese; strawberry tart with fresh mint; rich flaky tartlets with homegrown & wild strawberries; strawberry tart with redcurrant jelly; strawberry tart with raspberries & basil; custard tart with spring fruit; tart with lemony apple & little acacia flower fritters; baker's wife tart; bougon goat cheese tartlets; rhubab tart with spiced meringue; rhubab tart with sautéed apples & elderberry flowers; honeycomb tart with rhubarb orange & apple jam