This is a preview of the content in our French Food Decoder app. Get the app to:
- Read offline
- Remove ads
- Access all content
- Use the in-app Map to find sites, and add custom locations (your hotel...)
- Build a list of your own favourites
- Search the contents with full-text search functionality
- ... and more!
omelette norvégienne
baked Alaska
Omelette norvégienne (also known as an omelette surprise) is made of ice cream covered with meringue on a génoise base, either set on fire or baked in a very hot oven until the meringue is browned
Who invented it? A chef named Balzac at the Grand Hôtel in Paris was reading about the thermodynamic theories of Benjamin Thompson and wanted to apply them to eggs in a meringue. Thompson had lived in Bavaria, which Balzac thought was in Norway. And Norway was cold like ice cream, so the name stuck in France.
Text © Dana Facaros
Image by Arnold Gatilao