Much of the history of the tarte Tatin would have been lost without the remarkable scholarship of Dr. Henri Delétang, a historian from Lamotte-Beuvron, who spent decades surveying places, combing archives, interviewing witnesses, and looking for artifacts about the tarte and its rise to fame. His work, published over 100 pages of the Bulletin du Groupe de Recherches Archéologiques et Historiques de Sologne ("Histoire et gastronomie : Les TATIN à Lamotte-Beuvron", vol 22, No 3-4, July-December 2000) makes a wonderful reading for anyone keen to learn about the history of this masterpiece. In 2011, Dr. Delétang published a wonderful book (in French): La Tarte Tatin - Histoire et Légendes (The Tarte Tatin - History and Lore) that offers previously unreleased material about the tarte and the Tatin family. It includes many photographs and reproductions of historic documents, and is available from amazon.fr (ISBN: 978-2-8138-0431-0). In 2011, Dr. Delétang also published an analysis of a ledger of the Hotel Tatin that was discovered by chance in the town's garbage dump in 1970. It covers the period 1920-1925, and provides a wealth of information on the hotel's prominent guests, what they ate, drank, and how they traveled. ("A l'Hôtel Tatin, à Lamotte-Beuvron (L.-et-C.), de 1920 à 1925, d'après un livre- journal de caisse",
Bulletin du Groupe de Recherches Archéologiques et Historiques de Sologne, vol 33, No 3, Juillet- ![]() septembre 2011) The town of Lamotte-Beuvron put up a website, in French, for the centennial of the tarte (or thereabout as its "date of birth" is unknown). Sadly, it is on a slow server. Over the years, the tarte Tatin has fascinated many chefs and gourmets, including in America and England where prominent publications regularly run articles about it. This is a sample of what the New York Times has offered its readers: Tribune's food critic, Patricia Wells, to Lamotte-Beuvron and what she discovered there In 1971, Julia Child did a TV broadcast on PBS about the tarte Tatin. It can be seen here. |
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