Victoria University College

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

Victoria University College

S.A.R. ARTICLE DO YOU KNOW—TARTS WERE EATEN MORE THAN 2000 YEARS AGO? __ More than two thousaand years ago Cato prided himself on hia ability to make tarts. They must have been strangely uninspired affairs—--those heavy tarts of Roman days—with their crusts of rye and wheat flour and fillings of honey, cheese, olive oil and egg. Last of all the tarts were smeared with honey, dredged with pounded poppy seed, and eaten with spoons from the earthen vessel in which they were cooked. Throughout the centuries tarts have been considered a special dainty by persons in every walk of life. One of the earliest tart recipes we have dates from the Middle Ages. In those days * ‘tartes of fflesch” were much served on tables of the rich. Fish, cheese, fowl, herbs and eels all found their way into these early tarts, which later were made with fresh fruits and preserves. By the end of the eighteenth century the elaborate flesh and fish tarts of the Middle Ages had given way to more delicate puff-paste-and-sugar of butter crust affairs, which were filled with fruits such as apples, pears, apricots, and plums. A quaint recipe of 1774 tells how to make genteel looking ‘preserved tarts.” “As to preserved tarts,” says the directions, “only lay in your preserved fruit, and put a thin crust at top, and let them be baked as liftle as possible, but if you would have them very nice, have a large patty the size of your tart. Make your sugar crust, roll it as thick as a halfpenny; then butter your patties, and cover it. . . When the crust is cold, very carefully take it out, and fill it with what fruit you please, lay on the lid, and it is done; therefore if the tart is not eat, your sweetmeat is not the worse, and it looks genteel.” From the preserved tarts of 1774 to the dainty open tarts of modern days is a matter of little more than a century and a half. Yet within that time tarts have been refined to an amazing degree. No longer is a “an apple pye with a custard all on top.” It may be described, rather, as “a mere mouthful of fluff,” which melts down the throat without conscious effort. (Written by Dorothy Gladys Spicer for Practical Home Economics.)