Issue Date: November 16, 2003
Go Ahead ... Indulge
We can think of many reasons to eat dessert. After all, what's Thanksgiving for?
By Pam Janis
"There's a place for desserts in a healthy diet, and they can have reasonable richness."
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Dessert is a good thing. It can make us feel as warm as a brown betty, as sharp as a Key lime pie, as witty as a baked Alaska. Dessert satisfies us. Dessert makes us happy. It rings out meals and rings in holidays on a sweet note. We can be 8 or 38 or 88, and dessert excites us still.
It especially delights us during this season. "Holiday desserts bring up memories," says Sebastien Rouxel, pastry chef at the renowned French Laundry restaurant north of San Francisco. "They remind you of good times and childhood traditions. With everything going on in the world right now, people want a taste of something that brought them joy and happiness in the past."
Unfortunately, panic at the size of our Dockers has pushed many Americans into deserting dessert.
Let's give desserts a break. It's not as if killing dessert were a sure-fire strategy for losing weight and looking better, let alone improving your overall health -- at least not by itself. Blame the real culprit: consuming super-sized portions of high-fat foods while super-gluing one's eyes to a TV screen. Zero exercise, meal-skipping and gorging, and willy-nilly nutrition are far worse for us than a beautifully turned-out lemon meringue tartlet. We know our own bad habits. Enjoying dessert does not have to be one of them.
"There's a place for desserts in a healthy diet, and they can have reasonable richness," says cookbook author Jeremy Jackson, who actually lost 5 pounds while taste-testing dessert recipes for his March 2004 book, "Desserts That Have Killed Better Men Than Me". A chef who lost weight eating rich desserts? Sure, Jackson says. He embraced an overall healthier diet and lifestyle, knowing he'd be packing in delectables such as Lemon Custard Ice Cream and Sticky Toffee Pudding. "I cut down on [bread and pasta], and I exercised."
Imagine a new public health slogan: "Practice safe dessert."
It can be done, says Arthur Frank, M.D., medical director of the George Washington University Weight Management Program in Washington, D.C. -- if you follow an overall healthy diet and lifestyle.
"You have to compensate for eating dessert in other areas," says Frank, who himself has chosen dessert over wine. Besides reducing calories, carbs and fats elsewhere in your diet, Frank lists three strategies for weight-conscious dessert eaters: smaller portions, no second helpings and delaying dessert for the snack you always have later anyway.
But weight worry isn't the only reason we ditch dessert. One recent study says we forgo it at dinner -- at home and in restaurants -- mainly because of time and money. According to the consumer research firm NPD Group, only 15% of dinners at home include dessert. That's a far cry from the days when dessert was the crowning course to complete an all-American sit-down meal. But those also were the days when human beings spent more time in the kitchen than in the car. Surely the sad decline of dessert-eating is proportional to the increase in shlepping.
Dessert historian Stephen Schmidt, whose encyclopedic "Dessert in America" is due out in 2005, agrees that dessert mirrors America's economic and social life today, as it has throughout our history.
Example: Jell-O. In the 1800s, wealthy Americans enjoyed molded gelatin desserts that demanded a fantastically time-consuming and gooey process. Then, in 1897, a New York carpenter and cough medicine maker named Pearle B. Wait perfected an earlier quick-gel idea to produce an instant, fruit-flavored mix. Suddenly, gelatin went from a luxury only rich people's cooks had time to mess with, literally, to an add-water powder.
In less than a generation, other foods were similarly simplified and mass-produced. This did two things for American dessert: It made a variety of sweet treats affordable for every social class, and it led us out of a centuries-long wilderness of inferior pies. (The pies our forefathers ate were no treat -- they had thicker, doughier, wetter crusts; they were the victims of their era's kitchen technology. We're talking heavy tin. "The crust had to be very thick to come out of the pan," Schmidt explains.)
Today, chocolate is the favorite dessert flavor. Currently, the most popular type is a "composed dessert," made up of three or more elements -- say, a baked goodie, an ice cream or sorbet, a sauce and a garnish. And, not surprisingly in this bewildering age, the current dessert buzzword is "comfort."
What's for dessert in 2004? Look for more custards and other dairy-filled concoctions, because they fill us up, and, yes, that is comforting. Also, cookies will be popular: They're portable, they're simple to bake and they soothe us.
Let's be honest: We want that. We love that.
"Nobody eats dessert because they're still hungry after a meal," says weight expert Frank. "Dessert isn't for nourishment or your good health. It's an entertainment, it's visual, it's comfort, it's relaxation, it's celebratory, it's a feeling of reward."
Who needs more reasons? Let's have dessert.
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America's pie chart: What yours says about you
No matter how flaky you are, your favorite pie broadcasts your personality. That's according to Gale Gand, executive pastry chef at Chicago's Tru restaurant, host of the Food Network's dessert-centric show "Sweet Dreams", author of "Gale Gand's Short and Sweet" (due out in January) and proud user of a rolling pin passed down from her great-grandmother -- a rolling pin that's turned out more than 1,200 pies in the past century.
Gand's observations:
If your favorite pie is this, you're ...
Apple. Wholesome and a bit middle-of-the-road, playing it safe.
Banana cream. An overachiever who just wants to relax and not be in charge.
Blueberry. Outdoorsy and determined.
Cherry. Oversweet, in need of tartness and passion.
Chocolate. Suave, seductive, strong, addictive.
Coconut cream. Probably a man seeking an exotic-lite escape from reality.
Lemon. Bright, energetic and sharp-tongued.
Mincemeat. An Anglophile who watches Masterpiece Theater, listens to NPR and fantasizes about being in England, sipping port with pie.
Peach. A sun-worshiper who's found sunshine on a pie plate.
Pecan. Simple in your tastes and seeking more sweetness in life.
Pumpkin. Attached to your past but comfy in your present.
Rhubarb. Old-fashioned (or a total hipster).
Sweet potato. Family-oriented, with a real sense of Southern hospitality.
-- Michele Hatty
Photograph by Renee Comet for USA WEEKEND; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky. Dessert plate on cover by Go Mamma Go.
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