An easy recipe for Crepes Suzette
Francois de Melogue
DEI Certified Senior Recruiter | National Hospitality Talent Specialist | Area Director
Love is a fire of flaming brandy
Upon a crepe suzette
Crepes Suzette may be the most well travelled of all French desserts. It has achieved it’s status as a cliché much like New England Clam Chowder or Chicken a la King has. It has been said that crepes Suzette are served more often outside of France than actually in France. While the exact origins will never be known there are plenty of popular stories and some great theories.
The most prevalent story is that of Henri Charpentier who at the tender age of 16 created it supposedly created it by accident. Henri had arrived on the shores of the United States in 1905 and said, “It was seven years earlier, in 1898, that I served crepe Suzette for the Prince of Wales, on the terrace of the Cafe de Paris in Monte Carlo.” In his biography, Life A La Henri – Being The Memories of Henri Charpentier, he recounts “It was quite by accident as I worked in front of a chafing dish that the cordials caught fire. I thought I was ruined. The Prince and his friends were waiting. How could I begin all over? I tasted it. It was, I thought, the most delicious melody of sweet flavors I had every tasted. I still think so. That accident of the flame was precisely what was needed to bring all those various instruments into one harmony of taste . . . He ate the pancakes with a fork; but he used a spoon to capture the remaining syrup. He asked me the name of that which he had eaten with so much relish. I told him it was to be called Crepes Princesse. He recognized that the pancake controlled the gender and that this was a compliment designed for him; but he protested with mock ferocity that there was a lady present. She was alert and rose to her feet and holding her little shirt wide with her hands she made him a curtsey. ‘Will you,’ said His Majesty, ‘change Crepes Princesse to Crepes Suzette?’ Thus was born and baptized this confection, one taste of which, I really believe, would reform a cannibal into a civilized gentleman. The next day I received a present from the Prince, a jeweled ring, a panama hat and a cane.”