It’s been four decades since we learned that Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. The tongue-incheek book mockingly rebranded a hearty peasant dish as rabbit food, and in the words of the author, humourist Bruce Feirstein, ‘Could John Wayne ever have taken Normandy, Iwo Jima, Korea, the Gulf of Tonkin, and the entire Wild West on a diet of quiche and salad?’
Dated gender stereotypes aside, it’s also an unfair characterisation of the dish — Wayne would have been well fuelled by quiche lorraine, as the genuine article is anything but delicate. In fact, though in Britain it’s often regarded as a light lunch — ‘a must for any summer party, picnic or gathering’, according to Mary Berry — in its eastern French homeland it’s more often served as a warm main course that’s particularly associated with the winter months. And with an average of 25 days of snow, winter in Lorraine is a serious business, requiring serious fuel.
There’s a lot about quiche that doesn’t fit with its popular reputation. Though it may seem quintessentially French, its origins are less clear cut. Its distant roots probably lie in the baked cheesecakes of ancient Rome, but the first recognisable ancestors of the modern quiche
