Popovers

All of us yearn sometimes for a particular remembered taste, and we want to re-create it. I feel that way about popovers, perhaps because they are associated with memories of family discussions about the way to obtain the perfect popover (they all tasted good to me). My aunt Lucy in Barre, Vermont, was thrilled when she got a new state-of-the-art stove and discovered that her popovers could go into a cold oven the night before. All she had to do was set the time and then press a button so that the oven would turn on magically and have the popovers baked in time for breakfast. But my aunt Marian, seven miles away in Montpelier, insisted that you couldn’t put popovers into a cold oven. And they had a competition that, as I remember, didn’t prove anything one way or the other. In more recent years, Marion Cunningham discovered that the secret to a high rise and a crispy exterior was to use Pyrex cups set at a distance from one another, so the heat could circulate. Naturally, a new popover pan was soon on the market based on that principle. Even more significant,at least for the single cook, was her discovery that if you prick the popovers in several places with a knife as soon as they emerge from the oven, the steam will escape and the popovers will not turn soggy—a valuable tip if you want to reheat one to enjoy the next day. But they don’t keep long, so when I’m alone I make just two in my new popover-pan cups and have one piping hot for dinner (it’s particularly good with red meat, reminding me of our family Sunday dinners of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding) and heat up the other the next morning for breakfast, to be eaten with soft butter and my own gooseberry jam. Who could ask for anything more?