At one point in my meandering cooking career, I found myself working in a French pastry shop in California. Though the owner was Swiss, nearly everything we produced was classical French: croissants, brioches, éclairs, that sort of thing. There were fresh fruit tarts, chocolate gateaux and all kinds of puff-pastry delights, everything a self-respecting Francophile could dream of.
For Christmas, we made masses of bûches de Noël, Yule logs filled with buttercream and decorated with marzipan mushrooms. At Easter, we made all kinds of egg-shaped confections.
But for Thanksgiving, there was not one traditional American standard item. No apple pies, no pumpkin pies, no pecan pies.
Because the bakery was so popular, people came in anyway, determined to pick up some sort of Thanksgiving dessert, along with breakfast pastries and breads for the hungry hordes of gathering relatives.
At a certain point, with such a high demand, we began to tell them what they wanted to hear. There was one display case that featured a few Viennese and Swiss specialties. Most of them were sturdy, somewhat somber-looking nut tortes.
They would spot the linzer torte, a lattice-topped, raspberry-jam-filled affair, made with a marvelous dough of ground hazelnuts and almonds. Or the Engadiner Nusstorte, with its sweet filling of walnuts and honey in a burnished caramelized sauce, would catch their attention.
Since these tortes did look rather pielike, we stretched the truth a bit. Oh yes, we would tell them, this one is traditional for Thanksgiving in Austria, and that one is very popular in Switzerland. Some customers actually walked away believing us, but there was no real harm done, and we knew they had bought something delicious.
For Thanksgiving this year, feeling a bit nostalgic, I had linzer torte on my mind. I was determined to make one, only mine would be revolutionary, filled with cranberry jam instead of apricot or raspberry, the way I used to sell them.
I wanted the rich, nutty flavor of a European torte, but cranberries, I reasoned, would make it almost American. The result of the unconventional pairing was so satisfying, it may well become an annual habit.