The Hirshon Luxembourgish Plum Tart – Quetschentaart

Citizens, the tiny but proud and ancient country of Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south. Its capital, Luxembourg City, is, together with Brussels and Strasbourg, one of the three official capitals of the European Union and the seat of the European Court of Justice, the highest juridical authority in the EU.

Its culture, people and languages are highly intertwined with its neighbors, making it essentially a mixture of French and Germanic cultures. This is emphasized by the three official languages, Luxembourgish, French, and German. The repeated invasions by its neighbor countries, especially in World War II, resulted in the country’s strong will for mediation between France and Germany and, among other things, led to the foundation of the European Union.

Luxembourgish is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 600,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide. As a standard form of the Moselle Franconian language, Luxembourgish has similarities with other varieties of High German and the wider group of West Germanic languages. The status of Luxembourgish as an official language in Luxembourg, and the existence there of a regulatory body have removed Luxembourgish, at least in part, from the domain of Standard German.

With an area of 2,586 square kilometers (998 sq mi), Luxembourg is one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe, about the same size as the US state of Rhode Island or the English county of Northamptonshire. In 2016, Luxembourg had a population of 576,249, which makes it one of the least-populous countries in Europe, but by far the one with the highest population growth rate.

As a representative democracy with a constitutional monarch, it is headed by a Grand Duke, Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and is the world’s only remaining grand duchy. Luxembourg is a developed country, with an advanced economy and the world’s highest GDP (PPP) per capita, according to the United Nations in 2014. The City of Luxembourg with its old quarters and fortifications was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 due to the exceptional preservation of the vast fortifications and the old city.

The country was recently insulted by the Trump administration when the White House omitted Gauthier Destenay, the husband of prime minister Xavier Bettel, from the caption for an official photograph of the spouses of NATO leaders, which was taken at this week’s 2017 summit in Brussels. Destenay, a Belgian architect, married Bettel in 2015, becoming the first same-sex spouse of a leader of a European Union member state.

Luxembourg cuisine reflects its position on the border between the Latin and Germanic worlds, being heavily influenced by the cuisines of neighboring France and Germany. More recently, it has been enriched by its many Italian and Portuguese immigrants. Most native Luxembourg dishes, consumed as the traditional daily fare, share roots in the country’s folk dishes the same as in neighboring Germany.

Quetschentaart almost certainly originated in Germany, but it is now considered a national dish of Luxembourg. It is a simple dessert, but profoundly delicious! It remains a very popular Luxembourg speciality, and is an open fruit tart made with zwetschgen or damson plums. Traditionally, it is a seasonal dish served in the autumn after the local plums have ripened in September. Obviously, you need to include only the finest plums for this dessert, as that is pretty much the primary ingredient and the whole dessert rises or falls based on the quality of the fruit you select! So please – use only the best fruit in this dish!

Today, Luxembourgish damson tart is almost always made with a yeast dough. However, the most traditional Luxembourgish cookery book “Ketty Tull”, specifies a shortcrust pastry which is what I’ve used in this recipe.

Citizens, this is not a difficult dessert to make and if you love plum as much as I do, I hope you will as the collective TFD Nation bless it with your prompt attention! My twist on the recipe is to use vanilla sugar and this would make an exceptional end to a Luxembourgish meal of their famed chicken dish known as Hong am Rèisleck. 🙂

Battle on – The Generalissimo