4 things to know about dessert: Andrew Coppolino

There is no mistaking that desserts are a popular if polarizing restaurant course should I or shouldn't I order that rich, fatty-sugary New York cheesecake with strawberry sauce? but is the meal's final course getting its just deserts?

We haven't always eaten desserts in the same way we have eaten soup or steak. Desserts are wily creatures shifting shape and utility and sometimes relative sweetness.

1. Desserts weren't always sweet

The word's etymological origin actually supports its function: "dessert" is derived from the 16th-century French verb "desservir," as cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, meaning "to remove what has been served, to clear (the table)." What often ended up on that cleared table as desserts were fruits, sweets and confections, pies, puddings and jellies, to name a few. And quite often in richer households, there was an entire room dedicated to desserts to which one repaired to after dinner.

What we call desserts, and those examples cited above, haven't always been sweet, however. Medieval desserts, while they consisted of "sweetmeats" such as custards, gingerbread and creations of almonds and milk, could just as easily have been an anchovy salad, eel in marzipan or even a bit of liver. It was only and critically important to the course of our culinary history the appearance of cane sugar in Europe in the 16th-century that gave a boost to dessert creation which has lasted into our era.

Another phenomenon that helped solidify the dessert course was a preference beginning in the early-1800s for Russian table service (one dish coming to the table after another) over French service (which served many dishes at once.)

One popular theory was that, because sweets were not as important to nutrition and to sustaining life, theywere therefore were relegated to a less important position at the end of a meal. But that notiondoesn't really hold water in light of these historical facts.

2. Desserts are cultural

Some cultures have desserts that are fully composed dishes with several ingredients and garnishes; does a simple (albeit delicious) piece of phyllo pastry count as a "dessert" or a sweet? Who's to say?

Intricate French and Austrian pastries contrast sharply with the humble American apple pie (with or without ice cream): the former with its regal, aristocratic air; the latter with the home-spun, home-baked republicanism that held such aristocratic and monarchic pretension in disdain (and revolution).

Syrians will nibble rich and satisfying kunafeh or qatayef after a meal and especially so after fasting at Ramadan. Latin America loves flan, the custard dessert, while Indian desserts include similar sweet, milk-based creations.

I visited an Ethiopian restaurant in Waterloo Region: I was told that they had nothing that we would equate with a dessert. And at a Chinese restaurant? Ice cream and moon cakes at an all-you-can-eat buffet? Chinese meals aren't served in courses, though some sweeter dishes may be involved. That makes it a bit difficult to call it a dessert culture.

3. Desserts are strategic

So, to take a general, sweeping look at desserts in restaurants, you will find common ground in crme brulee, chocolate cake (or torts; with or without flour), perhaps a carrot cake, bread puddings, ice creams and gelati, and a host of cheese-cake flavours. These are conventional desserts but are they on their way out?

Diners express ambivalence: some will say it has to be home-made; others it's best if it comes from a specialty shop that knows what they're doing. Some cringe at the sight of a crme brulee; others say, "it's to die for" in the popular culinary vernacular.

Customers also feel the real estate battle of their bellies and simple dessert ennui: do I have the room for dessert? Should I have an appetizer rather than dessert? Why do I have to choose from either crme brulee, flourless chocolate cake and yet another version of the chef's signature carrot cake?

Restaurateurs, for their part, recognize the strategic placement of a few good desserts and coffee as the last thing a customer sees (and a few extra bucks to boot), but they also cite a modern palate that is looking for different and varied flavours and perhaps a small restaurant with limited resources and staffing just doesn't have the chops to create a terrifically inventive and technically well-executed dessert. Nor do they have the money to hire a trained and papered pastry chef.

A chef-owner that I spoke to in Waterloo told me about his new menu, "If someone wants a sweet, we have them but we aren't going to waste a whole lot of energy on something that only 20 percent of diners actually order," said Nick Benninger of Uptown 21.

Good ingredients like chocolate, cream and butter that customers demand are expensive and represent, along with labour, a cost that they then don't want to pay at the end of a meal.

4. Savoury things can be dessert

Are we starting to see more savoury ingredients in desserts? It seems the case, though sweet eels and anchovy pie will likely not pop onto many menus. But something like crme brulee is a palette for a host of flavours from pumpkin to lavender. Salts and peppers and chai and cayenne spices have made their way into desserts, perhaps returning the dish to its beginnings several centuries ago.

Popcorn can be a part of dessert, and ice cream is very accepting of some of the flavours that you might enjoy in your appetizer. Basil, for instance. Bread puddings with anise and cheese. Polenta, black olives, and chocolate sauce with vodka.

Jonathan Gushue of The Berlin in downtown Kitchener has been experimenting with fresh strawberries that have been charred black in an 800-degree wood-burning hearth and are served them with an old-school milk jelly akin to an Elizabethan custard. What goes around comes around, and with desserts we do get our "just deserts."