Upside-down origins still up in the air
There is little dispute that the upside-down apple tart called tarte Tatin was created by sisters Stephanie and Caroline Tatin. They operated a small countryside hotel named Hotel Tatin in the town of Lamotte-Beuvron in central France, which was passed down to them by their father. The hotel, which still stands today, is near a train station and was popular with travellers. It was also well-frequented by local hunters, and demanding gourmets.
But as the Tatin sisters never published anything about the tart's origins, no one seems to have the same story. According to the Hotel Tatin's records, seemingly written after the sisters passed away, there was a customer who came in one day and was in a hurry, possibly with a train to catch. Stephanie and Caroline were chatting, or detained by another customer who was overly chatty, and a little slow in serving this particular customer.
He became annoyed towards the end of his meal, and the sisters became flustered as they had forgotten about preparing his dessert. Seeing a plate of peeled apples, Stephanie hastily threw them into a pan, along with butter and sugar, and into the oven. But she couldn't just serve the cooked apples on their own.
Finding a bit of pastry lying around, she covered the pan with it, and returned the whole thing to the oven. When it was done, she had to find a way to present it, and in desperation, she thought of covering the pan with a plate and flipping the pan's contents over.
Another version has Stephanie (one assumes she was in charge of the kitchen as opposed to Caroline) dropping the pan upside down due to carelessness and finding the flipped tart decent enough to serve. Either way, it was a hit with customers. Soon, regular visitors to Hotel Tatin demanded it, and began to recommend it to their friends.
It even attracted the attention of well-loved food writer Maurice Saillard, who wrote under the pen-name Curnonsky. Written with his friend Marcel Rouff, his celebrated multi-volume book La France Gastronomique dedicates a section to tarte Tatin, naming the sisters as its originators. Some say that it was Curnonsky's writing that popularised the dessert.
