La Mort de Marat, Jacques-Louis David
One of my favorite asides in Robin McKinley’s Sunshine is the description of a fluffy little Gothic dessert dish called Death of Marat.
A Gothic sensibility in the bakery is not necessarily a good thing. I’d made this light fluffy looking number in a white oval dish with white high sides and presented the first one with a flourish to a group of regulars who had volunteered to be experimented on. Aimil was the one with the knife, and she stuck it in and the raspberry-and-black-currant filling had exploded down the side and over the edge of the dish onto the counter. It was, I admit, a trifle dramatic. “Gods, Sunshine, what is this, the Death of Marat?” she said. Aimil reads too much. Everybody at Charlie’s that night wanted a taste, and the Death of Marat, the first of Sunshine’s soon-to-be-notorious, implausibly-named epic creations, was born, although I think most of our clientele thought Marat was some kind of master vampire. (pp. 173)
God, I love the name. It would be fantastic if someone with baking experience came up with a working recipe for this, or for that matter all the other sweets from Sunshine’s bakery.
By the way, Jean-Paul Marat was a leader in the French Revolution. He was assasinated in his bathtub by one Charlotte Corday. Marat had skin disease and had to take cold baths to relieve the itching. The painter, Jacques-Louis David, was close friends with Marat.
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