Quiche

Quiche Lorraine, the definitive version, comes from Lorraine — a region in northeastern France that, like its neighbor Alsace, spent significant time as part of Germany. The German word Kuchen means cake or tart; the Alsatian dialect rendered it küche or kiche, which became the French quiche. The pastry filled with eggs and cream was a peasant dish, practical and filling.

The earliest recorded quiche recipes from Lorraine date to the 16th century, using bread dough rather than pastry. The version with eggs, cream, and lardons was established by the 19th century. Cheese — particularly Gruyère — was added later. Quiche Lorraine without cheese is the traditional form; quiche with Gruyère is the version the world knows.

Quiche crossed to England in the 1930s and to the United States in the 1950s, carried by the mid-century fashion for French cuisine. Julia Child included it in Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961). By the 1980s, quiche had become so associated with genteel middle-class cooking that Bruce Feirstein's 1982 book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche used it as a symbol of effeminate sophistication.

The backlash was temporary. Quiche is now served in every café and brunch restaurant in the Western world. The German Kuchen that traveled through Alsatian dialect into French and then into English is indistinguishable from its French identity. The word has forgotten its German parent entirely.