Pavlova

Pavlova desert with strawberries and kiwis

A gastronomic addition to English, as aerial and delicate as the Russian ballerina who inspired it, Pavlova is a merengue-based desert with a crispy crust and a light filling, topped with fruit.  Australia and New Zealand have long been in a bitter dispute over the nationality and place of the cake’s creation.  Each country wants to claim the desert as its own.  Allegedly, Australian chef Bert Sachse whipped it up at the Hotel Esplanade kitchen in Perth in 1935.  When serving the pastry, he compared its lightness and refinement to those of the Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, who had toured Australia and New Zealand in 1926.  New  Zealand’s culinary detectives, however, trace the invention of Pavlova to the 1929 New Zealand.

Anna Pavlova in 1927

Whatever the origins of the recipe, the desert was named in honor of one of the world’s finest classical ballet dancers in history.  Anna Pavlovna (Matveevna) Pavlova (Анна Павловна (Матвеевна) Павлова) (1881-1931) was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev.  She became the first ballerina to tour around the world.  Her passion for ballet was unconditional – upon learning she had pneumonia and needed surgery that would end her dancing career, Anna Pavlova refused the operation, exclaiming, “If I can’t dance then I’d rather be dead!”  Three weeks later she died in the Hotel des Indes in the Hague, Netherlands.  According to an old ballet tradition, the ballet took place the next day with a single spotlight circling an empty stage where Anna would have danced.