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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels May 3, 2004 Food & History The Crooked Man was cracked Jeff Cheek Hippolyte Mege-Mouries is like a salesman trying to sell overcoats in a nudist colony. Right product but wrong target audience. He is the French chemist who invented margarine, then tried to sell the butter substitute to the French people. Mon Dieu! In France, a married politician may have a mistress and survive, but if he tampers with a recipe, he will be thrown out of office. Some things are sacred. Emperor Napoleon III ordered him to find a cheap substitute for butter. In l867 one of his staff boiled chopped cow udders in skim milk. He isolated pearly drops of fat which he called margarine, from the Greek word "maragon" (pearl). Margarine had little success in France but was embraced by the rest of the world. Commercial production began in Great Britain in 1869 with the name changed to butterine. We Americans kept the French name when the spread was patented in the United States in l873. It is cheaper than butter and the use of vegetable oils, which are lower in saturated fats, makes it a health food. Margarine outsells butter by something like a three to one ratio in the USA. Napoleon III had a captive audience for his new product. He fed it to the sailors in the French navy. The experiment failed. Butter still outsells margarine in the country that invented it. Meanwhile, Hippolyte was publicly ridiculed for tampering with a revered French national institution: The traditional French breakfast of coffee with hard rolls, butter and jam. The famed chemist regained some public affection by inventing a sandwich that used a lot of butter, not margarine. For some reason the Croque-Monsieur Sandwich is often called the Crooked-Man Sandwich. This is probably an error but many words lose meaning in translation. A more logical explanation is that the sandwich is baked after preparation so the bread is crisp. It makes a crunching or cracking sound when you bite into it. The French verb "croquer" can mean to crunch or to crack. Therefore the first part of the name, Croque, might refer to the cracking or crunching sound. But where does the second half, "Monsieur" or man fit in ? We can thank Mege-Mouries and his sense of humor for this half. In both the US and France, there is a slang expression for someone who is crazy. They are said to be "half cracked." This term was once common in both countries. Crazy does not only mean someone who is mentally deranged, it can also mean someone who is impractical and foolish. By naming his sandwich the Croque-Monsieur, he admitted that anyone who tried to convert the French from butter-eaters to margarine must be crazy. It was an impractical and foolish idea but Croque-Monsieur is a hearty and tasty sandwich. Ingredients 2 slices French bread 2 slices ham 3 slices Swiss cheese Chopped onions Butter Preparation Butter both pieces of bread. Spread a layer of onions on one slice, top with a piece of cheese, then a slice of ham, another slice of cheese, then the second slice of ham and the third slice of cheese. Spread second layer of onions on cheese, close with second slice of bread. Bake at 350 degrees until cheese begins to melt. Serve. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams