Strawberry Cobbler and Napoleon’s Russian Invasion

American Dessert

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STRAWBERRY COBBLER

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INGREDIENTS
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1¾ fresh strawberries
½ cup sugar (½ cup more later)
1¾ teaspoons baking powder
1 cup flour
1 cup warm whole milk
⅜ teaspoon salt
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup melted butter (1 tablespoon more later.)
1 tablespoon butter
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SPECIAL UTENSIL
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8″ * 13″ casserole dish
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Serves 12. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes.
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PREPARATION
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Completely remove stem from strawberries. Cut strawberries in half. Add strawberries and ½ cup sugar to 1st mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly with spatula. Add baking powder, flour, milk, salt, ½ cup sugar, and vanilla extract to 2nd mixing bowl. Use spatula to slowly fold in melted butter. This is the batter. Stop when all is combined. (Overstirred crust will be dense, not fluffy.)
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Grease casserole dish with 1 tablespoon butter. Pour batter into casserole dish. Use slotted spoon to sugar-coated strawberries onto batter. Do not stir. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until cobbler turns golden brown andl strawberry juices bubble.
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TIDBITS
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1) Just as pigging is the process of making new pigs, shoemaking is the process of making new shoes. In the 19th-century shoes were made by shoemakers. Cobblers cobbled things together, such as shoes that had come apart. All this should have been easy to understand–unlike quantum physics or nuclear missile repairs–to the many 19th-century peasants, who called shoemakers cobblers.
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2) So, if people get confused so easily, it’s hardly surprising that in 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia instead of Austria. His soldiers shoes fell apart from the wet Russian rain. But there was no leather to be had, the French soldiers had eaten all the cattle. Fortunately, there were a lot of strawberries in Russia in 1812, The Year of Napoleon and Strawberries. In the winter, Nappy’s plucky cobblers repaired shoes with layers of frozen strawberries. These repairs lasted all the way back to France. French chefs used these strawberries to make strawberry cobblers to honor the heroic cobblers.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

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