The timeless beauty of a French apple tart

There is, as the saying goes, more than one way to skin a cat. The same could be said – although rather more appealingly – about the number of ways to make a French apple tart.

French apple tarts are ubiquitous in their home country but, despite the umbrella name, no two recipes are the same. Usually it is made without a recipe, seemingly without thought – just by muscle memory, passed down from family member to family member, an inheritance in pastry. It follows, therefore, that an apple tart is as individual as the cook who makes it.

It does feel rather timeless – rolling out pastry you’ve made, arranging apple slices into circles

Because of this, the tart itself varies wildly– the only real constants are some sort of pastry base, and the filling being both apple and, usually, uncovered. But the pastry can be shortcrust, sweetcrust, flaky or puffed. Some cook the apples in advance, others cook them raw; some employ almond or egg-based fillings underneath the apples, others wouldn’t dream of it.

Unlike dishes which come from restaurants, explicitly invented by famous chefs, or committed to paper by well-known food writers, there is often no definitive version of dishes that have lived their lives in home kitchens. That is naturally part of their charm. It’s a type of cooking that we romanticise, yes, but also one I think we genuinely and legitimately hanker after.

It’s an old-fashioned type of kitchen knowledge, which comes from a time when technical culinary skill was a given, when cooking formed a bond between generations and when families often lived more closely than they do today. This isn’t an uncomplicated history: many of the reasons we have lost this legacy knowledge are due to greater gender equality, social mobility, the sheer ease and availability of prepared food.