During the holiday season, the focus is always on food. I like to combine food with entertainment. Tableside cooking is always fun and makes a great show. One of the most popular items to prepare tableside is a dessert that I'm sure everyone has heard of, “cherries jubilee.” The beautiful red cherries are perfect for the season. This is actually quite a simple dessert that creates great drama when flambeed!

The great French chef Auguste Escoffier created cherries jubilee in honor of Queen Victoria. It was created to celebrate the 50th year of her reign, or golden jubilee. In I882, Victoria paid her first of nine visits to the French Riviera. Escoffier was the reigning chef de cuisine at the Grand Hotel in Monte Carlo. Her son, the Prince of Wales, was a famous visitor to the area. He was well-known to Escoffier as a great gourmet. It was also a well-known fact that Victoria was extremely fond of cherries. The dish was created for her and it was to be ignited at the table as a grand gesture of celebration.

There is no ice cream in Escoffier's version. Most people today associate the dessert with cherries and vanilla ice cream. Here are two versions; the original and a more modern one.

Cherries Jubilee: Original Version

Simmer some fine-stoned cherries in syrup. Drain them, put them into a little silver, fireproof porcelain or glass ovenproof dishes. Pour the syrup into which they have cooked over them, after boiling it down and add to it a little cornstarch or arrowroot diluted with cold water. Then pour into each dish a tablespoon of warmed kirsch and set flame to it at the moment of serving.

Cherries Jubilee: Modern Version

Pour the juice from a pint jar of pitted Bing cherries into the top pan, or blazer, of a chafing dish. Place the pan directly over the flame and bring the juice to the boil. Thicken it with 1/2 teaspoon arrowroot dissolved in a little cold water and then add the cherries.

Stir the cherries in the sauce until they are heated through. Pour over the cherries, 2 ounces of kirsch and set aflame.

Serve the flaming cherries and sauce over a scoop of vanilla ice cream. For those of you less daring, I am including a recipe that doesn't require flames and can be kept refrigerated and used when you like.

Cherries in Red Wine

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1-1/2 cups Cabernet Sauvignon (or your favorite red wine)

1 pound sweet cherries, tips of stems cut off, but leave some of the stem attached

1 tablespoon red currant jelly

Preparation: Put the cherries in a heat-proof casserole.

Stir the wine and sugar together and pour over the cherries. Cover and cook over low heat about 10 minutes.

Remove from heat, uncover and cool the cherries in the liquid for 30 minutes.

Drain the wine into a saucepan. Place it over med-high heat and boil until reduced to 1/2 cup.

Stir in the jelly and stir over low heat until the jelly is dissolved.

Pour the mixture over the cherries and place in the refrigerator to chill. Serve the cherries very cold.

They make an excellent topping for vanilla ice cream.

This column has been a collaborative effort between Auburn natives chef

Max Hitchcock and his mother,

Susan Silverman. They can be reached at Birdscapes@adelphia.net