Pavlova

In the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons happen at the opposite time of the year as they do up here in the Northern. And so Christmas is a summer holiday down there. In Australia and New Zealand, a traditional Christmas dessert is the light-and-airy Pavlova--a sort of fruit-topped meringue.

The Pavlova was invented in Australia or New Zealand in the 1920s to honor a visiting Russian ballerina. Exactly which country is, evidently, a matter of some contention. But since our Christmas Pavlova was being baked by a New Zealander, we all firmly accepted his avowal that recent research has shown that it was totally New Zealand.

Steven made the "Pav" at our house, to avoid having to transport the delicate final product. And also we have an electric beater. And like any meringue, there's a lot of beating. As we were getting up in the tens of minutes of electric beating of egg whites, we were marveling at the work that must have gone into making one of these in the days of hand beating. (Though, we were using pasteurized-in-the-shell eggs, which there seems to be some contention as to whether they whip up as easily as normal eggs.)

Here's the recipe we followed, though we totally forgot the cornstarch. Oh well.