Le Pauvre Petit
A Tilda Crumb Story
There is a silence just before cream touches pastry. Tilda knows this silence well.
The dessert before her was not beautiful. She wanted to be clear about this and would be sure to say so. It sat on a chipped plate, slightly off-center. A plain tart, brown at the edges, its surface appearing bruised where the fruit had sunk during baking. And on top of it, a spoonful of glistening cream so thick it did not move. Her careful trained eye measured maybe three inches high. “Mon Dieu!”
She leaned closer. This was not cream from a carton. This cream had never seen the inside of a refrigerator case, she was sure. This cream had been made by hand, with lard. “Pork lard!” she whispered in an excited rush. Rendered slowly, whipped with sugar and patience until it transcended the délice ordinaire. Her hands moved instinctively toward a bag on the space beside her.
From the bag, she pulled out an old notebook with rounded edges, its yellow cover soft from handling. A blank page:
February 1, 2026, 11:11am Patsy’s Perfect Pastries
Tart. Plain. Fruit sunken. Cream: lard. Three inches. Does not move. Mon Dieu! Does not move! Délice ordinaire.
She set the pen down. She picked up her fork. The cream gave way slowly and with the sound of moist confection bringing a grin to her face. Beneath it the fruit was a dark purple falling in sweet clumps onto her fork and into the cream.
“How is zis possible?” Her mouth full of Patsy’s Plum Pardonne. “Zis is fabulous,” she erupted! Going for her pen, sweet cream in the corners of her mouth.
She wrote fast, her handwriting tilting downward with the letters smaller toward the end of each line.
Crust: honest. Not trying to impress. (Le Pauvre Petit) Fruit: plum, slow cooked, almost jammy but not yet. The cream. THE CREAM. Lard base, hand whipped, possibly a pinch of salt? Ask Patsy. Do NOT forget to ask Patsy.
She underlined “ask Patsy” twice.
She ate slowly now, realizing how little was left on the plate.
The last bite she held on her fork for a moment longer. Plum, cream, a crumble of crust barely holding on. Then it was gone. She closed her eyes and popped them open again. A sound left her.
She opened her notebook.
Verdict: Le Pauvre Petit is not poor and it is not little. It is the best thing I have eaten this month and I have eaten many things this month. I will write about it on Thursday. Patsy will not expect this.
She closed the notebook and wiped the cream from the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand. Then Tilda paid her bill, tucked the notebook into her bag, and stepped into the street where the morning light was doing something very specific to the cobblestones that she would also need to write about later.