On her television show, Martha Stewart has prepared baked Alaska, an ice cream dessert that is slathered in meringue and torched, with at least two comedians: Andy Samberg and Conan O'Brien. For a graduation party, Martha recommends a dessert buffet featuring meringue cups and poached pineapple. Martha made baked Hawaii—basically baked Alaska, but filled with sorbet and shaped like a volcano—with the actress Julie Bowen. Martha made floating islands for David Rockefeller's 91st birthday and he "loved it," Martha said. Martha is so boss that she served meringue to her dentist.
Martha is absolutely obsessed with meringue.
Martha calls meringue "beautiful" over and over and over again. Macarons? You start with "three beautiful egg whites"; they're beautiful because they're from Martha's own chickens, probably. Baked Alaska? "Get this all very covered with this beautiful meringue." Baked Hawaii: "Here's our beautiful fluffy meringue...now we're going to put our beautiful meringue all over." That time Martha ate floating islands at a "very beautiful luncheon" in Jacksonville, Florida, in "somebody's beautiful apartment overlooking the sea"? "It was so beautiful and delicious." Toasted-marshmallow frosting on cupcakes? "Perfectly perfect. Ooh! Oh, so beautiful, look at that."
Well, why not? Meringue has a lot going for it. It has a billowing elegance. Like IRS Form 1040 or Ben Affleck, it looks more complicated than it really is. And though it doesn't taste like much on its own, it can be easily engineered to, in the hands of an artist like Martha Stewart.
Martha is a meringue evangelist. Martha told Maureen Dowd in the 1990s that, if Maureen wanted to be better at domesticity, she needed to invest in a propane torch for browning meringue, finishing crème brûlée, and unmolding salmon mousse. Twenty years later, salmon mousse and arguably crème brûlée are over [Ed. note: Say what?]; only meringue remains.
Martha said that her favorite frosting is Swiss meringue buttercream. (This is the correct opinion.) Martha said her favorite cake, "if I had to pick just one cake recipe," is lemon meringue cake. Martha once made an "upside-down lemon meringue pie" where the whole crust was meringue. (In truth, it was more like a pavlova.)
Martha favors "mile-high" Swiss meringue toppings for her more traditional lemon meringue pies. Martha called her lemon meringue tart "unbelievably yummy" in a 2008 blog post entitled "My Mother's Day! Come see my photos and please leave a comment."
More darkly, Martha and her longtime love of meringue figured into the investigation into the murder of Laci Peterson, whose husband told police that, on the date in question—December 24—Laci had been watching a Martha Stewart segment on meringues ("some cooking deal, I don't know, cookies of some sort, they were talking about what to do with meringue"). The police requested the tapes not just for December 24 but also December 23, and found that it was in fact December 23 when Martha did meringue, and this came to be seen as evidence that something was fishy. In court proceedings, there was a long line of questioning like this:
DISTASO: Okay. And on the 23rd, so December 23rd of oh-two, does Martha Stewart bake something with meringue or use meringue?
BROCCHINI: Yes.
Are you kidding, prosecutor Rick Distaso? Does Martha Stewart make something with meringue or use meringue on December 23, 2002? Is the pope Catholic? Can meringue be shaped into adorable little Christmas bears? Of course Martha Stewart bakes something with meringue or uses meringue on the date in question—specifically, bittersweet chocolate dacquoise—and probably next week and the week after that too. There are Christmas parties to prepare for—peppermint meringues with chocolate filling to make, or mini peppermint-meringue cups with ganache, and definitely these beautiful snowmen, their flesh meringue, their insides mousse, their hats and scarves marzipan.
She will be back at it on Valentine's Day—meringue hearts—and the Fourth probably, and definitely Halloween, when meringue is the perfect medium to make little ghosts and little bones. It's so beautiful. So, so beautiful. We should all have love in our life that is as pure and enduring as Martha's love of meringue.
