Week 10: Book Inspired - Bananas Foster french toast (Gravity's Rainbow)

I didn't realize that next week is bananas until this morning, oops! My original plan was to make a number of different banana dishes, in homage to Pirate's Banana Breakfast from the opening scene of Gravity's Rainbow. As the week wore on and I got busier, I cut out some of the dishes, and in the end I just combined it all into one exceedingly rich plate. This was one of the most indulgent things I've ever eaten.

I mostly just played it by ear. It ended up being something like:

  • 2 thick slices brioche
  • 3 bananas
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla
  • 2 dashes cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup + 1/2 Tbsp butter (~1/2 a stick)
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 3 Tbsp rum
  • 2 scoops vanilla ice cream
  1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
  2. Using an immersion blender, combine one banana with the eggs and heavy cream to make a custard. Soak the bread in the custard until most of the custard gets absorbed.
  3. Melt the 1/2 Tbsp of butter in a skillet over medium-high heat, and add the bread. Fry until the outside of the bread is nicely browned. Transfer the bread slices to a baking sheet and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes.
  4. Melt the 1/4 cup butter in the skillet over medium-high heat. While it's melting, slice two bananas lengthwise.
  5. Add the brown sugar to the melted butter, stirring to combine. Add the bananas and cook until the sugar caramelizes.
  6. Add the rum, then tilt the pan so that the evaporating alcohol is exposed to the flame of the burner and catches fire. Flambé the bananas until the flame is gone and you have a thick syrup.
  7. Remove the bread from the oven, top with the bananas, syrup, and scoops of ice cream.

With a clattering of chairs, upended shell cases, benches, and ottomans, Pirate's mob gather at the shores of the great refectory table, a southern island well across a tropic or two from chill Corydon Throsp's mediaeval fantasies, crowded now over the swirling dark grain of its walnut uplands with banana omelets, banana sandwiches, banana casseroles, mashed bananas molded in the shape of a British lion rampant, blended with eggs into batter for French toast, squeezed out a pastry nozzle across the quivering creamy reaches of a banana blancmange to spell out the words C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre (attributed to a French observer during the Charge of the Light Brigade) which Pirate has appropriated as his motto . . . tall cruets of pale banana syrup to pour oozing over banana waffles, a giant glazed crock where diced bananas have been fermenting since the summer with wild honey and muscat raisins, up out of which, this winter morning, one now dips foam mugsfull of banana mead . . . banana croissants and banana kreplach, and banana oatmeal and banana jam and banana bread, and bananas flamed in ancient brandy Pirate brought back last year from a cellar in the Pyrenees also containing a clandestine radio transmitter . . .

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