The word “substitute” induces an instant headache for any chef.
Here at the bakery, we always try our best to accommodate. We replace flour with gluten-free alternatives; we cut out nuts when we can. The extra step, the added effort—that was never what vexed me about substitutes. What I hated was the stigma around the backup ingredient. Substitutes result from limitations; they are seen as secondary to the original. A substitute suggests it’s not “the way it was intended to be.”
Around the time of writing this book, I became fascinated with the idea of substitutes. I understood their place and necessity in certain recipes. Take the classic French Mont Blanc, a pastry named after a famous mountain and interpreted through a tower of chestnut cream surrounding meringue, orange marmalade, and whipped cream. We source our chestnuts directly from Aubenas in France every fall and winter, but as I was writing the list of ingredients to include in this recipe, I wondered whether the home cook could find them in a supermarket in the States.
Months later, lost in thought at the dinner table on Thanksgiving Day, I took bite after bite of candied sweet potato. And in a moment of clarity, I realized the textural similarities between that and chestnut purée. Both were smooth, creamy, and slightly sweet. But only one had the added benefit of being accessible to the home cook.
I woke up the next morning and headed immediately to the kitchen to create a Sweet Potato Mont Blanc. Never had I experienced an ingredient that so naturally adopted its new role. The striking color of the cream as I molded it into the shape of a mountain peak looked like the terra-cotta of the Rockies rather than the harsher gray rocks of Mont Blanc. The sweet potato cream blended seamlessly with the orange marmalade and meringue. And there was a buttery quality to the mixture that surpassed the version I made with chestnuts.
What began as a substitute ingredient ended up as the hero for my new fall dessert. With the more familiar ingredient, customers who were once intimidated by the Mont Blanc now enjoyed the new incarnation. The Sweet Potato Mont Blanc was received like a star, rather than an understudy.
This dessert taught me to be wary of judging ingredients prematurely. It’s a lesson that has carried over to all aspects of my life. I try not to put too much stock in reputations. They so easily undercut an ingredient’s—or a person’s—potential. Many of the most famous singers today started off as backup for a then-more-popular band. Great men were once assistants to someone else. Just because one item or topic isn’t playing a key role now doesn’t mean it won’t excel in the future. Every inspiration is looking for its big break.