Trifle and tiramisu seem similar. Both the sweets are made by coating sponge cake or biscuits with something creamy. The trifle is British, soaking sponges in alcohol and layering custard, fruit, jelly and whipped cream on top.
Tiramisu is Italian, soaking a sponge in coffee and topping it with sugar, eggs and a mixture of mascarpone, a rich Italian cream cheese and bitter cocoa powder.
There are even recipes for tiramisu trifle that combine the two.
It’s like being married to a vampire and a beautiful long-necked woman. Tiramisu is everywhere. You can find it on restaurant and café menus, in supermarkets, at parties, and as a delicious treat in its own right.
You can get tiramisu syrup, tiramisu chocolate, tiramisu cupcakes and tiramisu-flavoured protein powder. There are also recipes for tiramisu and gulab jamun! But when was the last time you tasted a proper trifle? It may seem strange to say that tiramisu is taking the life out of little things, but the evidence suggests just that.
Trifle was once common in India. It was a British introduction that stuck, rich yet refreshing with all that fruit and cold custard. The wine made it sophisticated, yet the jelly was delightfully reminiscent of childhood.
Even a small thing provides a lot of scope for intriguing changes. My mother broiled the dried apricots to coat the fruit, which added a mild yet tart flavour.
In My Bombay Kitchen, Nilofar Ichaporia King writes of how, when her mother found alcohol difficult to obtain during Bombay’s Prohibition years, she used Drakshasava, an Ayurvedic herbal tonic made based on fermented grape juice. His friends liked it so much that they continued using Drakshasava even when alcohol became available again.
But variability may be one reason the trifle is lost. Tiramisu means one thing: that powerful hit of coffee, chocolate, and cream, which is why it’s so easy to distinguish how it tastes. Its brown and cream colours are also distinctive. When American naturalists discovered that, due to global warming, grizzly and polar bears were encountering each other and producing brown and cream-coloured cubs, they dubbed them Tiramisu bears.
Unlike trifle, tiramisu is often made in single portions, made from a large bowl and spooned out. This is ideal for today’s market, where a distinctive image and taste, along with personalised portions, are far superior to quiet, communal offerings of small things.
My friend Vatsala tells me the trifle remains popular in Coonoor, where she lives. The popularity is probably due to its connection with the army.
In A Memsahab’s Cookbook, Kikki Sahota includes a recipe for a ‘boozy trifle’, which uses a mixture of heated rum and jam to soak the base. But she also has a recipe for tiramisu where coffee is mixed with brandy.
Instead of the hard-to-locate mascarpone, a mixture of strained curds and cream is used, a simpler method that may have helped spread the popularity of tiramisu.
This recipe also explains why Indian tiramisu often has a mild, irritating, sour taste, but the strong coffee covers it up.
Sadly, it may be too late for that little thing. Except in areas like Coonoor, the kind of society in which it flourished has probably passed away.
But it’s not too late to avert a similar threat to another much-loved flavour. The British also brought butterscotch, and its butter-caramel flavour remains popular, especially in yellow ice cream with crunchy pieces of toffee.
In a New York Times article on India’s love for butterscotch, food scholar Pushpesh Pant links it to the deep Indian love for ghee and jaggery, which have a similar taste.
Still, I have a feeling that the classic butterscotch flavour is becoming increasingly rare. In its place is now salted caramel, where a sprinkle of salt highlights the same butter and burnt sugar flavours.
I love salted caramel, but it would be a pity if its growth displaced the butterscotch, the way tiramisu has done with the trifle.
The views expressed above are the author’s own.
