A HARTE APPETITE: VIVE LA DIFFERENCE: THE FRENCH VERSION OF PANCAKES IS NOT ONLY REFINED BUT VERSATILE

"Boy, those French," comedian Steve Martin once mused. "They have a different word for everything."

But it's not only their language that's different and, to hear them talk, more beautiful than ours. They think they're superior to us when it comes to clothing, wine and food, not to mention romance. Admittedly, they do have a way with each.

Perhaps nowhere is French sophistication more evident, at least in the culinary world, than in pancakes. American pancakes are puffy, down-to-earth concoctions sometimes inelegantly referred to as "flapjacks" and usually served for breakfast. French pancakes, or crepes, on the other hand, are thin, delicate, suave and urbane, right at home at the fanciest dinner party.

Recently I was struck by how much the French outclass us in the pancake department while enjoying the best crepes I've ever eaten this side of the Seine at the City Coffeehouse located on Brentwood Boulevard in the heart of Clayton in St. Louis County. There proprietor Ann Gallardo, manager Mike True and crepe-maker extraordinaire Jennifer Dooley are nurturing a revival of the crepe in this country. On the basis of what I saw, my guess is they'll give IHOP a run for its money, and rightly so.

Though I take a back seat to no one in my esteem for fluffy American buttermilk pancakes drenched in maple syrup, I'm nonetheless convinced that we Americans ought to develop a further appreciation for the French member of the pancake family, the crepe.

After all, as Dorian Leigh Parker points out in her book on the subject, crepes are not only the most refined pancake variety, they are the most versatile as well. Because they are neutral they go well with almost any type of filling or sauce, whether sweet or savory. Filled with leftovers they can even turn the remains of yesterday's meal into an elegant entre for today. Popular fillings at the City Coffeehouse include meat, vegetables, cheeses, fruits and lemon curd.

Cookbook author Lou Siebert Pappas suggests that crepes originated in Brittany in northwest France and were initially served without filling as bread. Today throughout France ready-to-eat crepes are available near the cash register in practically every delicatessen, television commercials hawk packaged chocolate-filled ones to children, and sidewalk carts dispense them to passersby. As Susan Herrmann Loomis, a food writer now living in Louviers, notes, during Mardi Gras they are sold in front of churches and at all pastry shops and, indeed, February is crepe month.

But though they've perfected the crepe, the French probably didn't actually invent the process of adding liquid to milled grain and cooking it on a flat surface. Pancakes, as the Oxford Companion to Food tells us, are an ancient delicacy, the griddle method of cooking being an older form than oven baking. And nearly every culture has a version, ranging from Russian blini to Vietnamese rice pancakes to Hungarian palacsintas.

But clearly the crepe is the ultimate variation and it's surprisingly simple to make if you keep in mind the following guidelines:

* Mix crepe batter in a blender or food processor to make it perfectly smooth; unlike ordinary pancake batter, it should contain no lumps.

* Batter should be the consistency of heavy cream.

* A bit of liqueur added to the batter can enhance flavor; beer works too.

* Let the batter stand an hour before using so the flour can absorb all of the liquid.

* Grease the pan with clarified butter to prevent sticking and burning.

* Use a good pan, preferably a traditional heavy, black steel pan, what the French call a poele. Teflon coating also helps. Or, if you're willing to invest about a thousand dollars, use an imported French crepe burner like they do at the City Coffeehouse.

* Play Edith Piaf or similar recordings during preparation to create the right atmosphere.

Keeping these precepts in mind, you have only to practice to get the hang of ladling just the right amount of batter into the greased pan and swirling it to cover the surface evenly and to know when the bottom of the crepe is brown and the edges ready to lift up for turning the crepe over to brown the other side. If you want to make a real impression, learn to flip the crepe without using a spatula, merely tossing it with a flick of your wrist.

In time you can learn to concoct the most elegant crepes of all, Crepes Suzette, a dish supposedly created by accident in 1896 when Chef Henri Charpentier inadvertently set a cordial sauce on fire, dunked crepes into it, and served it to the Prince of Wales at the Cafe de Paris in Monte Carlo. The prince gallantly suggested that the dish be named for the lady who accompanied him.

Crepes Suzette

This recipe is adapted from Henri Charpentier's original as detailed in his memoirs. Few desserts are as impressive (as the Oxford Companion to Food notes, for the first two-thirds of the 20th century the dish was the epitome of luxury desserts), yet so easy to make. You can simplify the recipe further, sacrificing only a small amount of taste and none of the drama, by using merely Grand Marnier and Cognac as flavorings in the sauce. Tangerines also make a nice variation.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

2 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon cream

2 tablespoons milk

pinch of salt

4 tablespoons sugar

2 oranges

1 lemon

4 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon orange blossom water

6 tablespoons Kirsch

6 tablespoons white curacao

6 tablespoons rum

4 tablespoons maraschino liqueur

Directions:

Stir together the eggs, flour, cream, milk and salt until smooth and the consistency of olive oil. Put 1 tablespoon of butter into a small round-bottomed frying pan and when it bubbles pour in enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan, moving it so as to spread the batter thinly. After 1 minute turn the pancake over and brown the other side. Fold the circle in half and then again to form a triangle. Make eight of these. Peel the rind from the oranges and the lemon, julienne it, and mix with the sugar. Squeeze the juice of the oranges and the lemon into a chafing dish. Add the rind and sugar mixture and the butter and let come to a boil. Add orange blossom water, 4 tablespoons each of Kirsch, curacao and rum and 2 tablespoons maraschino, and when mixture begins to bubble lay the pancakes into the sauce, allowing to heat through and soak up the sauce. Mix remaining 2 tablespoons of each liqueur and rum, ignite and pour over pancakes. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

Listen to A Harte Appetite Friday mornings and Saturday afternoons on KRCU, 90.9 on your FM dial. Write A Harte Appetite, c/o the Southeast Missourian, P.P. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semissourian.com.