Eton Mess

Strawberries, whipped cream and dry meringue are mixed together, so the tartness and texture change depending on where you scoop. Britain’s Eton mess is a dessert that does not work the ingredients into a uniform mixture; it keeps the differences between the red strawberries, the white cream and the crushed meringue. The timing of mixing also matters: combining everything just before eating lets you enjoy the dry lightness of the meringue.

Meringue Dried Right Through Rather Than Neatly Piped

Meringue is made by whisking egg whites, adding sugar a little at a time and bringing it to a glossy foam. Baked at a low temperature and then dried further, it becomes light sheets or pieces that can be lifted. Because it is crushed before use, there is no need to pipe each piece beautifully before baking.

Large pieces keep their crunch, while small fragments scatter through the cream and spread their sweetness. To create parts that crumble lightly, drying the meringue right through to the center matters more than giving it a deep color. In the method by cookbook author Dorie Greenspan, the meringue is spread flat on a baking sheet and baked, then left to dry for a long time in the turned-off oven with the door slightly open.

Making the Most of the Strawberries’ Shape and Juice

The strawberries are hulled and cut into easy-to-eat pieces. Crushing some of them, or combining them with sugar and letting them sit for a while, draws out their juice. Using both fruit that keeps its pieces and a sauce-like portion lets red streaks spread through the white cream.

The cream is whipped not too stiffly, just until it can be scooped softly. When the fruit and meringue are combined, too, the whole is not worked into a uniform mixture; the differences between the ingredients are kept. Besides being heaped in a large bowl, it can also be presented by layering compote, cream and fruit in a glass and crumbling meringue over the top.

Mixing Just Before Eating to Keep the Meringue’s Crunch

Dry meringue absorbs moisture and softens when it touches fruit juice or cream. Preparing the ingredients separately, then crushing and combining them just before eating, preserves the juiciness of the fruit, the smoothness of the cream and the crisp bite of the meringue.

The dessert can also be extended to fruits other than strawberries. Greenspan uses a rhubarb and strawberry compote accented with lime, and mixes crushed spice cookies or toasted nuts into the meringue. This adds a different kind of tartness and chew to the fruit, cream and meringue structure.

Eton mess served at an eatery in England, combining several kinds of berries with cream. Photo: Acabashi, 2018-08-05, Nuthurst, West Sussex, UK. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. The original author states that RAW development and lens correction were performed and that additional adjustments, cropping or rotation may have been made. Downscaled version from the hosting source; no additional processing.

A School Celebration and an 1893 Garden Party

Eton College’s “Fourth of June” is an event commemorating the birthday of George III. It features speeches, cricket and a procession of boats on the Thames, and in the past the students who rowed also had dinner on the riverbank. Separately from this school celebration, there are also stories linking Eton mess to the annual cricket match against Harrow School held at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.

The dessert’s name appears on the menu of a garden party at Marlborough House on July 5, 1893. Arthur Henry Beavan’s book, published in 1896, records “Eton mess with strawberries,” but it gives no recipe, and it is unclear whether the dish contained meringue. According to later recollections, the school shop in the 1930s sold versions combining strawberries or bananas with cream or with ice cream, and meringue is said to have been added later.

The connection between the school and the dessert continues today. At Eton’s 2021 summer school, children competed in making Eton mess with the school’s head chef. Unlike cutting up a finished cake, this dessert offers the fun of combining the fruit, cream and meringue yourself.

The Legend of a Dropped Dessert and the Origin of “Mess”

There is also a story that the dessert began when a pavlova—meringue topped with cream and fruit—was dropped at a cricket match and eaten as it was, broken. This is a later legend claiming that the dessert was born from the mishap of dropping a sweet.

Tracing the origin of mess leads back to the Old French mes, meaning “a dish of food at a meal.” From a portion of food for one meal, its meaning expanded to the people sharing the same table, a communal dining place and mixed food, and it eventually came to express a jumbled mass or confusion as well. This dessert, which bears the name of a school and mixes fruit and cream together, also carries the history of a word for meals and gatherings.

Glossary