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Cuisine
OUT OF THE FOREST
CHEF SHORTY’S SWEET SWEET SHREVEPORT LEGACY W
S H O R T Y ’ S TA K E O N A C L A S S I C
Shreveport’s Schwarzwaldtårta
SHORTY LENARD’S BLACK FOREST CAKE WAS NORTH LOUISIANA’S BEST-KNOWN DESSERT FOR OVER THIRTY YEARS
Story by Chris Jay • Photos by Federico Villaseñor
“T
he perfect way to end a perfect dinner in Shreveport is with Black Forest Cake, of course,” reads a line from the July 10, 1981 edition of the Shreveport Journal’s dining column, “Eating Out”. Though today it has all but vanished from local menus, from the 1960s until the 1990s, Chef Shorty Lenard’s dessert was a ubiquitous presence at Shreveport’s upscale restaurants, members-only clubs, event venues, and social gatherings. It all began in 1962, when Chef Alma Clifton “Shorty” Lenard debuted his version of Black Forest Cake at the Shreveport Club. Born in Arcadia in 1921, Shorty’s culinary history begins at his father’s café in nearby Simsboro. He honed his craft in Europe while serving in the U.S. Army’s Fourth Infantry Division from 1940 until 1945. By 1947, he’d made his way home to North Louisiana and begun a career as a professional chef. And by 1962, he was a trusted and esteemed member of the Shreveport culinary scene. Aside from its name, Shorty’s Black Forest Cake shared few characteristics with the classic Black Forest Gâteau. Shorty’s version replaced the gâteau’s simple sponge cake layers with fragile discs of baked meringue, and daringly nixed the German delicacy’s Maraschino cherries. The resulting dessert is a wonder of contrasting textures. Luxurious layers of whipped cream and velvety German chocolate are punctuated by the satisfying crunch of crisp meringue laced with finely chopped almonds and hazelnuts. Keith Lenard, Shorty’s son and a retired chef himself, does not mince words about his late father’s best-known menu item. “It’s not a Black Forest Cake at all,” he said. “It’s a torte. It’s an almond egg white meringue torte with German chocolate and whipped cream layers. It may seem simple, but I promise you it’s not.” In fact, Shorty’s cake actually resembles the Swiss version of Black Forest Cake, called Schwarzwaldtårta, as opposed to the more commonly-recognized German one. It’s possible, then, that he may have learned to make the cake from Chef Joe Amstutz, a Swiss Chef who worked at the Shreveport Club from 1947 until 1958. Shorty told reporters that he had concocted the recipe while attempting to recreate a European dessert from memory. Some former employees have even claimed they heard the chef say he had gotten the recipe from an issue of Southern Living. However it originated, word of Shorty Lenard’s Black Forest Cake spread like wildfire, the dish hopping from one kitchen to another as often as the temperamental chef changed jobs. Because Shorty spent twenty years cooking for restaurants and clubs that doubled as event venues, the cake came to be associated with weddings and special occasions. In this way, Shorty’s
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