Gourmet Rhapsody

by Muriel Barbery

  And then I met him. I was still young and beautiful, a slender doe, too easy a prey. The excitement of clandestinity, the adrenaline of adultery, the fever of forbidden sex: I had found my prince, I had drugged my life, on the sofa I played my role, languishing and lovely, I let him admire my willowy, racy beauty, at last I was alive, I existed, and in his eyes I became a goddess, I became Venus.

  Of course, he really didn’t want anything to do with a sentimental little girl. What for me had been transgression was for him merely futile entertainment, a charming distraction. Indifference is far more cruel than hatred: from non-being I had come, to non-being I would return. To my sullen husband, to my bleary frivolousness, to the eroticism of an innocent young thing, to the empty thoughts of a graceful silly goose: my cross to bear, my Waterloo.

  Let him die, then.

  Ice Cream

  Rue de Grenelle, the Bedroom

  What I liked about Marquet was her generosity. She didn’t seek to innovate at any cost—a tactic many great chefs resort to in order to ward off the criticism that they are afraid of change—and while she did not rest on her laurels with her existing accomplishments, she only worked relentlessly because, in the end, it was her nature, and she liked what she was doing. Thus, when dining in her restaurant, you could just as easily romp your way through a menu that was perpetually youthful as order a dish from an earlier era, which she would prepare with all the good grace of a prima donna cajoled through flattery to provide an encore of one of the arias that made her famous.

  I had been feasting at her place for twenty years. Of all the great chefs I have had the honor of frequenting on intimate terms, she was the only one who truly embodied my ideal of creative perfection. She never disappointed me: her dishes always baffled me to the bone, to the point of inducing a fit, perhaps precisely because her even touch and the originality of her perpetually inventive provender came so naturally.

  That July evening, I had sat down at a table outdoors, as overexcited as a mischievous child. The Marne was lapping gently at my feet. The white stone of the old restored mill, halfway between land and river, eaten away in places by a soft green moss that found its way into the slightest crack, was glowing gently in the early darkness. Before long, the terraces would be lit. I have always had a particular fondness for the fertile countryside, where a river, a spring, or a stream, flowing across the meadow, confers upon the surroundings the serenity of uliginous atmospheres. A house by the water: crystalline tranquility, the lure of still water, the mineral indifference of waterfalls, no sooner here than gone again, serving forthwith to make all human concerns seem relative. But on that particular day, I felt incapable of savoring the charms of the place, almost reclusive, and I waited with relative patience for the mistress of the premises to arrive. Which she did almost at once.

  “Well,” I said, “this evening I would like a rather particular supper.” And I enumerated my requests.

  Menu. 1982. A Royal of Sea urchin with Sansho, saddle of hare, rabbit kidneys and liver with winkles. Buckwheat pancake. 1979: Cod in an agria macaire; violet maco from the Midi; plump Gillardeau oysters and grilled foie gras. Mackerel bouillon laced with leeks. 1989: Thick chunks of turbot cooked in a casserole with aromatic herbs, deglazed with homemade cider. Quarters of Comice pears with cucumber greens. 1996: Pastis of Gauthier pigeon with mace, dried fruit and foie gras with radishes. 1988: Madeleines with tonka beans.

  It was an anthology. In one single clutch of eternity I had gathered together that which years of culinary spiritedness had created in the way of timeless blandishments: from the shapeless accumulation of dishes I was extracting a handful of veritable nuggets, the contiguous pearls of a goddess’s necklace, in order to make them into a work of legend.

  A moment of triumph. She looked at me for an instant, flabbergasted, the time it took to understand; lowered her gaze onto my empty, waiting plate; then, slowly, training an ever so appreciative gaze upon me—full of praise, admiring, and respectful all at the same time, she nodded her head and puckered her lips in a pout of deferential homage. “Well yes, of course,” she said. “Of course, it’s proof that . . . ”

  Naturally, it was a feast worthy of an anthology, and it was perhaps the only time during our long cohabitation as food lovers that we were truly united in the fervor of a meal, neither critic nor cook, only high-flying connoisseurs sharing their allegiance to a same emotion. But while this memory of noble lineage may flatter above all my self-importance as a creator, that is not the reason why I have caused it to re-emerge from the mists of my unconsciousness.

  Madeleines of tonka beans, or the art of the offhand shortcut! It would be an insult to assume that a dessert chez Marquet could consist of nothing more than setting a few skinny madeleines set on a plate and sprinkled with beans. The pastry was hardly more than a pretext, that of a psalm—sweet, honeyed, fondant and dripping, where, in the mad confusion of cookies, candied fruits, icings, crêpes, chocolate, sabayons, red berries, ice creams and sorbets, a progressive passage from hot to cold was being explored by my expert tongue: it clucked with compulsive satisfaction, it danced a devilish jig at the merriest of balls. I favored ice cream and sorbet, in particular. I adore ice cream: frozen cream saturated with milk, fat, artificial flavors, bits of fruit, coffee beans, rum; Italian gelati solid as velvet spiraled with vanilla, strawberry or chocolate; ice cream sundaes crumbling under the weight of whipped cream, peaches, almonds and coulis of all sorts; simple popsicles with a coating that is crunchy, fine and firm all at once, that you eat in the street between two appointments, or in the evening in summer in front of the television, when it has become clear that this is the only way to make yourself feel a little cooler, a little less thirsty; and finally the sorbets, the triumphant synthesis of ice and fruit, robust refreshment that evaporates in your mouth in a glacier’s flow. The plate that had been set down in front of me contained examples of her industry: one was a tomato sorbet, another was classical, with wild berries and fruit, and a third one, finally, was orange.

  In the simple word “sorbet,” there is an entire world. Try saying this out loud: “Would you like an ice cream?” then immediately following with “What about a sorbet?” and notice the difference. It’s a bit like saying, as you open the door, in an offhand way, “I’m going out to buy a cake,” whereas you could very well, without being so casual or banal, have ventured, “I’m going to get some patisseries” (and mind you detach each syllable: not “patisseries” but “pa-tis-se-ries”), and, with the magic of a somewhat outdated, precious word you can create, at lesser cost, a world of old-world harmony. Thus, if you suggest “sorbet” where others might merely be thinking “ice cream” (which, very often, for the layman includes preparations made from milk or water), you have already opted for lightness, already chosen refinement, you are offering airy vistas while refusing a heavy land-bound trek with closed horizons. Airy, indeed: a sorbet is airy, almost immaterial, it froths ever so slightly as it makes contact with your warmth and then, vanquished, squeezed, liquefied, it evaporates down your throat and all it leaves on the tongue is the charming reminiscence of the fruit and water which once flowed there.

  Thus I set upon the orange sorbet, tasted it as a man in the know, certain of what I was about to discover but attentive all the same to what were ever-changing sensations. And then something stopped me. I had tasted the other iced waters with the peace of mind of one who knows his stuff. But this sorbet, this orange one, was a cut above all the others, with its extravagant texture, its excessive aqueousness, as if someone had just filled a little bowl with a bit of water and a squeezed orange which had then been placed in the freezer for the regulation amount of time, producing these fragrant icy chunks, lumpy just as any impure liquid one tries to freeze can be, and which remind us strongly of the taste of the crumbly crushed snow we ate as children, with our hands, on days when the sky was a deep cold and we were playing outdoors. That was also my grandmother�
��s approach in the summer when at times it was so hot that I would tuck my head into the door of the freezer and, sweating and cursing, she would twist heavy dripping rags around her neck, which also served to slay a few lazy flies stuck together in places they shouldn’t be. When the ice had set, she would turn the basin over, shake it vigorously above a bowl, crush the orangey mass and serve us a ladleful in a large goblet we would seize as if it were a holy relic. And I realized that, in the end, all this banquet was for one thing alone: to reach the moment of the sorbet à l’orange, my childhood stalactites; to feel, tonight of all nights, the worth and truth of my gastronomic attachments.

  Later, in the half darkness, I asked Marquet in a whisper, “How do you do it, your sorbet, the sorbet à l’orange?”

  She turned halfway on the pillow; light locks of hair curled around my shoulder.

  “The way my grandmother does,” she answered, with a brilliant smile.

  I’m nearly there. Fire . . . ice. Cream!

  (Marquet)

  Maison Marquet, near Meaux

  No doubt about it, he was a regular bastard. He has consumed both my self and my cuisine with the presumptuousness of a common boor, as if it were only natural for Marquet to bow down before him, offering her dishes and her buttocks from the very first visit . . . A regular bastard, but we had some good times together, and that’s something he can’t take away from me, because what is mine, for good, is the thrill of conversing with a true genius of the food world, and of taking my pleasure with an exceptional lover; and still I remain a free woman, a proud woman . . .

  Still, if he had been free, and if he had been the sort of man who might make of a woman something other than a tart available all hours of the day—who knows . . . But then he wouldn’t have been the same man, would he?

  Mayonnaise

  Rue de Grenelle, the Bedroom

  There is nothing more delightful than to see the order of the world bend to one’s desires. Such is the unprecedented license to penetrate a temple of haute cuisine in the unbridled felicity of being able to taste each and every dish. The hidden frisson when the maître d’ draws near with muffled footsteps; his impersonal gaze, a fragile yet successful compromise between respect and discretion, is a tribute to one’s social capital. You are nobody because you are somebody; here, no one will spy on you, no one will try to pigeonhole you. The fact that you have been allowed to enter the premises is proof enough of who you are. A modest little tug at the heart as you open the menu, printed on a grainy vellum like a damask napkin of yore. Your astonishment expertly tempered as you feel your way for the first time through the whispered offer of dishes. Your gaze slips, refuses for a while to be caught by any particular ode, merely catches a few voluptuous fragments on the wing, frolics about in the luxurious profusion of terms you seize upon at random. Culotte of baby veal . . . pistachio cassata . . . wedge of angler fish on a bed of scampi . . . galinette de palangre . . . au naturel . . . amber gelée with eggplant . . . seasoned with Cremona mustard . . . a confit of shallots . . . marinière of poached bass . . . iced sabayon . . . blue lobster . . . breast of Peking duck . . . A first nibble of ecstasy at last when the magic takes over and devours your attention with a single line:

  Pan-roasted breast of Peking duck rubbed with berbère; grapefruit crumble à la Jamaïque with a confit of shallots.

  You repress any untimely salivation, your ability to concentrate has reached its summit. You are in possession of the symphony’s dominant note.

  It is not so much the duck or its berbère and grapefruit which have electrified you in this way, even if they are glazed with the promise of a dish whose key is sunny, spicy, and sweet, and whose hues range from almond to bronze to gold. But the confit of shallots, instantly aromatic and fondant, pricking your still-virgin tongue with the anticipated savor of a mélange of fresh ginger, marinated onion and musk, is titillating your appetite—and this is all it wants, after all—with its refinement and extravagance. On its own, however, this dish would not have been decisive; it required the incomparable poetry of “pan-roasted,” evoking in an olfactory cascade the fumet of fowl grilled in the open air at a cattle market, the sensorial pandemonium of Chinese bazaars, the irresistible conjunction of crispness and succulence when the meat is firm and juicy inside its crusty skin, the familiar mystery of the pan itself, neither a spit nor a grill, lulling the duck as it cooks; all of this is required, and the combination of odor and taste, to determine your choice on this particular day. All that remains is to embroider upon the theme.

  How many times have I immersed myself in a menu the way one immerses oneself in the unknown? It would be pointless to try to work out such a figure. Every time, I have found my pleasure intact. But never has it been as acute as on that day when, by the stoves of the chef Lessière, in the holy of holies of gastronomic exploration, I turned away from a menu whose delights were deafening to wallow in the debauchery of simple mayonnaise.

  I had dipped my finger into it, casually, in passing, the way you let your hand trail in fresh water from a drifting boat. We were talking together about his new menu, it was afternoon, between two waves of fellow diners, and in his kitchen I felt just as I used to in my grandmother’s: I was a familiar stranger, allowed into the harem. What I tasted surprised me. This was indeed mayonnaise, and that was precisely what troubled me; a sheep that has lost its way amidst a pride of lions, this traditional condiment looked utterly and ridiculously archaic. “What is this?” I asked, implying, how did a simple homemaker’s mayonnaise end up here? “Well, it’s mayonnaise,” he replied with a laugh. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what mayonnaise is.” “Mayonnaise just like that, the basic recipe?” I was quite unnerved “Yes, the basic one. I don’t know of any better way to make it. An egg, some oil, salt and pepper.” I insisted. “And what is it meant to go with?” He looked at me carefully. “I’ll tell you,” he replied slowly, “I’ll tell you what it is meant to go with.” He ordered a kitchen boy to bring him some vegetables and some cold pork roast, and set about his task at once, peeling the vegetables.

  I had forgotten, I had forgotten that in his position as maître d’oeuvre and not critic he was obliged never to forget what we wrongly refer to as “the basics” of cooking, and which comprise, if anything, the essential framework, and he had taken it upon himself to remind me, through a somewhat scornful lesson that he was giving to me as a favor—for critics and chefs are like dishrags and napkins: they complement each other, spend time together, work together, but in their heart of hearts, they do not like one another.

  Carrots, celery, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, radishes, cauliflower and broccoli: he had cut them all lengthwise, or at any rate those that he could cut lengthwise, in other words all but the last two which, although flowery, could be taken by the stem, somewhat in the manner with which one grabs hold of the hilt of a sword. To all this he added a few thin slices of pork roast, cold and succulent. We began to dip.

  No one will ever manage to banish from my thoughts the notion that raw food with mayonnaise is somehow deeply sexual. The hard vegetable insinuating its way into the unctuousness of the cream; unlike many other preparations, here there is no chemistry causing each of the two foodstuffs to sacrifice a part of its nature and espouse that of the other, thus becoming through osmosis, like bread and butter, a new and wonderful substance. In this case, mayonnaise and vegetables remain perennial, each identical to its own self but, as in the carnal act, hopelessly ecstatic at being together. As for the meat, it nevertheless does obtain something more: its texture is elastic and porous, it yields to the bite and fills with mayonnaise in such a way that what one is chewing on, without false modesty, is something firm at heart that has been drizzled with a velvety moisture. Add to this the delicacy of a smooth flavor, for there is nothing biting about mayonnaise, no hot spiciness—like water, it surprises one’s mouth with its affable neutrality; then come the exquisite nuances of the spread of veg
etables: insolent tang of radishes and cauliflower, watery sweetness of the tomato, discreet acidity of broccoli, generosity of the carrot upon the tongue, the crunchy licorice hints of celery . . . a treat fit for a king.

  But just as I am recalling this incongruous meal—it was like a summer picnic by the woods, one of those perfect days where the sun is shining, there is a gentle breeze, and life seems to be decked out in clichés—a new memory has come to supersede it, and my reminiscences are suddenly illuminated with a deep authenticity, causing a turbulence of emotions to rise in my heart like bubbles of air forcing their way to the surface of the water which, when they break free, will explode in a chorus of bravos. For my mother—who, as I have already pointed out, was a pathetic cook—also served us mayonnaise, and quite often at that, although her mayonnaise came in a glass jar from the supermarket; despite this insult to truly discerning taste, it nevertheless led to an unshakeable preference. While one might mourn the tasty, homemade touch necessary to produce pure mayonnaise, processed mayonnaise offers one characteristic that is lacking in the real thing, and the best chef must, sooner or later, concede the bitter truth: even the most homogeneous and unctuous of condiments tends, very quickly, to break up a bit, slowly disintegrating, oh, only ever so slightly, but nevertheless enough for the consistency of the cream to be marred by a very slight contrast, which will cause it to abandon, in the most microscopic way, its initial state, which was utterly and absolutely smooth, as smooth as can be—whereas supermarket mayonnaise avoids any viscosity. There is no texture, there are no elements, no components, and that is what I loved passionately, that taste of nothing, that substance without backbone, offering no hold with which to circumvent it as it slid along my tongue with the fluidity of something soluble.