The Perfect Meal

by John Baxter

  The indignity of slaughter, of being skinned and gutted, of having head and feet severed, of being spread-eagled between steel grilles and transfixed by the octagonal beam of the spit reduced not a fraction this beast’s latent majesty. St Éxupéry was right. “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” This was still the furious adversary matadors faced in the ring, the creature over whom back dancers leaped in the palace of Minos, the animal Picasso drew as the embodiment of maleness, the Minotaur himself.

  And we were gathered to devour him.

  All our lives we’d eaten meat. But that had been in fragments. To see the animal entire made us aware of our kinship, of a shared nature as creatures of flesh that walked and ate and breathed and bred and died. Here was the true conclusion of my search for the “lost,” but it had not gone far enough. What our trivial society has abandoned, and might never retrieve, was what I felt at this moment—awe, and humility, and a profound respect.

  Twenty-two

  First Catch Your Feast

  Man did eat angels’ food: he sent them meat to the full.

  Psalm 78, King James Bible

  And then?” Boris asked.

  “And then . . . we had lunch.”

  “Just you and Madame?”

  “And about five hundred new friends.” I looked around the place where he’d chosen to meet me. “Isn’t this a little obvious?”

  We were sitting outside a small restaurant on a corner of rue Morillons, in the fifteenth. Across the road, as far as I could see in each direction, stretched the Parc Georges Brassens. Directly opposite, a wide stone gate, its pillars topped by the life-size statues of two bulls, provided an undiplomatic reminder that, from 1894 until the 1970s, these had been stockyards and a slaughterhouse. Deeper inside the park, given less prominence, was a bust of Émile Decroix, the army veterinarian who pioneered what the bust’s inscription circumspectly calls hippophagie—eating horse, many thousands of which were butchered here.

  “I thought it would make you feel at home,” Boris said.

  “You can joke,” I said, “but it was dignified. Even profound.”

  “You know I don’t joke about food. And it isn’t necessary to tell me that spit-roasting is an art.”

  About roasting, he wasn’t wrong. At Hampton Court, the palace of Henry VIII, five hundred people did nothing but prepare food. Of these, only four were trusted to roast meat before an open fire. In Escoffier’s brigade de cuisine, the rôtisseur was the equal of its alchemist, the saucier. The joint must turn at precisely four rotations a minute to be evenly cooked—the origin of “done to a turn.” Other methods had been tried: spit boys who crouched next to the hearth (Henry’s priests deplored their nudity); dogs that ran in drumlike treadmills; mechanisms of weights and cogs. None equaled the skilled roaster’s experienced eye.

  At Bugnicourt, an electric motor rotated the spit at a deliberate five turns to the minute. As fat began to ooze, drops vaporizing in puffs of smoke before they even reached the coals, the rate was raised to six, just enough to stop the dripping.

  “They won’t really have cooked it by lunchtime?” Marie-Dominique had asked.

  “You never roast a whole animal all the way through,” I said, recklessly squandering the stock of facts absorbed over a year of reading. “The outside would overcook long before the interior was done.”

  “Then what are we going to eat?” She was struck by a sudden thought. “We are going to eat, aren’t we? Because I’m starving already.”

  “They might carve off the cooked meat and leave the rest to keep roasting,” I said. “But I expect they’ll butcher the whole carcass and grill the raw meat as steaks.”

  My guess was right. At 11:00 a.m., the mayor arrived to declare the Fête du Boeuf officially open. Ten minutes later, the tractor returned to lift the beast off the spit and carry it back behind the metal barriers.

  At fifteen minutes before noon, a queue was forming outside the tent. We joined it.

  And I realized I knew these people. So would anyone who grew up with barn dances in rural town halls, the thump of feet pounding on a board floor; who went to Country Women’s Association cake competitions and munched sponges as elastic as foam rubber; who tried not to groan at the annual talent show as a tiny girl wrestled an enormous mother-of-pearl piano accordion through “Lady of Spain.” I knew the too-tight collars, the unaccustomed neckties, the tweed jackets Kept for Best, the dresses too elaborate for this time of day (I told you I didn’t have a thing to wear!). This, for good or ill, was my patrimony, and I surrendered to the experience as one slips under the coverlet of a familiar bed.

  Seated on backless benches, eight to a side, at long, bare wooden tables, we drank the aperitif of sweet Cinzano that came with the eleven-euro meal ticket, and read the ads on the paper place mats: the Citroën garage, the farm equipment dealership, the undertaker offering “Funerals at All Prices.”

  The lady next to me with the unfortunate costume jewelry had driven with her husband from Lille because their son lived nearby and they were going to spend the night at his farm. On my left, a man born in Portugal but working here for twenty years wondered why I was making notes.

  “I’m writing a book. About food.”

  He squinted at me. A writer? So that’s what they looked like. He supposed someone must write those books that he, he had to confess, seldom read. No, not much of a reader.

  “But if it’s about food,” he said, “why aren’t you back there?” He nodded past the stage, in the direction of the smaller tents where they’d taken the carcass.

  “I didn’t know I could.”

  He swiveled around on the bench. “Come with me.”

  We crossed the tussocky grass that, with the tent above and around us, had become a floor. Outside, across a few meters of open space, a dozen men in aprons stood at tables under an open-sided tent and joked as they sliced and hacked and trimmed bloody meat. Off to the side, four women forked steaks from deep plastic dishes and slapped them on barbecues made from oil drums cut in half and filled with coals. The smoke and smell of sizzling meat filled the air. Behind the butchers, discarded, lay what remained of the boeuf: meatless ribs, scraped almost clean, bare as a wreck cast up by the tide.

  My new friend knew the butchers, and they knew him. This was a country town. Among 954 people, everyone knows everyone else.

  “M’sieur’s writing a book. About food. He’s from Australia.”

  “Australia? No kangaroos here, my friend,” said one of the butchers. He held up a big fork with a dripping steak impaled. “Only good French beef.”

  “Kangaroos can be good eating,” I said. “The tail, for soup, and the”—what was the word for it? Fortunately Franglais came to the rescue—“rumsteak.”

  “You’ve eaten it?” one of them asked. Only a couple were working now. We were men talking meat, an important subject. Their subject.

  “It’s good,” I said. “Lean. Like . . . la venaison.”

  They nodded. Interested—until one of the women returned with an empty dish, ready for more steaks.

  “Better get on,” someone said. “This guy won’t cut himself up. Good luck with the book.” He nodded toward my Portuguese guide. “Make sure you spell his name right.”

  A few of the men grinned. My guide must have a reputation for pushing himself forward.

  As we walked back, he said, “He was only joking, you know. About the name.” A few more steps. “It’s Lucas, by the way. From Porto.”

  And was it good?” Boris asked.

  “The best.”

  I’d been concerned that the beef might be tough, but it was tender and tasty, as good as any I’ve had in a restaurant. With plastic salad bowls filled with unlimited frites, jugs of a sauce made from the meat juices spiced with whole peppercorns, bowls of sliced baguette, cheese, salad, chocolate mousse . . . not bad for eleven euros.

  The roast

  The pit
>
  The butchers

  The feast

  Marie-Dominique

  The leftovers

  “And what about the menu for the great repas. Is that finished too?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s done.”

  I’d mentally compiled it in the car as we drove home that night. I looked forward to eating it one day, sharing the experience with friends as we had shared the ox at Bugnicourt. Sharing was the sauce. The Bible was right. “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred with it.”

  “That calls for a celebration,” Boris said. “Let me buy you lunch.”

  Lunch! A stream of impressions ran through my mind: a crimson lobster claw cracked in the blistering sun of Sète; golden champagne and rose petals on a mountaintop in Provence; dark figs sautéed in spices with a fat duck breast; mussels tasting of pine ash and the sea; the alien perfume of truffle; the forest flavor of fresh girolles; garlic, apples, oysters, chicken, thyme—and beef. The stalled ox where love is.

  “Thanks,” I said, “I already ate.”

  The Menu

  Aperitif

  Kir royal Florian with confiture of preserved rose petals

  Canapés

  Toasts with Gentleman’s Relish and halved quail’s eggs

  Cucumber sandwiches

  Wine: Vin jaune, or “yellow wine,” from the mountainous southeastern region of France, the Jura. Dry sherry, which Jura wine resembles, can be substituted.

  Entrée

  French caviar with blinis and crème fraîche

  Wine: A dry champagne, or a white chenin blanc, such as a Savennières from the Loire region

  Fish

  Bouillabaisse à l’ancienne

  Wine: Continue with the Savennières, or substitute a more robust and aromatic rosé from the Languedoc, around Sète and Marseilles

  Meat

  Boeuf Bourguignon façon Jean-Christophe

  Wine: Traditionally, this dish should be eaten with the same wine as used in the cooking: ideally, a burgundy made from pinot noir grapes. However it’s permissible to use a less expensive wine for cooking and a better-quality pinot noir as an accompaniment.

  To Refresh the Palate

  Sorbet Calvados

  Poultry

  Guinea Hen à l’Escoffier

  Wine: A dry, slightly acid white—Sancerre, Muscadet, Meursault—or a white Beaune such as Puligny-Montrachet

  Cheeses

  Cheeses of the Auvergne: Cantal vieux, Fourme d’Ambert, Saint-Nectaire

  Wine: A lightly sweet and fragrant but robust white, Monbazillac, Riesling, or Gewürztraminer

  Dessert

  Parfait Swann with baby madeleines

  Wine: Continue with the same white as drunk with the cheeses, or return to champagne

  Coffee and sweetmeats

  Fruits and rose petals confit Florian

  Digestif

  Cognac is the traditional digestif, but if you fancy a change, try Armagnac, a brandy distilled in the Gascony region. In the fourteenth century, Cardinal Vital Du Four claimed that this rich brown spirit “recalls the past to memory, renders men joyous, preserves youth and retards senility. And when retained in the mouth, it loosens the tongue and emboldens the wit.” In other words, the perfect lubrication for after-dinner conversation.

  Recipes

  Kir Royal Florian

  Place a coffee spoon of Florian Confiture Pétales de Rose in the bottom of a champagne glass. Add some lychee-based liqueur such as Soho or Lichido to taste, and top up with cold champagne.

  Gentleman’s Relish

  INGREDIENTS

  7 ounces anchovies, drained and coarsely chopped

  5 ounces butter

  2 tablespoons fresh white bread crumbs

  ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

  1 dash fresh ground black pepper

  1 pinch ground cinnamon

  1 pinch freshly ground nutmeg

  1 pinch ground mace

  1 pinch ground ginger

  METHOD

  Using a mortar and pestle, pound the anchovies and butter until they resemble a smooth paste. You could also use a food processor. Stir in the bread crumbs, peppers, and spices, and spoon the paste into a large ramekin. Cover and chill before serving.

  Bouillabaisse (Serves 4)

  There are numerous recipes for this dish, which is best cooked in quantity, for at least a dozen guests, and using whole fish. This recipe is adapted for fewer people and the home kitchen. If you can acquire some shrimp or lobster shells, fish heads, and trimmings, it will improve the flavor and increase the golden color associated with the dish.

  INGREDIENTS

  3 or 4 pounds raw Mediterranean fish—John Dory, monkfish, snapper. Try to include some oily fish, such as red mullet or mackerel. Avoid salmon and other cold-water fish, which are not typical of the Mediterranean. If you have a good fishmonger, ask him to fillet the fish but give you the bones, heads, and other trimmings.

  1 pound raw shrimp in their shells, or a lobster, or both (In both cases, frozen whole shrimp or lobster tails can be substituted.)

  1 cup olive oil

  1 teaspoon fennel seed

  2 onions, sliced

  4 cloves garlic, crushed

  4 stalks celery, finely chopped, but with some of the tenderer leaves retained

  1 green chili, chopped (optional)

  1 bay leaf

  3 whole cloves

  1 pound ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded, or 14-ounce can chopped tomatoes or pulp

  Bottle dry white wine

  2 cups water

  ½ teaspoon powdered saffron or natural saffron strands

  Salt and pepper to taste

  3 sprigs fresh thyme or ¾ teaspoon dried thyme

  METHOD

  Cut the fish into large chunks. Remove shells and heads from shrimp, and shells from lobster tails.

  If you are using fish heads, bones, trimmings, shrimp shells, etc., wrap them in a knotted cloth or piece of muslin.

  Heat the olive oil in a pot large enough for four quarts.

  Add the fennel seed. When it begins to brown and pop, add the onion and garlic. Sauté, stirring, until the onion is golden and translucent.

  Add the celery, chili, bay leaf, and cloves.

  Sauté until the celery is soft.

  Add tomatoes, white wine, and water.

  (If using) add muslin containing the fish and shrimp heads, lobster shells, trimmings, etc.

  Boil at high heat for two minutes, then reduce the heat, and simmer for five more minutes.

  (If using) remove the cloth containing the fish heads, shells, etc., and discard.

  Add the fish chunks to the broth, with saffron, and salt and pepper to taste.

  Simmer only until the fish is cooked through—about three minutes. Even when off the heat, it will continue cooking, so err on the side of too little rather than too much.

  Serve in soup plates with plentiful French bread.

  Guinea Hen à l’Escoffier

  This is Alexandre Gastaud’s recipe as it first appeared in the New York Times.

  Clean and truss a fat guinea hen weighing one and a half pounds. Cook it in butter in a saucepan with a medium-size quartered onion. When the bird is three parts done, sprinkle it with a teaspoonful of genuine Rozen paprika and one quarter-pint of cream (sour, if possible) or with ordinary heavy cream acidulated by means of a few drops of lemon juice. Finish the cooking, basting the piece the while with cream. Dish the bird in a casserole with some fresh mushrooms tossed in butter and strain over with the cream. Close the casserole hermetically and let simmer two minutes before serving.

  NOTES

  • Guinea hens, sometimes called pintades, are increasingly available, but a good free-range chicken can be substituted.

  • Saucepans in professional kitchens are larger than the domestic variety. Home cooks should sauté the bird whole in plenty of butter in a large casserole, then cover and pot-roast it until almost ready to se
rve (i.e., when a skewer stuck into the thigh of the bird produces clear juices).

  • Rozen, or Rosen paprika, is a Hungarian paprika from which the seeds and stems have been removed before grinding. As its main function is to create a pink sauce, any good-quality paprika should serve.

  • To “dish” a bird, carve it in the kitchen and bring to the table in a large dish, dressed with the sauce.

  (Both the following dishes are the creations of Dr. Nicole Larroumet.)

  Sautéed Figs as a Vegetable (Serves 4 to 6)

  INGREDIENTS

  8–12 ripe but firm figs (2 per person)

  Salted butter

  ½ teaspoon white pepper

  ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

  ½ teaspoon allspice

  ½ teaspoon ground cloves

  Balsamic vinegar

  METHOD

  Quarter the figs and sauté briefly in plenty of butter, making sure they don’t become mushy. When they are warmed through and giving off juices, sprinkle with the powdered spices, turning so that they mix with the butter.

  Remove the figs to a warm serving dish and splash balsamic vinegar in the pan to clear the pan’s juices. The vinegar will mix with the butter and spices to make a delicious sauce. Pour over the figs. This is excellent as a side dish with roast or grilled duck or pork.

  Parfait Swann (Serves 4)

  This dessert requires a deep glass for each person. Parfait glasses are preferred; otherwise, use large wineglasses.

  INGREDIENTS

  1 lemon

  1 tablespoon sugar

  8-ounce tub Mascarpone cheese

  8-ounce tub crème fraîche or sour cream

  8-ounce tub thick full-cream “Greek” yogurt

  4–6 plain but crumbly cookies—no chocolate chips, raisins, etc.

  3 cups fresh raspberries, blueberries, or other small berries in season (In a pinch, use strawberries, but these should be small, or cut into small pieces.)