Gerard stirred both jugs with long twirled silver spoons, just long enough for the ice to impart its cold but not long enough for any signifcant amount of water to dilute the mixture. He then poured the mixture through the ice strainer into each glass. The last hatpin plinked into the glass just as the door opened, disgorging the shadow faculty of gastronomic science and their guests. Each was duly issued with a perfectly prepared martini, the dew just starting to settle on the outside of the glass. Eleven glasses carried the classical choice of an olive; just one bore an onion. The onion-adorned glass, which for purists technically transformed the drink from a martini into a Gibson, was reserved for Augustus Bloom whose job it was to raise the frst toast.
‘To gastronomy and Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.’ Once the fnal murmurs of the toast had settled, Augustus made his way across the
room to rejoin his guest for the evening, Dr Peter Armstrong from Magdalen College, a noted classical scholar and expert on the food of ancient Rome. Dr Armstrong was at that moment being asked to adjudicate in an academic argument between Arthur Planta-genet and the Master on the closest living relative to the Roman herb Silphium. Augus-tus was intercepted en route by George Le Strang.
‘Excellent martini, lovely extra dimension from the absinthe, don’t you think?’ ‘Fine taste,’ said Augustus with a tone of doubt. ‘But I think I prefer my martinis
clear.’
Seeing Hamish McIntyre close by he sought some moral support, which was always a wise move before disagreeing with George Le Strang.
‘What do you reckon on George’s new martini, Hamish?’ ‘Grand, quite exquisite in fact.’
The shocked look of betrayal on Augustus’ face was cured by Hamish’s trademark laddish wink. This uncharacteristically diplomatic and completely dishonest reply achieved its goal and, without further ado, sent a contented George Le Strang off around the room in search of more accolades. Le Strang was naturally convinced of this drink’s superiority over the standard martini not only on taste but also on the grounds of numer-ical supremacy. Any drink where there are more ingredients from France than England must be a good thing to his mind.
‘Lied through my teeth,’ said Hamish once George had moved on out of earshot. ‘I have to say a sad waste of a good olive. I wouldn’t drown a witch in this stuff.’
‘Could be worse, Hamish. Remember his Provençal lavender vodka martini from a few years back? How about this for a new law of martini-making: a martini mixed from three ingredients is like a woman with three eyes.’
Augustus smiled, enjoying his own wit and, in celebration of this new aphorism, forgetfully sipped the travesty he was holding. The involuntary shudder that followed proved the wisdom of his words. It was admittedly a somewhat derivative of Brillat-Savarin’s sentiments on one-eyed women and cheese, but Augustus was sure the great man would have enjoyed the extension of this theme even if he had died the best part of a century before the uncertain and mysterious birth of the martini 5 .
‘Not bad, Augustus,’ agreed Hamish. ‘But let me introduce Callum Morton from Monash University in Australia and a master of all the weird and toxic creatures that were dispatched to the colonies by Noah after the food.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Dr Morton, lightly crushing the bones in Augustus’ hand. ‘Must say, hard to beat the old line that martinis are like a woman’s breasts: one is too few and three’s too many.’
Callum Morton laughed rather too loudly for Augustus’ taste and before he could think of a suitable reply a small bell sounded for dinner. This was indeed fortunate as there is no way of bettering this pinnacle of alcoholic philosophy even when it is told with an Australian accent.
The fellows and their guests began the search for their assigned seats. Theodore Flanagan had carefully marked each place with a small card. One of the unwritten rules of the faculty was that at dinner each faculty member should have their guests on their left-hand side. On this occasion, Theodore had invited a young visiting physicist from Trinity College Dublin, Dermot Keogh, who had a particular fascination with the phys-ics of food preparation. George Le Strang was more than usually puffed up at having secured the acceptance of the head chef from the George V Hotel in Paris, Monsieur René Lemprière. Charles Pinker had invited Gascoigne Percival, from Yale, fresh from the academic success of his recent publication on food symbolism in Jonathan Swift’s writings. It was truly a fne assemblage of gastronomes, with each guest having a love and knowledge of gastronomical matters that at least equalled, if not exceeded, their oth-er academic achievements. If the guest list alone boded well for the dinner ahead, then the menu cryptically promised even more.
Shadow Faculty of Gastronomic Science Michaelmas Term 1969 Aperitif
Absinthe martini
Amuse-gueule
Clonakilty pudding and girolle mushrooms topped with shaved white truffe Served with La Gitana Manzanilla
Hors d’oeuvres
Desert prawns from Central Australia
Prairie oysters from Montana, USA
Served with Chassagne-Montrachet 1962
Roman surprise
Served with Mulsum
Entr é es
Truffed turkey
Served with Château Petrus
‘ Napoleon’s Revenge’: A culinary puzzle from Belgium and Denmark Served with Chambertin-Clos de Bèze Grand Cru 1962 Dessert
Saffron and nitrogen ice cream
Served with Muscat de Beaumes de Venise
Fruit
Miracle fruit and sweet limes
Served with a mystery wine
Cheese
Baked Vacherin Mont d’Or
Port
1935 Ramos Pinto
Once they were all seated, Gerard slid around the table collecting the martini glasses. Only George Le Strang felt the need to drain the last drop; the others gladly handed over glasses that varied from almost full to at most half-drained. In return they were offered a small glass of highly chilled fno sherry, a Manzanilla. This was so pale as to look like a white wine and a far cry from the evil sweet sherries poured at most Oxford tables. One sip of this dry resinous nectar is enough to tip a soul from peckish to ravenous. And so as soon as grace was said, they all fell upon the amuse-gueule of black pudding, gir-olle mushrooms and shaved white truffe like starved men. Even Monsieur Lemprière was grunting contentedly, much to the relief of George and the particular amusement of Hamish. The white truffe was a late addition, but one that met with universal approv-al. It had been added as the plates left the kitchen so that there was just enough heat to release the aroma but not so much as to destroy the favour. White truffes are, after all, rather delicate creatures.
With the completion of these morsels, Augustus asked the guests who had provided dishes for the frst course to present their wares. Without a moment’s hesitation Callum Morton, Hamish’s antipodean guest, rose to his feet.
‘Gentlemen, I am truly honoured to be here tonight. If the rest of the food is as good as that amused girly thing, or whatever you call it, then it’s going to be a great night. I’ve brought along a little treat that I’m sure hasn’t been seen here in Oxford before. In the outback of Australia it would be called bush tucker and, rather than tell you the whole story now, why not have a taste and see if you can guess what they are. I like these raw and wriggling, but I’ve had your chef bake them for you. They’re not half bad cooked either.’
After a discreet round of applause from some and a more restrained nod from others, a plate was passed around the table as each guest tried to select the smallest one they could fnd on the plate. They looked a little like segmented sausages, a good three inches long and almost an inch across with a yellowy hue, but enticingly browned by the skilled hand of Monsieur Roger, St Jerome’s chef.
‘Don’t be shy now,’ said Callum, picking one up with his fngers and biting it in half. Slowly, knives and forks were wielded into action and distrust change into confused interest and a mêlée of gustatory mutterings aro
se from around the table. By the time the discussion was quietening down, most of the guests and fellows had managed to con-sume at least half of this morsel, with the notable exception of Charles Pinker. The chap-lain had divided the creature neatly into pieces, but failed to overcome his deeply held belief that not all of God’s creatures were put here for human consumption, particularly
not the ugly-looking ones.
‘So, can any of your refned palates work this one out? I’ll disqualify Hamish on pro-fessional grounds, of course,’ said Callum.
For his part, Hamish was delighted. A zoologist he might be but he still wasn’t sure what these creatures were, other than the fact he was fairly certain that no prawns or any near relatives would be living in the Australian outback. He had his suspicions but out of politeness had tucked in and been pleasantly surprised. A brave few souls volunteered suggestions.
‘Prawns, defnitely a prawn favour.’
‘A bit like chicken, but it looks like some odd part of a snake.’ ‘Eggs and peanuts in there somewhere.’
‘Prawn omelette, in some kind of odd skin?’
‘No other offers?’ asked Callum while smiling in his anticipated victory. Turning to his host he continued, ‘So, Hamish, what’s the answer?’
Hamish was absolutely fummoxed as his brain was happily idling in neutral having been earlier excused from proceedings, so his subconscious blurted out its suspicions without much thought for the consequences.
‘Oh, gosh well, er… it’s some kind of big maggot by the look of it, but it tasted jolly good.’
‘I’ll give you that, Hamish,’ said Callum with a friendly pat on the back that almost made Hamish choke on the piece of maggot still in his mouth. ‘They’re the larvae of the cossid moth, to be precise, but maggot is close enough. We call them witchetty grubs because we fnd them in the ground under witchetty shrubs.’
Reactions to this news were certainly varied. Curiously, Hamish was as shocked as anyone. Until the words left his mouth he hadn’t really taken his own suspicions seri-ously. Charles Pinker produced a nervous laugh that unintentionally helped to ease the mood around the table. In Gallic unity both Le Strang and his guest Monsieur Lemprière had struck on the strategy of drowning the bug in their stomachs with wine. This might indeed have been the frst time in culinary history that a witchetty grub has bathed in such a fne white Burgundy as the 1962 Chassagne-Montrachet. Augustus was the only one to take another taste, his culinary curiosity far outweighing any squeamishness. En-tomophagy, the eating of insects, was after all common in so many cultures that Augus-tus felt confdent that maggots were unlikely to be poisonous.
Next up was the man from Yale, Gascoigne Percival. A man of many words who, al-though American in heritage and birth, leaned spiritually back to England.
‘Gentlemen, I am happy to announce that the next dish comes from a large four-legged mammalian herbivore, so you can all relax.’
There were grunts of relief all around. Charles Pinker, still excessively jolly after his lucky escape from the witchetty grub, even started banging the table with his spoon in a rare display of rowdiness.
‘I’m not sure how they ended up with the curious name of prairie oysters,’ continued Gascoigne, ‘but in the spirit of academic enquiry I shall again see if you can guess ex-actly which part of the animal we shall be eating. They are, as you’ll see, coated in four and pan-fried with beurre noir . Gentlemen, another treat from the New World.’
He raised his glass for a toast and, looking around, saw Arthur Plantagenet winking at him.
The general verdict was that these ‘oysters’ were not as interesting a favour as Cal-lum’s ‘prawns’ – really more of a texture than a favour and certainly not a patch on the real thing. A frst opinion on their origin was also arrived at after the frst mouthful.
‘Badly cooked sweetbreads,’ offered Monsieur Lemprière. ‘At le George Cinq we serve sweetbreads properly in a truffed Périgueux sauce or a tarragon velouté .’
‘And quite superb they are, Monsieur Lemprière,’ said George Le Strang in support of his guest. ‘I had the pleasure of tasting them myself just last year. Quite superb.’
Arthur chose his moment well, casting his eye around the table before speaking to ensure he had the foor to himself.
‘Bollocks!’
‘Pardon?’ replied an affronted Monsieur Lemprière. ‘An old English idiom, Monsieur, for testicles, which is exactly what we are eating.
Isn’t that correct, Dr Percival?’
While Yale was a fne university, it was certainly no match for Oxford and Arthur felt it his duty to ensure that a Yale man couldn’t claim a victory here on Oxford’s home turf, even against a Frenchman. Callum was excused from such oneupmanship in Arthur’s eyes on the grounds that all Australian universities were so young that they deserved the latitude afforded a troublesome but charming nephew.
‘With your indulgence, Gascoigne,’ continued Arthur, ‘I heard a rather funny tale about such oysters.’
The somewhat crestfallen Yale man could only nod in acknowledgement and let Ar-thur take control of the conversation as he was going to anyway.
‘It is a tale of a young American travelling in Spain who discovers a tasty snack at a bar in Barcelona. On returning the next day he was disappointed to fnd the dish ab-sent from the bar counter. The barman explained that this dish was only available when there had been a bullfght the night before. He suggested he come back the following day. When he returned the dish was back on the counter, though each piece was much smaller. They also tasted much sweeter than the previous time. He complimented the barman and asked what the difference was.’ Arthur paused for theatrical effect and then, in an atrocious Spanish accent, continued, ‘“Signor, it iz not always the bull that loses.”’
Arthur barely got the words out before erupting in laughter himself, then standing up to take a bow.
When the plates of chewy and rather tasteless testicles were cleared, Augustus turned to his guest Peter Armstrong with words of reassurance.
‘Don’t worry, I think you’re on safe ground with Arthur, just don’t forget to thank him for the garum.’
With considerable trepidation, Dr Armstrong rose to his feet. ‘Gentlemen, as Juvenal said of the Romans: Gustus elementa per omnia quaerunt 6 . In
the spirit of these words, I bring you a delicacy from the pages of the greatest food writer from the ancient world. While my fellow guests have tried to trick you and sadly failed, despite valiant efforts, I have placed my faith in the unique approach to food taken by Ancient Rome with their broad view of the edible. Marcus Gavius Apicius has provided the recipe and your esteemed Professor Plantagenet has recreated one of the key ingredi-ents, a rather strong fsh sauce which goes by the name of garum or liquamen.’
Arthur sat back in his chair, glowing with pride and anticipation. The dish arrived on a large platter accompanied by an extraordinary aroma emanating
principally from the sauce. It was clearly offal of some kind, on that all could agree. As to the exact nature of the meat, no-one even came close. That was not a refection on their gustatory abilities as the sauce was so intense that texture apart they could indeed have been eating anything. Most of the diners managed a few mouthfuls when Arthur came to the rescue.
‘Hold on, we’re missing the wine,’ shouted Arthur. ‘Gerard, bring on the Mulsum.’ Gerard, looking thoroughly fustered, rushed around the table providing silver goblets
and pouring the golden Roman-style honeyed wine. Arthur had chosen a Retsina as the base wine on the grounds that it was an ancient Mediterranean style of wine and because he couldn’t bring himself to ruin a decent wine with the amount of honey required in the mix. Under normal circumstance it would have been barely tolerated, a cloying resinous brew of overpowering sweetness, but in the face of the intensely favoured and salted Roman dish they were eating it was warmly welcomed. By masking the most disagree-able favours of the sauce almost completely, it made the dish distinctly edibl
e. Indeed Charles Pinker, assured by Dr Armstrong that the source of the meat was a common farm animal, even managed to clear his plate.
‘Any last guesses?’ said Augustus, casting his eyes around the table. ‘Well, then I de-clare that Dr Armstrong has indeed baffed our taste buds. So Peter, would you care to tell what we have just sampled?’
‘Thank you, Augustus. This was merely an unusual part of a pig with a decidedly unusual sauce made up of pepper, celery seed, mint, asafoetida root, honey, vinegar and garum.’ He paused for dramatic effect, hoping someone would ask the obvious question as to the precise part of the pig involved. Charles duly obliged.
‘Fascinating, really quite unusual. So which part of the pig, dare I ask?’ ‘Sow’s womb: a particular Roman delicacy,’ said Peter Armstrong proudly. Charles Pinker nodded in acknowledgement and then drained the remnants of his
Mulsum in the hope of eradicating the last lingering taste in his mouth. He mentally ad-ded the uterus to his ever-lengthening list of internal organs not worthy of human con-sumption.
Once plates and palates had been cleared by the scouts and the remains of the white Burgundy respectively, Gerard emerged through the double doors carrying a large platter covered with a huge silver cloche. The room was instantly flled with one of fnest aromas on this earth. This was the fabled truffed turkey, a fowl elevated to epi-curean heights by an extraordinary excess of black truffe. Indeed the very dish that had launched the shadow faculty on its gastronomic mission. The black truffe, Tuber melanosporum , being more robust than its more fnely favoured white cousin Tuber magnatum , has the advantage that it can be cooked without losing its favour and so the whole bird can be imbued by the taste of this culinary gem. This particular bird had been lovingly prepared with its breasts flled with brandy-soaked sliced truffes and stuffed internally with more truffes, foie gras , veal and pork fat. The favours had permeated the meat for two full days before cooking completed the transformation.
The Reluctant Cannibals Page 11