by N. M. Kelby
“Earlier this morning. If this were June, he would have brought us a sink full of lobster.”
Escoffier began to slice quickly along the sharp dorsal fins.
Sarah took the knife from his hands. “No. Sit.”
“There’s very little meat. It’s very bony. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I want to cook. I never cook. Please let me. When my menagerie is here the staff cooks and I cannot help because everyone would be so disappointed that I am mortal.”
“But if you cook, what should I do?”
“What do you usually do when someone cooks for you?”
“No one usually cooks for me.”
“Well, what would you like to do?”
“Cook.”
“Because you don’t believe that I can?”
“Because I need to.”
She handed him the knife. “Only for you, I give this up.”
“Sit by the fire,” he said. “Warm yourself.”
“Do you know I love you?”
“Only because I can cook.”
“That is your charm, yes.”
He rolled up the sleeves of the red kimono. “Any cream?”
“Of course. There are also some very fine anchovies in the larder. And potatoes, onions and garlic.”
Escoffier opened the door to the pantry and not only were there anchovies but several sausages hanging to dry. “Is this “Andouille de Guémené?”
“I don’t know. More than likely.”
He scraped a bit of mold from the sausage and sniffed it. “It is. It has that sweet hay scent. And a Toulouse sausage?”
It was and there was also salted cod, a confit of goose, two pots of onion-and-black currant jam and a wide variety of dried beans—mogettes, soissons and tarbais.
“This is heaven,” he said. “Tomorrow we could make a cassoulet.”
“We? You will let me cook?”
“No. Of course not. I was just being polite.”
And for the first time in several weeks he laughed and Sarah did, too.
And so while the storm raged around them, the low pink house took on the scent of home. It was as if they were the only two people left in the world. “So you must eat with me,” she said.
“I will eat.”
“With me?”
“I will eat.”
After all this time, nearly twenty-three years, they had never sat down for a meal together. Escoffier had always served and watched while she ate.
“If you do not eat with me, I will not eat.”
“Then I will sit with you.”
“And eat?’
“And eat.”
The dining room had large windows that overlooked the cliffs and the unforgiving night. Instead of fine china and crystal, Sarah set the rough table as her cook always did with local pottery from Quimper. The set of plates was naive: roughly octagonal, marigold yellow, with paintings of the Breton men and women in their native costumes with the same rough socks. At first, Sarah set both ends of the table, but then reconsidered and placed the two plates in the center, so that she and Escoffier could face the storm together.
“Tonight we shall be very much like an old married couple,” she said when she entered the kitchen. She sat and watched him as he cleaned and then steamed the mussels in the dry cider and garlic, and fried potatoes in duck fat. “Moules and frites,” he announced when he was finished. He poured her cider into a champagne glass. “For you, madame.”
“Merci.”
When he took the platter into the dining room and saw the bright yellow table settings, “These plates are—”
“Charming.”
“Surprising.”
“Not every good meal is served on fine china, my dear Escoffier. Sit.” He hesitated. “Sit,” she said again.
Outside, the storm pawed at the pink stones of the house. Pushed at the windows. Knocked the shutters off their hinges. They ate together, silently, shyly. Then, quite suddenly, she said, “Be careful of Ritz, my darling. He is too nervous; too self-centered. In the end he could do to you as he did to D’Oyly Carte, the poor man. He’s been confined to his bed. Did you know? What a horrible scene in the hotel.”
“He’s been ill for quite some time.”
“Ritz means well but I am afraid he will leave you penniless.”
“He is my friend.”
“That is why I worry. You are too good to your friends. I know a lawyer who can help.”
“There is no need for concern.”
“You are too much of an artist, Escoffier. You need to think of the business side of things. Renoir has his brother so that he can paint. Someone must protect you.”
This was the last thing Escoffier wanted to talk about. Sarah obviously did not understand what had happened. No one understood. It was just an overreaction from the Board.
“Please, Sarah, it is not your worry.”
“But you are my friend and so I am making it my worry. I do know a bit about business, you know.”
It was true. Through endorsements and investments, Sarah had become one of the world’s richest people; her face was on everything from Pears soap to beer bottles. She was the most glamorous woman in the world. But at that moment, she suddenly seemed like a wife—somebody else’s wife.
Escoffier looked at her closely. It was as if he’d never really seen her before. The candlelight betrayed her age. Her face had grown wrinkled through the years; her eyes were less filled with fire. Her wild red hair needed to be dyed again; it was streaked with so much gray that he was amazed he had not seen it before. He felt a numbness creep over him. Suddenly she was not perfection or a goddess or a muse but the veuve Damala. And at that moment, he was not, as he thought, a great chef, a great artist, not the spirit of France itself, but a man in borrowed clothes—children’s clothes, no less.
Nothing more was said. As soon as they were finished eating, Escoffier cleared the plates.
“Are you angry with me?” she said.
“How could I be?”
“I adore César and Marie, too. And their children are such great friends of my little Lysiane and Simone. I just can see that he is not well. He’s headed for some sort of breakdown.”
Escoffier smiled and patted her hand. “It will be fine.”
“Are you attempting to placate me?”
“Of course I am.”
“Good. You should always placate me.” Sarah stood to follow him into the kitchen, but he kissed her forehead.
“Please,” he said. “Let me.”
Once the door closed behind him, Escoffier felt that old rush of excitement again. It had been too long since he stood in a kitchen and tried to make sense of what should be called “dinner.” He wanted to make a special dish for Sarah, something he could name after her and maybe put on the menu at the Ritz when it opened.
He was at work again. Happy.
Escoffier took the bones of the fish and the head, a bit of minced onion, leek and then thyme, and added to it a glass of white wine and a pint of water.
Sarah came into the kitchen. “How long?”
“Go away.”
He tossed a handful of pink peppercorns into the boiling fumet, and then set it to simmer. Cream for the sauce, he thought, but was not sure what else. The reserved fumet enriched with butter, of course. More wine? Champagne? Anchovies? Each time he found a possible ingredient, he imagined it combined in every possible way; he could taste it without tasting a thing. And with each ingredient, he thought of the Sarah of the stage, not the woman in the next room. The Divine Sarah with her pink lips, pink cheeks, the opulent river of copper hair, and the impossible silver tone, like a flute, of her voice.
Slightly less than half an hour had passed when
Escoffier arrived in the dining room with a platter of four perfect pink fillets in a delicate sauce of cream and onion-and-black currant jam.
“For you, madame.”
“C’est très magnifique.”
“It is magnificent—as you are,” he said and served her as if she were dining at The Savoy. He plated the fish and then draped sauce over it. He stood and waited for her to taste it.
“It is as magnificent as the Divine Sarah is,” she said. “Rosine Bernardt, veuve Damala, is another matter.”
She knew him so well.
“Eat,” he said.
“And if I eat, tomorrow we will make the cassoulet? Together?”
“Together.”
“And that is a lie, of course.”
“A tender one.”
“Are you happy?”
“I am.”
“And yet?”
“If only you were not Sarah. Just Rosine. How lovely our lives could be.”
“There’s never been a lie told so sweetly before.”
“Sarah—”
“Here I am known as Veuve Damala.”
“But this is not the world we live in.”
“It is tonight.”
And so she took his hand in hers and kissed it gently. “I have always loved you, Cook,” she said. “And I will love you until the very day that I die.”
Chef, he thought, not “Cook.”
The Complete Escoffier: A Memoir in Meals
MIGNONETTES D’AGNEAU SAINT-ALLIANCE
The Circles of Peace
I have given this a great deal of thought and I now believe that Saint Fortunat should depose Saint Laurent from his position as the patron saint of butchers, cooks in general and the rôtisseur in particular, although I am not sure whom to speak to about this.
Saint Laurent has always been an imposter in the representation of gourmandise for he often was given to fasting and his only culinary experience was that he was broiled to death over a rather large grill. There is no record of his ever cooking anything. Although, according to Saint Ambrose, he apparently did tell his torturers, “This side is done. Turn me over and have a bite.” Perhaps that is why he is also the patron saint of comedians.
The feast day of Saint Laurent is August 10 and is always celebrated with cold cuts—how unimaginative. Impossible, in fact. There must be a better representation of cooks in heaven because while I have grilled many types of meat on what the Americans call the “barbecue,” including the weenie that was made famous in France after the Great War, I would not want to pray to a weenie for culinary intervention.
Saint Fortunat, however, has always done his very best for me, and despite the fact that he is now the patron saint of male chefs exclusively, I am sure he would gladly intervene for the ladies who brave this profession. He did, after all, have many close friendships with females, the nature of which church writings define as “chaste, pious, delicate friendships that included the type of charming child’s play usually marking feminine friendship.”
I have no idea what the church means exactly by that but Fortunat was known to deliver baskets of exotic foods to women with personal poems for their eyes only—and we all know where that sort of behavior leads.
While known for temperance and stability, he was also as competitive as any modern chef. When the sisters of the convent would deliver their milk and eggs they would sometimes include dainty dishes and savory meats artistically arranged on plates they had actually made themselves from clay. Not to be outdone, he would amaze them with flowers, filling an entire room with lavender and roses, or delicate glazed chestnuts presented in a sugar basket that he had woven to look like fine Belgian lace. And he was totally blind. I know many sighted men who could not do the same. If this is not a miracle, I am not sure what is.
I also believe it is fair to say that Saint Fortunat created the basis for the modern menu. Although he could not see, he was a great wanderer who traveled through Italy and France in search of fine food and drink. He often paid for his supper with poetry that he wrote in honor of the meal, praising each dish. Think of it. If a menu is not poetry what is it, then?
His many excellent poems extolling the virtues of gastronomy, although unfortunately all in Latin, have been transcribed by Monsieur Gringoire, the secretary of La Ligue des Gourmands, an organization of the greatest living French chefs in London, which I created and of which I have served as president. And so, being founder and past president, I have announced that upon Saint Fortunat’s feast day, the Ligue des Gourmands will feast forever more.
There is nothing noble in hunger. During the Great War, twice a week everyone was forced to give up meat and potatoes. To buy meat or chicken, you had to have a coupon. And, perhaps most crushing of all, the government set the price of fish so high that few could afford it and so my supplier would stock very little.
Of course, all adversity presents opportunity.
Venison was exempt, as were eggs, fish, giblets, and bacon. However, the only deer that we could procure was quite old. No matter. With the help of Saint Fortunat and a daube à la Provençale featuring a sauce made from anchovy, garlic, capers and a touch of tomato, we served the old meat on a bed of noodles with a chestnut puree. It made for a charming stew. And since we needed at least thirty to forty salmon a week to remain open, we would travel to Scotland and Ireland many times a week, making friends with the fishermen there and buying their catch for a fraction of what it would have been through the distributor. Opportunity was everywhere.
So you see, with the eyes of Saint Fortunat upon you, you can master all setbacks. There was no butter and so I cooked in cocoa butter. There was no fish to be had and so we made do with “fish” of our own creation: finely minced chicken patties dipped in egg and rolled in breadcrumbs. No one knew the difference and so we charged as if they were the real thing. We had no choice. It was our patriotic duty to create a world where there was not a war going on, because to dine at the Carlton made people quite happy and made them feel quite normal. Even when the bombs were crashing all around the city and the sky threatened to become dark with the Zeppelin airships the Carlton could still serve sole on a bed of macaroni à la Napolitaine, as if the Germans did not even exist. And so the people came and opened their hearts to us and, luckily, their purses, too.
To feast is to live. Saint Fortunat knew that to be true. And every single time I have invoked him in prayer, he has blessed me with a great success.
Armistice Day. November 11, 1918. 1 p.m. The terrible nightmare was over and I suddenly had 712 reserved for dinner service at the Carlton. Rationing had ravaged my kitchen. I only had six legs of lamb, two small veal haunches, fifteen kilograms of fresh pork and ten chickens. By most standards, this was not enough for a meal for so many but there was such joy in the streets that I could not bear to turn anyone away.
The terrible years were over. Everyone was hungry.
I knew from the Prussian War that if a horse is properly seasoned it can make a fine meal. Along with the limited meat that I had, which I minced together, I had twenty kilograms of canned pâté de foie gras, some minced truffles, ten kilograms of bread mixed with sterilized cream and a few moments to run to the cathedral and light a candle in honor of Saint Fortunat.
Never lose your head, even when faced with great difficulty—that must be the motto of every chef de cuisine. I prayed to the saint and I could feel him listening to me. On the way back to my kitchen I created in my mind a dish of small noisettes and called it “Mignonettes d’agneau Sainte-Alliance,” which, despite the fact that it was actually named after a concept offered by Brillat-Savarin in his Physiology of Taste as a way to honor the jewels of haute cuisine—foie gras, ortolans and truffle—it was translated by my manager as “Mignonettes of Lamb of the Holy Alliance,” and suggested to be my brilliant metaphor regarding peace.
Who am I to argue?
And was the dish lamb? It was lamb enough. That is all that can be said.
Even though we were short on supplies, to celebrate peace all one needs to do is to name a few dishes for Allies, such as “Canadian Potatoes” and “Englishwoman’s Peas,” and serve for the finale something that appeals to the sentimental heart as did my “Bombes of Conviviality” and “Symbols of Peace.” Everyone is happy because the war is over and though they don’t speak the French language and only recognize a few words, such as “peace” and “English,” food always sounds better in French.
This meal eventually brought me great acclaim. The next year, on the anniversary of the day that peace was signed, Mr. Poincaré, President of the French Republic, held a reception in London and much to my surprise presented me with the famed Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. The award was first given by Napoléon Bonaparte in recognition of excellence and achievement. This memory is engraved on my heart and it is all because of Saint Fortunat and a blessed sleight of hand.
Unfortunately, our dear Saint Fortunat shows us by example that how one speaks of food is more important than what is on the plate. This is incorrect, and perhaps is at the core of why the Vatican will not assign him the role of our patron saint.
Words, you see, are always inadequate.
The moment when you find your baby son sleeping on the kitchen floor, and you pick him up and carry him back to his own bed, and pull the soft worn wool blanket around his neck so that he does not grow cold, does not suffer, and he wakes and says, “God is hiding in my room,” and you say, sadly, “He is hiding everywhere” and kiss your small son and taste the salt of his tears—a moment like this cannot be explained because you cannot be certain that these words which engage you will engage someone else in the same way. Even many years later when you find yourself standing by your son’s grave, there are no words that can describe that moment, the depth of it.
But a sauce can reflect that moment exactly. Nothing speaks more accurately to the complexity of life than food. Who has not had, let us say, a béarnaise, the child of hollandaise, and has not come away from the taste of it feeling overwhelmed?