Provence, 1970

by Luke Barr

  Paul’s tree looked healthy and robust, its dark, dusty-silvery-green leaves glowing in the sun.

  The house was a pale apricot yellow, with light-blue shutters. The screen doors were unusual, with tiny latched insets by the door handles, just big enough to reach a hand through in case the inner door was closed.

  In the kitchen, outlines of the utensils on the walls had survived multiple repaintings more or less intact. Many of the objects were original to the kitchen, and some were now admittedly more decorative than functional, but this was no museum; it was a fully functional kitchen. The knives were all extremely sharp.

  The house belongs to Kathie Alex, a former student of Beck’s who bought the property from the Beck family in the mid-nineties, and who teaches cooking classes in its well-pedigreed kitchen. She had repainted the kitchen pale yellow; put in a new, state-of-the-art stove and oven; and more fundamentally modernized the place, updating the electrical system, adding bathrooms in every bedroom, and putting in a pool in the garden below the terrace.

  I wondered what Paul and Julia would make of their one-time house done up so luxuriously—all those “en suite” baths and the pool. Then there was the construction zone for a new addition next door, at Le Vieux Mas. There was a looming tower crane, one of those right-angle types with huge cement counterbalancing weights high up in the air. The Becks had sold the old farmhouse for well over a million euros to the daughter of a French industrialist and her husband, to be their vacation villa.

  Indeed, as I sat at my desk in what was once Paul Child’s study, and paged through my great-aunt’s diary—the pale green spiral-bound notebook in which she had inscribed the words “Where was I?”—I thought about what had changed, but also what hadn’t.

  One of the first things I found at La Pitchoune was a binder with a set of instructions for houseguests, written by the Childs in the 1970s, with advice about everything, from where best to buy fresh fish to which electrician to call if the power went out. It was now of course largely out of date, but it provided a vivid introduction to the house—and to the personalities of its inhabitants—nonetheless. The label on the front read:

  THIS IS:

  “THE BLACK BOOK”

  LA PITCHOUNE

  GENERAL INFORMATION

  The first line, on the first page, was underlined for emphasis: “PLUMBING IS FRAGILE. Nothing but paper in toilets. Pipes are narrow and can clog up as it backs around the house—awful smell!!”

  There followed warnings about the stove (“a fine object, but recalcitrant … close the door carefully or you will blow out the gas”), the laundry machine (“be sure closing drum is securely locked, or clothes fall out and motor breaks”), the furnace (“pump will pick up sludge in bottom of tank, and furnace burner will clog”), the summer furniture (“if it stays out in the sun it disintegrates”), and what to do if the plumbing stopped up (“the Fischbachers have a long flexible length of wire, and that worked once—Jean Fischbacher managed the operation), followed by the exclamation: “This only happens if some nutty person throws something into the toilet.” A few pages had Paul’s beautifully detailed drawings of the various mechanical systems, as well as of the property as a whole, showing where the water pipes were buried.

  But more than an instruction manual, the Black Book was a love letter to Provence, describing all their neighbors, and the important people and businesses in the local community. There were two electricians: Mr. Carrenta, “a fat jolly man … but he takes days and weeks to come”; and Mr. Barla and his workers—“nice people, and eventually come (but don’t call them if you’ve already called Carrenta!)” The painter, plumber, carpenter, and firewood man were listed (along with helpful French phrases—bois d’allumage for “kindling”); Dr. Michel Biondi was excellent, made house calls, and spoke only French; the best chauffeur was Raymond Gatti (“A very nice man, we have all used him—not cheap!”).

  Closer to home, there were descriptions of the Becks’ housekeepers, Jeanne Villa and Marie-Thérèse; the gardeners; and the Englishwoman who lived down the hill. Everyone had pets: “A brown dog belongs to Marie Therese. A friendly black Labrador named Ursus belongs to Simca. An old poodle belongs to Jean, Iota. Black and white poussiequette is partly ours: we call her Minoir, they call her Whiskey; she will happily adopt you if you feed her, especially chopped raw beef, but she will eat canned cat food.” A small photograph of a very contented-looking cat (Minoir, a.k.a. Whiskey) was stuck to the bottom of the page.

  The long list of food shops—butchers, bakers, fishmongers, fruit and vegetable stands—came with notes about when they were open, where to park, which was the best, who was improving, or overcrowded, or simply “OK.” It was remarkable how personal it all was—these were more than shops, they were proprietors and purveyors with whom the Childs had real relationships. Everyone was listed by name.

  Today, the closest food shop was the local Super U, one of a chain of large, boxy supermarkets, just off the main road through town. It was a useful if charmless place, good for basic provisions. In fact, all the shops in town were on this same fast road: there were no longer any shops at all among the narrow streets of the old walled, medieval section of Plascassier, up on the hill.

  But even if the setting was no longer quite so romantic, there were excellent shops to be found, hidden among the gas stations, strip malls, and real estate broker offices: two bakeries, a tiny butcher, and a magnificent fruit and vegetable shop.

  Dumanois Primeurs didn’t look like much, just a storefront with crates of peaches, tomatoes, and apricots out front, in a modern and nondescript single-story building off the main roundabout in town. Inside, however, was an astounding collection of fresh fruits and vegetables. There were green beans in shallow wooden crates—three varieties, each a bit thinner than the last. There were tiny, flowering zucchini and brilliant orange-yellow chanterelle mushrooms. The strawberries were small, the leeks long and thin, the cabbages dense and heavy. There were soft green raw almonds, and figs and cherries. And there were tomatoes and peaches in multi-various abundance. Along the back wall was a small collection of wine, honey, and jam.

  And so I went about putting together my own Black Book, even if it was just in my head, gathering bits of information that gradually assembled themselves into some ad hoc sense of expertise. Within a few days, I knew that the local butcher was open Sunday morning but closed Mondays (whereas the larger butcher in the next village over was closed Sundays but open the rest of the week), that finding a parking spot in nearby Valbonne on Fridays (which was market day) was more trouble than it was worth, and that both local bakeries ran out of croissants by midmorning. I did not learn the shopkeepers’ and proprietors’ names, but as the weeks went by I knew them by sight—the large, talkative butcher, the elegant middle-aged couple at the fruit and vegetable stand, the harried young women behind the counter at the bakery.

  We cooked together, my grandmother, my wife, and I, gathering around the tall square table in the kitchen to chop eggplants, onions, and red peppers for ratatouille, or to prepare a chicken for roasting. For lunches we didn’t really cook, but just turned our beautiful groceries into salads—leeks, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, green beans, and more tomatoes—and ate them with torn-up baguettes and some cheese. There was a small herb garden along one side of the house, for basil and tarragon, and a row of rosemary bushes along another. We ate all our meals outside, at a round metal table on the terrace.

  During the hottest part of the afternoon, we closed the shutters to keep the house cool, and I would read various cookbooks, thinking about dinner, or planning ahead for tomorrow’s dinner. A group of old friends had joined us for a time, some staying at La Pitchoune, others at the Becks’ La Campanette, next door. With the large crowd, the evening meal was a group effort, everyone cooking, shopping, drinking, talking. When we decided to make a bouillabaisse, I consulted From Julia Child’s Kitchen.

  From bouillabaisse in the Mediterranean, marmites and chaudrées in
the Atlantic, and fresh-water meurettes, pauchouses, and matelotes in the interior, France abounds in recipes for hearty fish chowders, any one of which is a meal in itself. Praises be, also, for our own New England fish chowder.

  “Bouillabaisse à la marseillaise” was the first show of our new color series, and we’d filmed part of it in Marseille itself, at the open public market, and at the Criée aux Poissons, the wholesale market in the old port—fishwives screaming, the stands teeming with the morning’s catch … You cannot, of course, expect to transport all the essences of Marseille to a bouillabaisse made in Birmingham, Boston, Buffalo, Boise, or San Bernadino because the fish are different. But you do have those hearty flavors of Provence that give the soup its particular character—the tomatoes, onions, garlic, saffron, olive oil, and herbs. Using these and strong fish stock, which you can make out of bottled clam juice if you’ve no fresh trimmings, you can produce a marvelous dish, and rather quickly, too. It doesn’t have to be a fancy production; remember that it originated as a simple fisherman’s soup and not a high priced restaurant fantasy.

  Whatever fish you choose, whether fresh or frozen, it must smell absolutely fresh, as though it had just swum in from the sea; your nose is the best indicator of this.

  Her recipe was straightforward: you make a soup with fish trimmings (or bottled clam juice) and tomatoes, leeks, and onion, then strain it and add a wide selection of fish. Olney’s recipe, from The French Menu Cookbook, was more complex, involving marinating the fish in olive oil, saffron, and pastis; brewing a fish stock with wild fennel, among other things; and then cooking leeks and tomatoes, adding the stock and finally the fish. The recipe was preceded by a brief discussion:

  Bouillabaisse is, to tell the truth, more a philosophy than a culinary preparation. More gastronomic literature—and quarrels—have centered around it than any other dish (with cassoulet running a close second). If most of the recipes for it were to be followed, however, the result could only be the most banal of fish soups (I am thinking of those in French—some that I have seen in American and English cookbooks would make the hair of the most indifferent Marseillais stand on end).

  It is not a delicate dish; to be good, it must be highly seasoned, and it is terrifyingly soporific, but it embodies and engenders the warmth, the excitement, and the imagination which, perhaps, of all the Mediterranean peoples, the Provençaux exude in the highest degree. At best, it belongs to the realm of divine things.…

  It should be the main dish—and plentiful; it should be shared with friends in a relaxed and informal atmosphere … the wine should be kept generously flowing throughout the meal. I, personally, have many sublime memories of entire days devoted to shopping (early in the morning to the fish market to find the freshest fish of the greatest variety), everyone preparing fish and vegetables together (accompanied by a few more pastis than wisdom would ordinarily dictate), followed by euphoric hours spent at table.

  We didn’t follow either recipe, exactly, but looked to them for inspiration. From Child we took to heart the idea that the soup could be simple: we skipped making a fish stock and bought some instead. It came in jars, but it was a far cry from bottled clam juice—this was a rich Provençal fish stock sold by the fishmonger. We also did not belabor our choice of fish, and bought whatever seemed most fresh.

  From Olney we embraced the idea of bouillabaisse as a divine thing, a cause for euphoria.

  One of my visiting friends was the Zurich restaurateur Cello Rohr, and he took charge of the kitchen in an easygoing and precise way. We had bought a couple of medium-size loups de mer, a large silver snapper, salmon fillets, squid, and mussels. The loups de mer and snapper were cleaned but whole, with doleful, accusing eyes and unfriendly mouths.

  Cello filleted the fish while I chopped vegetables. We stopped to search the wall of kitchen utensils for a pair of pliers to pull out some of the larger bones in the snapper. Following Olney, we drizzled olive oil and pastis over the fish, and then started the soup in a large Le Creuset pot: chopped onion, tomatoes, fennel, and celery. Wine and pastis. Garlic, saffron, and thyme. Later, we added the fish stock and some small potatoes, and much later the fish itself, when the table was already set. We also made a garlicky rouille and a large green salad with cucumbers and shallots.

  Our soup was not a bouillabaisse, technically speaking—it had potatoes in it, for one thing, and squid and salmon are also not traditional ingredients. It was simply a fish soup, but it, too, belonged to “the realm of divine things.” We served it with a dry Sancerre and bread.

  As we sat outside, under the olive tree in the gentle evening air, I thought about how little had changed in forty years, when it came to making and eating fish stew in Provence with friends. This was where it had all started, for Child, Olney, M.F., Beard, and Beck—not their love of France, or of cooking, but their embrace of casual, improvised meals, outdoor eating, and the primacy of fresh herbs and seasonal ingredients. They had found in Provence in the late 1960s and early ’70s a more freewheeling, modern style of cooking, one in which the rules and formalities of haute cuisine had been loosened, in which more ancient traditions—the simple fisherman’s stew, for example—were revered.

  Whatever their differences, this was where they cooked for each other, and together. I had spoken with Judith Jones in New York, and one thing she emphasized every time we met was “the sheer joy of home cooking,” and how important that was to Child and the others. “It is not about showing off, and never was. There is love and care that is expressed in cooking for someone else.” In her mid-eighties and semiretired from Knopf, she still came into the office every day; her husband, Evan, had died years earlier. She went on to say that she would be eating dinner with friends that evening, and they were making her a simple, midwestern chicken pot pie.

  As I cooked in the kitchen at La Pitchoune, I could sense their presence, all of them—Julia at the stove; Paul opening wine; Beard, M.F., Beck, Jones, and Olney gathered around, offering advice and opinions and judgments. They spoke to me through their books and recipes, in the same way that my mother’s voice accompanies me in the kitchen. It was my mother, who died a few years ago, who taught me how to cook. And when I make something she made for me, or with me, I feel her presence—not in any literal or even ghostly way, but in the form of an atmospheric shift, an emotional warmth. It is striking how cooking binds us to the past, and to the people we love, even when they’re gone.

  Child, M.F., Beard, Olney, and Beck are gone now, too, leaving behind a cacophonous, booming food culture—from celebrity chefs and the Food Network to organic, locally sourced restaurant menus and artisanal sausages and pickles for sale at the farmers’ market. There is more good food and cooking than ever in America, and more hype, spectacle, money, moralizing, and pontificating, too—much of the discussion still circling around the same undying questions of authenticity, elitism, and taste that divided Child, Olney, and the others.

  All that seemed far away now, though, in the kitchen at La Pitchoune. Their real legacy was that very kitchen—the way that, metaphorically speaking, they had thrown open the doors to a welcoming, unintimidating, casual cooking.

  Raymond Gatti, the driver, still lived in Plascassier. He was a garrulous, sharply dressed man, and these days he no longer drove a Mercedes but rather a sporty VW coup. He had retired in 1986 and written a memoir, Taxi de guerre, taxi de paix, about his experiences during World War II and his career as a chauffeur.

  We drove around together as he told me his stories. He’d never worn a chauffeur’s cap, he said, just a suit and tie. “Always spic and span, like they say in Texas.” He had developed long-term arrangements with many of his clients—people who came to the Côte d’Azur every year and hired him for weeks at a time. He had driven the Duke of Windsor for fifteen years. He remembered Elizabeth Taylor and her twenty-five pieces of luggage. The Childs and their friends had also been regular customers. “Julia is one of those people you remember,” he said. “Very friendly; she treat
ed me like a brother.” Paul was trickier. Gatti described picking up Julia and Paul one morning: “We were packing the car and I said to him that perhaps he should bring a coat, in case it got cold, and the look he gave me! ‘It’s cool,’ I said. ‘You should wear a jacket.’ He looked at me like I killed my mother!”

  Mostly, though, he wanted to talk about the war. He was the most unabashedly pro-American Frenchman I’d ever met, his car decorated with numerous U.S. Army and U.S. special forces decals. I was reminded of M.F.’s cynical take on her taxi driver’s pro-American “spiel” in Arles in 1970 (“some Frenchmen have forgotten the American help in 1944 but not this one”), but Gatti was perfectly sincere. He is the head of a group whose mission is to erect memorials to the sacrifices and achievements of the American forces in southern France. They were his heroes, the men he had served alongside in 1944. On the way to Grasse one day, to take me to the site of Dr. Pathé’s diet clinic, he told me he wanted to show me one of his memorials, not far away. The clinic, Villa Fressinet, was long gone, replaced by the local police headquarters, a massive concrete edifice.

  We drove farther, up into the foothills of the Alpes-Maritimes, and then Gatti pulled to the side of the road. To the right was a valley; to the left a sheer stone wall. In between were cars driving at highway speeds, coming fast around the blind curve up ahead. We stood next to the car and Gatti pointed at the wall, which rose at least a hundred feet above us. “Do you see?” he asked. There was a modest marble plaque, inscribed in English and French. It read:

  IN MEMORIAM

  On the night of 24 August, 1944, after an intensive attack by the U.S.-Canadian First Special Service Force, the city of Grasse-Provence was liberated.