White Truffles in Winter

by N. M. Kelby

  Overhead Escoffier thought he saw a large flock of pure white birds. Doves? He squinted to see them, but it was difficult. He was quickly losing his sight.

  “Je suis aveugle,” he said and pointed to his eyes. Blind.

  “Blue,” the Man from Cunard said and pointed at his own eyes.

  The white birds banked again, low this time. Escoffier wondered if anyone else could see them. They passed so closely, if he reached out, he knew he could touch them.

  All around him, everyone continued drinking champagne, kissing, laughing, even though the birds flew fast and low through the crowds, weaving in and out. The sight of them made Escoffier’s heart beat faster. The sun was sinking into the sea, the sky was streaked with red. The Man from Cunard took two glasses from a passing waiter and held his own high.

  “Toast,” he said, and then said something about “peace.”

  How odd, Escoffier thought. 1926. The world is at peace. Isn’t it?

  “Could we sit?” the old man asked.

  The Man from Cunard cocked his head to one side, confused.

  Escoffier pointed at a row of deck chairs filled with passengers, and that seemed to make the man even more confused.

  How can these Americans not speak French?

  “Sit,” Escoffier said again and mimicked sitting in an imaginary chair. “I need to sit down.” His eyesight was becoming more and more narrow. Soon the world would become a pinpoint.

  The man nodded as if he understood but took Escoffier by the arm past chair after chair, and down below deck.

  It wasn’t worth arguing over, the old man thought. I’ll finish the tour and then rest in my stateroom.

  They followed the arrows to the pool, obviously a point of pride for the cruise line; the Man from Cunard kept repeating the word “famous,” which Escoffier knew, and when the man opened the door to the swimming area, he understood why he had continued to use that word.

  The pool was two decks high, Pompeian style. Next to it was a Turkish bath suite, with two hot rooms and parquet floors. It was tiled with small Italian mosaic designs. Escoffier knew it well. The last time he’d seen it, it was filled with Germans, the Kaiser was smiling in the corner, satiated and happy.

  The ship itself was famous. Very famous.

  “This is the Imperator,” Escoffier said.

  The Man from Cunard recognized the name of the Kaiser’s ship, a near doppelganger to the Titanic. He seemed pleased that he was finally being understood. He nodded enthusiastically. “The old girl is called Berengaria now,” he said slowly, loudly, as if Escoffier were deaf. “Spoils of War!” he was shouting. People turned.

  The blindness was now complete.

  THE DOCTOR WAS NOT ALARMED, “YOU WORK TOO HARD, Escoffier. It is only a migraine, although it could have been a stroke,” he said and confined the old man to bed. “At least for the night. The casino will still be there tomorrow. Bertrand will come around to check on you in the morning. He has a full day planned.”

  Escoffier smiled weakly.

  The Man from Cunard looked pale, hovering over him.

  “Could you send the young man away,” Escoffier said to the doctor. “With my gratitude, of course.”

  “Americans,” the doctor laughed. “Such a young and earnest people.” He put his arm around the nervous man. Whispered something in his ear. The Man from Cunard turned back to Escoffier, nodded and quickly left.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” the doctor said. “I sent him for food. I suspect you haven’t eaten all day.”

  It was true.

  “The seas should be very still this time of year, but there is always the odd wave,” the doctor said. “Try broth at first if you must, but eat. Cunard will make sure that you are fed at least six times a day. It will be their pleasure. They have a very fine kitchen.”

  “I designed it.”

  “That’s right. I’d forgotten.” He shook Escoffier’s hand. “Dinner will be here in an hour or so. We make a tart out of snow apples which cannot be missed.”

  “Snow apples? Very rare.”

  “Sleep until then.”

  The doctor turned off the lights and closed the cabin door gently behind him. The boat was already out to sea. Escoffier’s stateroom was elaborate with large windows that looked out onto the waters, the hesitant moonlight.

  He closed his eyes and tried to remember the taste of snow apples. When he was a child, there was a gnarled tree of them behind his father’s blacksmith shop. His mother would always pick them but there were never enough for more than a single tart. Spicy and yet sweet, like McIntosh, but the flesh was so impossibly white, pristine, and the juice was so abundant, that it was like no other apple he had ever tasted.

  He fell asleep dreaming of them, the soft flesh against his teeth.

  Hours later, Escoffier was deep in sleep when there was a knock at the door of his stateroom. In a moment of confusion, his dream shifted. He suddenly was standing once more in the back of the dining room of the Imperator. It was 1913. The world was on the edge of war, although Kaiser Wilhelm swore to all the newspapers, “I am only interested in peace.”

  Escoffier had believed him. It was impossible not to. Every time he’d see the man, the chef couldn’t stop thinking of Dear Old Bertie trying to buy women for the strangely shy boy with the withered hand. Wilhelm may have been the German Emperor, the King of Prussia, but Escoffier always thought of him as who he had been, Queen Victoria’s sad grandson.

  After the dinner service was complete, “Stay,” the Emperor told Escoffier. “Sit with me. We are friends after all, are we not?”

  The ballroom was filled with German dignitaries and military men. After their plates were cleared, an evening of film began. Everything was in German. One film was about lobster fishing and starred a lovely French actress. Escoffier didn’t need to know what was being said; the actress was beautiful and so he enjoyed it greatly. The next was roughly edited, badly lit, badly shot, but nonetheless its intent was clear. It was a German intelligence film. The footage explained the submarine maneuvers of the French fleet in Tunis.

  The Kaiser was planning to attack France.

  Escoffier didn’t remember leaving the ballroom. He’d like to think he’d gotten up as soon as he figured out what was happening. He’d like to think he’d climbed into a lifeboat and made his way through the rough seas and back to shore where he called the Palace and demanded to speak to Prince Edward. He’d like to think he did all that.

  But he didn’t. It was Queen Victoria’s grandson, after all. The Emperor. He couldn’t cause a scene. His reputation would be called into question and that would be bad for business.

  And so Escoffier went to his room and said nothing.

  The next morning, the Kaiser requested a meeting with him.

  “Do you remember the dinner with Léon Gambetta at Le Petit Moulin Rouge? That Bernhardt creature served us. Do you remember?”

  As soon as the meal was mentioned, Escoffier thought of Xavier lying on the floor, his silent head on Sarah’s lap. His blood everywhere.

  “I remember,” he said. Xavier’s vineyard in Alsace still belonged to the family of the German officer. They still made the finest wine in the region. He hadn’t thought of Xavier in such a long time. “I remember it quite well. I remember every menu I have ever created.”

  “Gambetta told us of your conversation in the wine cellar. ‘Judas,’ he called you and meant it kindly. ‘You can always trust Escoffier,’ he said, ‘because he doesn’t have the conviction to be Paul. Food is his only God.’ ”

  Escoffier went pale.

  The Emperor leaned over and patted his hand. “My friend, do not looked shocked. I only tell you this because I want to say that I have trusted you through the years. We have all trusted you. My grandmother, that horrible Bertie, Ga
mbetta—even Bernhardt, I suspect.

  “I only needed to taste the lamb you made that evening, which I sometimes still dream of, to know that you do not care for country, or women, or God. For some that would make you a heathen. For me, that makes you the perfect man. You are untainted by affection or loyalty or love. I admire that. That sort of distance from the heart allows for greatness. It is a trait that I also share.”

  And then he walked away.

  Later that morning, the Emperor’s press secretary fed a story to newspapers around the world about the conversation that took place between the two men.

  “I am the Emperor of Germany, but you are the Emperor of Chefs.”

  And so many years later, aboard the former Imperator, the door to Escoffier’s stateroom opened. Light flooded in. The old man sat up squinting.

  “Dinner is served,” the Man from Cunard said and rolled a room service table into the stateroom. It was filled with food, so many courses at the same time.

  Escoffier was still in his dream.

  “Daniel?” he said.

  “Dinner,” the Man from Cunard corrected.

  “God hides everywhere, Daniel.”

  “Yes, dinner is served.”

  The Man from Cunard touched Escoffier’s shoulder and the dream deflated. The old man looked at the table filled with plates and at the Man from Cunard, who did not look like Daniel at all.

  “Dinner,” the man said again.

  “It will all grow cold, will it not?”

  “Oui,” the Man from Cunard said, proudly. It was obviously the only French he knew. “And for dessert,” he continued and lifted the silver dome off a china plate. “Hot Apple Pie!”

  Snow apples.

  It was a large golden tart. The old man took his fork and tested the flake of the pastry. Perfect. The fruit was firm and yet when he pressed it with his fork, it was still juicy, and so white. One bite, that was all he needed. The spice of it held its own against the nutmeg and cinnamon. The flavor was so pure and clean. So innocent, he thought.

  The Man from Cunard waited for the pronouncement.

  “Merci,” Escoffier said. “Très bon.”

  He took a pen and paper from the bedside stand and wrote a quick note to Monsieur Bertrand, asking if the inspector could have a bushel of snow apples sent to La Villa Fernand. He knew they would not deny him.

  “No note required,” Escoffier wrote. “Madame will know.”

  At the banquet in New York for his eightieth birthday, a “brilliant reception at the Ritz Carlton” as the newspapers called it, Escoffier was presented with a golden plaque on which two laurel branches were linked by the medal of the French Légion d’Honneur.

  He was now an international hero, not just of the Prussian War but also of the Great War. He had been decorated for using French cooking to keep the morale of England high and commended for raising seventy-five thousand francs to distribute among the wives and children of his staff who had been called to the Front. He had also employed the veterans of the world war in his kitchen. And, of course, there was the matter of the loss of his Daniel. That was mentioned, too.

  The newspaper noted that he spoke at great length with a “cheerful and paternal tone” and everyone applauded him warmly.

  “The art of cooking is that of diplomacy,” he would later say. “I have been able to place two thousand French chefs into positions all over the world. Like a grain of wheat sown, they have taken root.”

  The menu was lovely and unforgettable. And was presented without translation, which pleased Escoffier greatly.

  Caviar Frais d’Astrakan

  Pain Grillé

  Le Rossolnick

  •••

  La Mousse de Sole Escortée du Cardinal des mers à l’Américaine

  •••

  Les Noisettes de Pré-Salé Favorite

  Les Petits Pois à la Française

  •••

  Le Perdreaux à la Casserole

  •••

  La Salade Coeurs d’Endives Châtelaine

  Les Belles Angevines aux Fruits d’Or

  •••

  Les Mignardises

  Café Moka

  The Man from Cunard had no idea what he was eating. The applause was deafening.

  Two weeks later, Escoffier found himself on the quiet doorstep of La Villa Fernand, finally home, but thinking of the American, the idiotic way the Man from Cunard smiled at everything, and shouted at everything, but how in the evenings he always made sure that Escoffier received his nightcap, the warm milk, raw egg and split of champagne. Escoffier missed the way the man would take him by the arm and carefully lead him through a crowded room. And how neatly the man trimmed all the newspaper articles about his visit and put them in an envelope and mailed them to Madame Escoffier without his asking.

  The Man from Cunard did everything that was asked of him, and some things that were not, but whatever he did he did with a great enthusiasm that, eventually, endeared him to the old chef. It was only at the moment when Escoffier reached his villa that he realized two things. First, that the Man from Cunard would be greatly missed. Second, he had forgotten to get his name.

  Escoffier knocked on the door of La Villa Fernand, but no one answered. He left his bags on the stoop and let himself in. Delphine had sent the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, grandnieces and grandnephews away, along with the staff. They were alone in the great house together. There was no bell for dinner. No supper on the table.

  Delphine, however, had made a small cake for him. It sat in the center of the great table in the dining room.

  “We will be like the Russians and eat our cake first.”

  “And then?”

  “More cake.”

  “Perhaps something more than cake? Supper?”

  “There is no supper.”

  “A bit of fruit? There must be fruit. Aren’t apples in season?”

  “Yes.”

  “Apples, then.”

  “We had apples. Snow apples.”

  “Very lovely.”

  “I ate them.”

  “All of them?”

  “They were very lovely. Jeanne and Paul said they were very rare, apparently. Almost impossible to come by.”

  “And?”

  “They were extremely good. I believe they were from Mr. Boots, although I have not heard from him in such a long time. Is he still in Southsea?”

  “We’ve lost touch.”

  “Really? That’s very sad.”

  “Was there a card?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps I sent them.”

  “Why would you send them?”

  She raised an eyebrow as if expecting an answer.

  “You are right, as always. There is no need to send you gifts of love, as you have my love and I have yours.”

  “You are very confident. Oh, yes. You are Escoffier. You have every reason to be confident.”

  “And you are Madame Escoffier.”

  “And yet, Georges, you do not send me snow apples.”

  Georges.

  “Then let me cook for you, Madame. Let me win your heart again. I will send the girl to town for truffles, foie gras and a case of champagne.”

  “Everyone has left and there is no money.”

  “There must be something in the house, then. Squab? Venison? Lamb, perhaps. How many stocks do we have? The white, of course. Beef? Fish?”

  “There is no stock.”

  “Jam? Tomatoes? Pickled onions? Honey? Candied lavender? How can there not be food in my kitchen?”

  “We have potatoes. Cheese. Butter. Cream. And it is not your kitchen. It is my kitchen.”

  “And for meats
?”

  “Your pension check has not arrived yet.”

  “The cake?”

  “The last of the flour.”

  Escoffier sat back in his chair. “But I would like to cook for you.”

  “When was the last time you cooked anything?”

  That was a very good question. In Paris, he never had to cook. He could always eat at the Ritz or with friends or fellow chefs. “Six years, perhaps. Maybe eight. But it is like swimming. One never forgets how to swim.”

  She looked wary. “Aligot, then.”

  “I cannot make you mashed potatoes.”

  “Aligot is a meal.”

  Delphine rose from the table, haltingly. The neuritis, as the doctor called it, was obviously serious and seemed to be progressing. She put her apron around her neck but could not tie it. Her hand went limp.

  “Let me,” Escoffier said and tied it into a bow, kissed the back of her neck. She picked up a Windsor pan with her good hand, added a fist of butter and placed it on the lowest of heat. “So you are hungry?”

  “I am hungry.”

  “You are always hungry, you old goat.”

  “It is the one thing you never have complained about.”

  She took a steamer from the overhead rack, and nearly dropped it. Escoffier took the pan from her hands and put it on the stove. “Now what do we do? I’ve never made an aligot before.”

  “That’s because goats are not very good cooks. They call themselves chefs, artists, but that is only a deflection from the fact that simple home cooking is too complicated for them. And so it is beneath them.”

  She went to the pantry and brought back a pail of potatoes and began washing them. “Thirty minutes on the gentlest of temperatures.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “You cannot hurry aligot.”

  “It is much like bread?”

  “Escoffier, you are a very old goat with very old tricks.”

  “What type of goat? Breed, Madame.”

  She looked at him closely. “A cou blanc, white-haired with a dark ass.”

  And so he kissed her and she him. And after a time she pulled away and said, “We are cooking. Please. Control yourself. Peel and dice potatoes and put them in the steamer. Pour hot water over them and then one level dessert-spoon of salt.”