by N. M. Kelby
And so, it is important that one understand the recipe correctly. It is as follows:
Simmer stoned cherries in sugar syrup. Drain. Place them in a golden bowl, which must be at least fourteen-carat weight, and reduce the syrup, thickening it with cornstarch or arrowroot diluted with cold water. Combine the syrup with a tablespoon of warmed kirsch and pour over the cherries. Step back. Set aflame.
As you can see, ice cream would be an insult. Unfortunately, some publishers print the ice cream version as the “real” recipe, and in some extreme cases, they even forget to mention my name.
This is why it is difficult to leave a legacy behind. Even when I write these pages, I think that if this book does not go to the publisher before I die, it will fall into the hands of others who will take my thoughts and change them. Maybe even this very chapter will, in the end, not include Ba. Or maybe it will mention Ba but not Cherries Jubilee because the editor will be embarrassed to have insight into the secret life of a queen. Or, maybe, he will just forget to put this chapter in.
Forgetting. Everyone is now forgetting.
Again, the Germans.
The only way to combat forgetting is to cook. A well-prepared dish adds beauty, depth and complexity to life. Food is a thing of enchantment and to believe in enchantment, and to weave its spell, is a radical and necessary act.
And so. Silently. Cook.
LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AFTER THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE, Delphine Daffis, a French poetess of distinction and officer of the Academy, Escoffier’s heart gave out.
At 2 a.m. Sabine found him. His mouth was slightly open, as if hungry. She sat with him until the authorities came. “He shouldn’t be alone,” she told them.
“You’re an odd girl,” the man said.
After they took his body away, Sabine walked through the streets of Monte Carlo until she came to the long thin house overlooking the Grand Hôtel.
Bobo held her for a long time, until she stopped crying. Until he did, too.
“He was released,” his doctor told the newspaper and explained about Madame’s long illness and peaceful death. “They had a great love,” he said, although he hardly knew them.
On February 14, 1935, the story ran around the world. And on that day, the celebration of the Feast of the blessed Saint Valentine, Un Dîner d’Amoureux from Escoffier to Escoffier featuring Fricassée d’Homard à la Crème d’Estragon à la Madame Delphine Daffis Escoffier was scheduled to make its debut at the Grand Hôtel.
It did not.
On the feast day, Auguste Escoffier, Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, was taken from La Villa Fernand to the village of his birth, Villeneuve-Loubert, to an ancient cemetery filled with rows of Escoffiers, as well as those who had married into the family, the Blancs and the Bernodins. The entire line extended back to the eighteenth century, slab after slab of marble overlooking the tiny village whose rows of red-tiled roofs lined the hillside. At the south edge of the ancient cemetery, there was a mausoleum with elegant wrought iron gates and a small vault with three marble plaques, side by side, “Delphine,” “Daniel,” now “Auguste.”
The funeral was by invitation only. Sabine was left behind to pack up the rest of La Villa Fernand. The bank called the notes on the house and the manager himself delivered the papers to Paul, who did not know his father’s financial problems were that extreme but was not entirely surprised. Sabine was told to inventory and organize the remaining belongings of Escoffier so that the family could sort through the things they wished to keep and the things that they wished to sell to museums and libraries after the war. They knew there would be a demand for such things. He was, after all, Escoffier.
Bobo had not been invited, either. He arrived at La Villa Fernand later that night carrying a large hamper of food. Inside there were only two things: a salad of carrots, baby zucchini and spinach dressed in lemon and olive oil and a small baked pumpkin, hollowed out and filled with a stuffing of leftover lamb, cream, farmer’s cheese and green olives. It was beautiful. The skin was shiny; the small lid was cocked to one side.
“Housewife cooking as you requested,” he said and opened the bottle of red wine that he had brought. “Is there anything left in the cellar?”
“Just a Moët. I found it on the last rack, in the back. I think it was forgotten.”
Bobo put another log on the fire in the dining room. The pumpkin was still warm. Sabine sliced into it and picked up a bit with her fingers. It was soft, savory and only slightly sweet. The room filled with the scent of garlic and roasted lamb. They sat at the dining room table, next to each other, knees touching. Bobo handed her a glass of wine.
“It’s odd without him,” he said and his voice echoed.
She raised her glass to the heavens, and so did he.
“This pumpkin is very good,” she said.
“From Provence. My pastry chef wrote it down for me.”
“Unfair.” She took another forkful. “ ‘Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are?’ How will I know you?”
“Mystery is good.”
Bobo gave her a copy of the menu that they had created together. “A keepsake,” he said. The Dîner d’Amoureux from Escoffier to Escoffier was printed on a deep red parchment, with each course embossed in burnished gold leaf.
She ran her fingers over the lettering. “Elegant and yet savage. Just like the heart of a chef.”
“People would have eventually found out it was just our imaginings of Papa’s heart, and not the real thing.”
“We could have said it was ours, in honor of them.”
“People get funny about the dead. Who are we to honor a master?”
“It’s too beautiful to waste.”
“True. It did everything a fine meal should. It told a story. It made me imagine what my own heart would be like after all those years of marriage. The subtleness of the eggs and caviar; the richness of the lobster—it all made me think. I even had it printed in a way that was regal and slightly tarnished but still, hopefully, beautiful. As I think my heart would be.”
Above them, the floor creaked. For a moment it seemed as if Escoffier were in his room again. Writing.
“Old houses,” Bobo said.
Sabine handed him the paper that she had found on the floor next to Escoffier’s bed. He read it carefully.
“Mashed potato with white truffles?”
“It’s like an aligot because it’s whipped so long, but it seems unique, does it not?”
“It speaks of magic but it is just mashed potatoes.”
“But it is for Madame.”
“And no one can ever know. The great Escoffier could not wish mashed potatoes, even with truffles, as the only dish that he dedicated to his wife.”
Bobo poured a bit more wine into their glasses. “Where will you go now?”
“My father wants me to come back to Paris. Tomorrow.”
“And tonight?”
“I have a few boxes to put away.”
“I could leave the kitchen light on for you at the house.”
He said this so shyly, at first Sabine wasn’t sure what he meant but then he shrugged. His face was indeed beautiful, his blue eyes tired. His hair was going gray in fits and starts although there was a calmness to him that she hadn’t noticed before. Heaven is a lonely place.
“People will talk.”
“If they do, we could do something about it. Eventually. If you like.”
“Or we could do nothing and enrage my father.”
“If you like.”
Bobo kissed her. Just once. No more. “It feels like he’s watching.”
“He is.”
And yet the very timbers of the house, the floors, the ceilings, all felt bloodless, like bones, drying, the marrow worn away by life itself.
Bobo packed the remains of their dinner. Sabine watched as he walked past the garden and out into the street.
She picked up the dishes and put them in the sink. Let the banker wash them, she thought, and put on the last clean apron and weighed out a pound and a half of small yellow potatoes. She placed them in the Windsor pan with just enough water to cover as they boiled, about four inches. While the potatoes cooked, she took a survey of what was left in the house.
The furniture had been covered with white sheets and pushed to one side to await the van to take it. Whatever was deemed trash had already been burned in the garden. In Delphine’s room, the old Victorian coat lay across the bed where Sabine had left it. It still shed, still smelled musty. Paul told her to pack it away. “We’ll tell the auction house it belonged to the Queen.”
Sabine couldn’t. It was beautiful. Floor-length with oversized sleeves and a high collar made from some sort of dyed mink. And Papa did create the recipe and so it was rightfully hers.
She put it on and went into the kitchen.
“One cup of warm heavy cream, ten tablespoons of unsalted butter—emulsify this on the lowest possible heat. Every action you take makes a small impact on the final product. You must cook the potatoes in their jackets and with the least amount of water, or else they will not properly absorb it. You must emulsify the butter and cream in a continuous motion, or else it will separate.
“How much attention you pay to something so simple, so basic, like love, is crucial.”
The last bottle of champagne was chilled. Sabine opened it and poured herself a glass. Took off the apron. She did not remove the old fur coat. She did, however, twist her long hair into a topknot, as her father had told her to do when she first came.
She worked as if she were a ghost.
With the wooden spoon, she beat the potatoes over low heat to dry them and then bit by bit added the cream and butter emulsification. She did exactly what the recipe said but it didn’t seem to work. The potatoes became stiff and formed a small round ball around the spoon. She lowered the heat, splashed champagne into the pan. Tried again. It still didn’t work.
She boiled more potatoes, cut the last of the butter and started again. After a time, the potatoes slowly, gently, became puree. The recipe required that half the mixture then be placed in a buttered baking dish, covered with a thick layer of thinly sliced white truffles and a layer of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and dotted with butter. “Repeat until all the potatoes are used. Then place in a very hot oven for 10 to 15 minutes until a brown crust is formed.”
The baking dishes were all packed away and so she used the cast iron “fraying pan.” It was not pretty but it worked. The crust turned golden brown and filled the house with the rich perfume of white truffles and warm cheese.
Sabine took her glass of champagne and the pan of potatoes into the dining room and sat at the table. The last log in the fireplace was nearly cinders. She took the recipe and tossed it into the fire. It flamed for a moment, snapped and then caught. Glorious and burning.
Bobo was right. It was, after all, only mashed potatoes. Time consuming. Difficult to make. Not a legacy at all.
It was nearly dawn. Like a swimmer short of air, the sun was pushing its way up through the blinding noise of blue that was the sea. The sky surrounding La Villa Fernand was bleeding color and light.
That fur, that hair, that divine face, ghost after ghost. This life. Or that.
And then she took a spoonful.
“Joy.”
NOTES
This novel is based on the bones of facts. Auguste Escoffier pioneered the modern dining experience. He was the first to coin the word deliciousness, which translates to “umami.” He was separated from his wife for decades and yet retired with her. He died shortly after she did. He also won her in a pool game. The Savoy fired him over accusations of extortion and theft. He did send packages to a Mr. Boots in Southsea, England, who disappeared without a trace after Escoffier left The Savoy’s employ. He also was a practicing Catholic and a philanthropist who was linked to both Sarah Bernhardt and Rosa Lewis. There was a fire. He was a hero. His mentorship of Ho´ˆ Chí Minh is disputed, but has never been disproved, so the former President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam does indeed make an appearance in these pages.
After spending two years on this project, that’s about all I know for sure.
In my research, I used a wide variety of sources including Kenneth James’s biography, Escoffier: The King of Chefs; My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt; Blue Trout and Black Truffles: The Peregrinations of an Epicure by Joseph Wechsberg; The Gourmet’s Guide to London (1914) by Nathaniel Newnham-Davis; In the Courts of Memory, 1858–1875: From Contemporary Letters by Lillie de Hegermann-Lindencrone (1912), in addition to articles from several newspapers and Wikipedia. While delightful, many of these works were wildly contradictory and some were completely incorrect.
Luckily, this is a work of fiction.
The list of facts, and alleged facts, go on and on but what is left unsaid is often the most interesting part of any life. That is where this book begins.
Escoffier’s cookbooks, memoir, letters and the articles about him created the voice of this character but we all know that I did not write about the real man. The elegant savage found in these pages is who we all are when we address the plate. The magician, the priest, the dreamer, the artist—it is our most hungry self.
That is the only fact that truly matters.
WHITE TRUFFLES
IN WINTER
N. M. Kelby
AN INTERVIEW WITH N. M. KELBY
What attracted you to Escoffier as a subject?
White Truffles in Winter began in my mother’s kitchen. She was Parisian, a Jew shot during World War II while trying to escape. She had a very difficult life. Cooking was her solace, the only thing I think she thought she had control over. And she certainly had control. She never let me near the kitchen. As a child, Escoffier’s cookbooks towered over me on the top shelf over the stove, well worn, and always out of my reach. They were a great mystery.
As I grew older, I became more and more interested in this famous chef who, despite his contributions to modern dining such as the discovery of unami and the creation of Cherries Jubilee and Peach Melba, had nearly been forgotten. When I came upon the fact that he’d created hundreds of dishes for all sorts of people, but never one for his wife who (by most accounts) he was quite devoted to, I began to wonder just who this man was. But, more importantly, I started thinking about how one can define the complexity of love on a single plate.
It was at that moment that my understanding of food shifted.
What is your own culinary background? How did it shape the novel?
When I was fourteen years old, I lied about my age and took a job at McDonald’s. Working after school and on weekends, I quickly moved up the kitchen hierarchy––from being the “fry girl” to “counter girl” in about three months. Soon bored, I went from there to Dunkin’ Donuts and then moved into the world of sit-down dining. By the time I was eighteen years old, I had a small catering business that helped pay my way through college.
I find it very difficult to stay out of the kitchen. Even when I was a comedian at Dudley Riggs Brave New Workshop, I could often be found cooking with the chef before my set. In that way, I’ve always felt a kinship to Escoffier. We were both trained in fine art––he studied sculpture with some of the most famous artists of his day, and I acquired my MFA with Nobel Laureates––and yet we both have spent a good deal of our lives channeling those artistic impulses onto a plate.
It’s interesting that at about the same age, we both entered the world of commercial kitchens. Like me, Escoffier was also the youngest and worked very hard to prove his worth, although I’m pretty sure he never had to say, “Would you like fries with that?” I was also surp
rised to learn that he wasn’t interested in eating and often forgot to eat—a trap I fall into all the time.
Of course, he was a brilliant chef who mastered the sublime sauce, and I just have a gift for gravy, but I still understand what drove him. The world of the plate is quite seductive.
When I began to write this book, I quickly moved from the idea that it was literally about Escoffier to the concept that it’s really about the hunger inside all of us. It’s about our need to create something beautiful, something perfect, and to share it as a way to celebrate life itself. In the end that’s what cooking, like art, is all about.
Many of your characters express and experience emotions—love, regret, grief—through food. How is it that food can acquire such an emotional charge?
Everyone has to eat something––that’s just a fact––and so we have an innate knowledge about what fuels us. If we’re in tune with our bodies, we know that eating too many fried foods makes us sick because we feel sick. So we try not to eat too many fried things. Well, in theory. The snag in all of this is that because we are complicated, and somewhat bored, food is something that we experience and not just consume. It defines us.
I think that food is a powerful emotional trigger for nearly everyone. I once served a friend mac and cheese, even though I didn’t think he was a hot dish sort of guy. It was so much like his mother’s that he ate a third of the pan––and it was a very large pan. And while he ate he told me all about being a kid living in a beautiful house in the city, his father’s untimely death, his mother’s remarriage, and the family’s move to the suburbs. He told me the most private details of his life, and it pained him. It was a very intimate moment. Very unexpected. The mac and cheese unraveled him.