It was not a very busy place, which made the occasional lunches, dinners, and hunt-season buffets all the more special. During the year I worked there, I performed a myriad of duties. That Peter van Erp was a walking encyclopedia of culinary knowledge and experience was not lost on me – and I sopped up every technique, every menu, and every trick-of-the-trade that crossed my path. And though the chef would never have admitted it, I know that van Erp had never had a better apprentice in all his years.
One evening the chef dropped a small piece of mace – the outer shell that covers a nutmeg – into an enormous stock pot that would simmer all night. I wondered about that subtle gesture, and whether or not it would make any difference in the long run. On the one hand, it was not a large enough piece of spice to make any difference in the flavor – yet its presence was undeniable. What if he had added a small cinnamon stick, or a few cloves – how would that have affected it? Some years later I would work with a Frenchman who never bothered to add aromatics (celery, carrots, onion, leeks) to his stock, because, said he, “It doesn’t make any difference – they can’t taste it anyway.” But of course it makes a difference, even if that difference is not revealed directly in the flavor of the soup or sauce that is ultimately created from that stock.
A tiny piece of mace was part of a personal signature of a culinary practitioner (the chef) that gave his food a unique character and distinctive quality that when added up, became the je ne sais quoi that one experiences when consuming the particular fare of a particular kitchen.
At the same time, I was perplexed by the condition of the chef’s knives – not only were they all dull, but most were chipped – and not just the tips, but all along the cutting edges. Since I had always been meticulous about my own knives, realizing their ultimate importance in my ability to perform in a kitchen, I never understood why van Erp didn’t simply take his knives to a professional grinder to maintain them in top condition. Perhaps this was another glimpse into his dysfunctionality, which prevented him from achieving the great success and renown he was capable of.
The clientele of the Dutchess Valley Club included some of the most successful CEO’s, attorneys, architects, and society divas who had ever been posted in the Who’s Who of New York society. The chef often served lunch to the very gracious Michel Bergerac, then CEO of Revlon; the quiet yet amiable Mario Arcori, president of the Bank of Italy in New York; and the laid-back Franklin Roosevelt Jr.
At the Institute, Van Erp was one of two instructors within the kitchen that serviced the Escoffier Room – the celebrated restaurant that was open to the public. Though neither communicative nor particularly gregarious, van Erp’s command of the culinary craft attracted a small coterie of young, highly motivated students who realized that if they could reach the level of expertise that van Erp represented, there was literally no limit to what they could go in the industry.
Given that it was late November, with winter clearly on her way – and since I had no particular destination in mind, I accepted van Erp’s invitation to stay at the club and serve as a second, unofficial apprentice. Van Erp had already taken on one official apprentice, a youngster from culinary school who didn’t have very much passion for food, or drink, or the industry. Thus I figured there would be plenty of work for me, and plenty to learn as well.
Of course, situations rarely work out as you expect them to, and my stint at the club was no exception. In spite of his achievements as a chef, van Erp’s emotional persona lacked a certain healthy balance, though behind his occasional gruff exterior he was clearly big-hearted. And in practice, he was more idiosyncratic and eccentric than anything else – and as long as you were willing to work and do what you were asked to do, he was easy to interact with. Thus, I was like a dry sponge, soaking up every little tidbit, every technique, every trick-of-the-trade, every subtle nuance performed by the chef. As challenging as the work was at times, it was also a period of great learning for me.
Van Erp’s off-and-on girlfriend, Ruth Trager also lived at the club, and served as both the dining room manager and the go-to person when someone needed to make a reservation. She was eleven years my senior, and about a decade van Erp’s junior. She was also smart, particularly about working with people, and possessed of a very strong personality. Trager had checked out all the chefs at the Institute – up close and personal – and concluded that van Erp was the premier chef of them all, and she latched onto him like a bee to honey. It was a savvy move, if you were smart, and motivated, and wanted to make something of yourself in the food service business. And though it had started out as a romantic liaison, the bloom came off the rose very early on – given that Trager was more interested in advancing her career than in spending a good part of her life with an elder chef. Not that Trager did not have her own share of neurosis – but it was obvious that she was there to take all she could ingest, then move on to her own successful life. Like I said, she was smart.
There was one near disaster, in which Trager overcharged one of the members, and the member’s wife became irate over the incident. This was the down-side to her strong personality, and in this case she over-stepped her bounds. Clearly in the wrong, she was forced to apologize, admit her malfeasance and make restitution. That was the closest she had come to getting sacked that year, and she knew it.
In spite of their differences and her modus operandi, Trager was a positive influence in the chef’s life, because she was forever touting his wisdom, experience and knowledge. If it wasn’t for Trager, I probably would not have stayed at the club for the year that I did. “Watch, and learn as much as you can,” she would say to me, more times than I can recall. And that’s what I did.
Truffle was Trager’s small, ornery dachshund, possessed of more personality in her little paw than most humans have in their entire body. Truffle had a certain territorial persona, which is to say, that she considered The Dutchess Valley Rod and Gun Club her own private domain. Of course Chef van Erp was the titular head of that domain, even if Trager was the power behind the throne. But Truffle clearly behaved as if she owned the club.
One morning, as the chef rose from bed, he put his naked foot down right into the middle of a small, wet mound of dog droppings. I was already up that morning, prepping for a party, and I had never seen the chef so angry (like who could blame him?). He was screaming at the top of his lungs, and at one point threw a chair at the dog in the living room – barely missing the little bugger. Truffle realized she was in serious trouble, and scurried into the kitchen where I was working, scratching frantically at the door. I let her out immediately, because I knew that if van Erp got a clear shot at her, she would be done for. Van Erp went back to the bedroom to clean up the mess, and I continued on with my prep work. Truffle remained outside in the winter cold for the next twelve hours – long enough for the chef to get over the outrage.
One of my most memorable experiences that fall was a mushroom hunt that the chef initiated on the spur of the moment, with little fanfare. We simply walked out into a nearby wooded area, and the chef began digging with a small trowel. After collecting enough morels for a party of three – the chef and I brought them back to the club kitchen. They were well-rinsed in cold water – to remove soil and any impurities in between the ridges on the cap – then sautéed in butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. And we sat there in the kitchen, savoring the most exquisite wild, fresh morels I had ever tasted in my young life. Not only was it an extraordinary moment, it also confirmed the meaning of savoring the simple things of life – such as a spontaneous wild mushroom hunt, and the subsequent moment of ingesting those mushrooms.
Wild mushrooms contain a high proportion of glutamic acid, a compound that opens the taste buds, similar to the effect that MSG (mono-sodium-glutamate) has. They are thus important in cuisine for naturally enhancing the flavor of the foods that they accompany.
Of course there were items that were unavailable in the cold winter woods, and for those items the chef drove down to New York
City periodically, to shop midst the ethnic markets on Ninth Avenue and elsewhere. After one such trip he returned with a fat black Périgord truffle, which was stored in a one-gallon glass jar filled with uncooked risotto. The dry rice was the perfect storage medium, and the rice absorbed the intense aroma of the truffle – without diminishing the intensity of that flavor and aroma. At $400 per pound in those days, it was important to both preserve the tuber and gain the maximum from its intense character. And even though I was a truffle virgin at that point in my career, I was savvy enough to know that a kitchen in possession of Tuber melansporum – what the Italians call la perle della cucina and the French gourmand Brillat-Savarin once termed a black diamond – was a very serious kitchen.
The truffle is a member of the botanical family Funghi, which includes mushrooms and morels, in addition to truffles. The word truffle is derived from the Spanish trufa and the Italian treffere, both meaning deceit, a reference to the fact that this variety of wild mushroom grows underneath the surface of the ground – anywhere from just underneath the surface, to 12-inches (300 mm) deep. They are unique in that they produce their fruiting bodies underground, and they have a symbiotic relationship with trees – typically beech, hazelnut, oak, poplar, or willow. Humans do not possess an olfactory sense keen enough to detect them, hence we must elicit help. In Sardinia goats are employed to track down truffles; bear cubs have been used in Russia; and pigs and specially trained dogs in France and other parts of Europe.
Pigs are the true experts, however, since German researchers recently discovered in truffles a musky chemical that is also secreted in a male pig’s saliva, which prompts mating behavior. When the pig’s sharp nose detects that aroma from underneath the ground – both pigs and dogs can detect that aroma from as far away as 50 yards (45 meters) – it sends the creature into a lustful frenzy, and they must be held back to prevent them from eating it.
The white truffle from Alba is found in the Piedmont and Emilia regions of Italy, and the Atlas mountains of North Africa. The black Périgord truffle is found primarily in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, and in parts of Spain, Germany, and Italy.
Tragically, over the past two centuries ninety-percent of European forests have been cut down, and this deforestation, combined with soil and water contamination, and over-harvesting, has brought truffle production down from 1800 tons (1.36-million kg) per annum in Périgord alone, to about 200 tons (181,500 kg) in all of France. Harvesting truffles has always been a challenge, but this damage to its yield has made truffles so rare and difficult to obtain, that they are priced beyond reason – $400-to-$800 per pound.
Truffles are an incredible gastronomic delicacy, like no other food in the world, and they figure significantly in classical French cuisine. They are also an intriguing food fabled for centuries for their mystical and aphrodisiac qualities. As early as first century AD Roman satirist Juvenal told the Libyans, “Keep your wheat, and send us your truffles.”
Van Erp had also attended the auction of Her Majesty’s Ship Queen Elizabeth, sometime after her de-commission in 1968, where he purchased a set of heavy-gauge copper pots – the most extraordinary cookware I had ever seen. Thick stainless-steel on the interior, copper on the exterior, with brass rivets securing the brass handles, they were a joy to cook with. As the unofficial commis at the club, well aware of the high caliber of this cookware, I took it upon myself to keep the copper exterior spotless shiny at all times.
Interestingly, my arrival at the club was somewhat auspicious, gastronomically-speaking, because the chef was in the midst of his end-of-the-year hunt buffets and dinners for the club members. This was, after all, the raison d’être for the club’s existence – the members would go out to hunt boar, deer, partridge, pheasant, quail, and woodcock; the maintenance staff would pluck and gut the critters; and the chef would prepare a series of dinners and game buffets into the new year. The food was, in a word, astounding.
The following menu epitomizes the caliber of food that was issued from Chef van Erp’s kitchen. This menu was from a hunt buffet dinner at the club, on January 3, 1976 – as always, written in French with English subtitles:
The Dutchess Valley Rod and Gun Club presents,
Peter Van Erp, Maître de Cuisine
Les Frivolitées Chaud et Froid
Buffet Froide • Cold Buffet
Saumon au Rivière Columbia, en Gelée, Sauce d’Aneth
Columbia River Salmon in Aspic, Dill Sauce
Gigot de Chevreuil en Gelée, Berrichonne
Leg of Roe Deer in Aspic, Berrichonne Style
Salade de Laitue et Tomates
Lettuce and Tomato Salad
Buffet Chaud • Hot Buffet
Crevettes en pâte, Sauce Chutney
Shrimp in Beer Batter, Chutney Sauce
Consommé de Tortue Claire
Clear Turtle Consommé
Pâté de faison, Cumberland Sauce
Venaison Pâté, Cumberland Sauce
Les Perdreaux Braisée, àl’Alsacienne
Braised Partridge, Alsace Style
Les Faison Rôti, Gastronome
Roast Pheasant, Gourmand Style
Riz Sauvage Mélange
Wild Rice Medley
Choux Rouge Braisée, Normande
Braised Red Cabbage, Normandy Style
Les Endives de Bruxelles, Étuvées
Braised Belgian Endive
Purée d’Artichaud en Timbale
Artichoke Mousse Timbale
Marrons Glacée
Glazed Chestnuts
Fromage Assortis
Assorted Cheese
Soufflé au chocolat
Chocolate Soufflé
Roulade de pomme, Autrichienne
Apple Strudel
Café, Thé
Coffee, Tea
― ● ―
NB: The following recipes represent a selection of the author’s favored items from this menu, that the reader may enjoy preparing.
Crevettes en pâte, Sauce Chutney (Shrimp in Beer Batter, Chutney Sauce)
Chutney Sauce is the ideal accompaniment for anything battered and deep-fried – consisting of equal parts mango chutney, canned pineapple, and prepared horseradish puréed in a food processor. The combination of flavors is extraordinary.
To prepare the beer batter, season a bowl of beer with a little salt and paprika, then sprinkle all-purpose flour into it and whip it until smooth and roughly the thickness of pancake batter. Dust raw, peeled and deveined shrimp in salt-and-pepper-seasoned flour, dip into the batter, and deep-fry at 365-degrees until golden brown. The fried shrimp can be held on absorbent paper in a warm oven until ready to serve.
― ● ―
Pâté de Faison, Sauce Cumberland (Pheasant Pâté)
For the sauce
1 cup (240 mL) currant jelly
½ cup (120 mL) port wine
1 shallot, minced
1 tablespoon (15 mL) each orange zest and lemon zest
1 teaspoon (5 mL) grated ginger root
pinch of cayenne pepper
Blanch the zest one minute in boiling salted water; drain and reserve. Simmer the remaining ingredients for 10 minutes. Add zest, allow to cool, refrigerate until ready to serve.
For the marinade
the juice and zest of 1 orange
¼ cup (60 mL) onion, sliced very thin
6 juniper berries
½ cup (60 mL) dry red wine
2 garlic cloves, pressed
For the pâté
2 pounds 1 kg) boneless, skinless pheasant meat, cut into ½-inch (1.25 cm) pieces
¾ pound (3 kg) bacon, cut into ¼” (.6 cm) dice
1 pound (½ kg) salt pork, trimmed of rind, cut into ½-inch (1.25 cm) strips
½ cup (120 mL) Panko bread crumbs, moistened with white wine
½ cup (120 mL) pistachio nuts, toasted and quartered
For the spice mix
1/8th teaspoon (pinch) each ground allspice, nutmeg, basil, ma
rjoram, thyme and
white pepper
¼ teaspoon (1 mL) salt
Marinate the meats overnight, refrigerated. Remove and discard the marinade ingredients, except the onion.
Grind the meats and onions twice – once through a large-holed plate, then through a small-holed plate, adding the seasoning and wet breadcrumbs as you grind.
Coat the inside of sixteen timbale molds with butter and refrigerate until ready to fill.
Take small spoonful of the farce and poach in a little simmering water for 5 minutes. Remove and taste for seasoning – then adjust as needed.
Fill the molds with the farce, cover with plastic wrap, place into a hot water bath, and bake at 350-degrees F (190-degrees C) for 45 minutes. Remove, invert, and serve with the Cumberland Sauce.
NB: This pâté is a bit unusual because it is served warm – although it is typically served chilled.
― ● ―
Mélange de riz sauvage (Wild Rice Mélange)
1 cup (240 mL) wild rice
1 cup (240 mL) basmati rice
1 cup (240 mL) hot chicken stock
1 cup (240 mL) kasha (buckwheat groats)
unsalted butter as needed
1 bunch scallions, finely sliced
Boil the wild rice in 3 cups (720 mL) of lightly salted water until tender (about 45 minutes). Drain and set aside.
Pour the basmati rice into the hot chicken stock, blend well, cover, simmer 10 minutes, then pull from the stove and allow to sit 20 minutes.
Stir the kasha into 2 cups (480 mL) of boiling water, simmer 10 minutes, then cover and set aside.
Have Blade Will Travel: The adventures of a traveling chef Page 14