The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season. Richard Olney

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      I met Madeleine Decure in 1961 (but not Curnonsky, regrettably; he had died five years earlier) at the same time that I met Odette Kahn, then associate director of the magazine, and the gastronomic journalists Michel Lemonnier and Simon Arbellot. Our meals together, exchanged and re-exchanged, individually and as a group, were punctuated by wine-tasting excursions to all corners of France. Garin, tied to his kitchens, established an annual tradition of inviting us as a group to dinners, at the composition of whose menus I delightedly assisted. Among the preparations—all memorable—were: partridge consommé garnished with tiny partridge mousseline quenelles, whole braised calf’s liver with a truffled cèpe purée, fresh salmon braised in champagne, gratin of crayfish tails, fresh foie gras, roast saddle of venison, and that rarity, a perfect coq au vin, not to mention a repertory of astonishing soufflés—lobster, pike, woodcock, fresh asparagus, wild strawberry, etc.

      The last seriously organized meal that I served in Clamart was in the autumn of 1964. The champagne, a Clos des Goisses, dated from nine years earlier. Madeleine and Odette had asked me to present a menu as a regular monthly feature in Cuisine et Vins de France, the recipes for each preparation to be explained in simple and nonprofessional language. The first of my menus to be published in the magazine was the one I served that evening:

       Raw Baby Artichokes, Poivrade

      Pike Mousseline, Turban of Sole and Salmon Fillets, Nantua Sauce (garnished with a sauté of truffles and crayfish tails and crayfish shells stuffed with pike mousseline) Mercurey blanc, 1962

       Boned Stuffed Chicken, Glazed in its Jelly

      Pernand-Vergelesses, 1960

       Composed Salad

       Cheeses

      Clos de la Roche, 1955

       Pineapple Frangipane Fritters

      Château Rieussec, 1947

      My menu series in Cuisine et Vins de France was entitled (to my dismay) Un Américain (gourmand) à Paris. The rubric continues.

      In the south, my patterns are different from those of Clamart. Friends are not invited to dinner—they come for a few days or a few weeks. Menus tend to be simpler. Living mostly out of doors for well over half the year, one becomes acutely aware of the swift seasonal cycle, and the table follows suit. The shortest days of the year—the gloom of winter and a dormant garden—are soon brightened by banks of yellow mimosa, and narcissus perfumes the air. Truffles turn blackest and richest from this moment, olives are ripe, and the glorious thick, murky, newly pressed olive oil, unsettled and unfiltered, appears. The first simple country wines of the year, slightly green, a tiny edge of fermentation remaining to tickle the tongue, fresh and fruity, are the perfect accompaniment to rough and robust nourishing winter dishes. In no more than a few weeks the almond trees are already in blossom, the first young fava, or broad beans, too delicate to be eaten other than raw, appear on the market, rapidly followed by violet artichokes, sweet white onions and tiny peas. By the end of March the hillsides are scattered with the tender shoots of wild asparagus, the exquisite morel will soon make its brief appearance, wild thyme is in flower, green beans, cherries, strawberries, peaches, follow in rapid succession, the rich, sweet tomato crowns the summer season, oregano must be gathered, and, with tree-ripe figs, wild mushrooms, game birds, green olives, and the reappearance of young artichokes and sea urchins, the plunge is taken into autumn and the shortest days are again in sight. Fish is fresh the year round, and often can be bought alive; snails are gathered, starved, and sacrificed to the courtbouillon, fresh goats’-milk and sheeps’-milk cheeses enrich the cheese platter, and the olives, prepared without chemicals each autumn, garnish the luncheon hors d’oeuvre.

      The pages of this book are a loyal reflection of my life in the kitchen and at table over the last twenty years. The seasonal form into which it has been cast emphasizes my intense conviction that, despite midwinter tomatoes, strawberries, asparagus and green beans, and the plethora of “fresh” frozen products on the market, one can only eat marvelously by respecting the seasons; each is sufficiently rich to afford a perfect table the year round, and the excitement of eating a freshly picked fruit or vegetable at the peak of its seasonal richness is forever deadened by the dull and listless year-round ab-sorption of its shadow.

      No recipes are given which involve products unavailable in America. Certain American products for which I have a particular affection and which may advantageously be incorporated into French menus (sweet corn, avocados, wild rice, for instance) are not treated, simply because, although the book is essentially a personal gastronomic manifesto, I have preferred that it not stray from traditional French cooking. Some favorite and typically French preparations have been eliminated, victims of the menu formula—for they are nearly all first courses and the presentation of each would have necessitated an accompanying menu, which space did not permit.

      Classical appellations have not been tampered with (it would be a pity to deprive Melba of her peaches and ice cream), but, when possible, I have stuck to simple, descriptive titles and have avoided the fanciful.

      Emphasis throughout the book has been placed on the importance of “tactile” sense, which I consider to be a sort of convergence of all the senses—the awareness through touching, and also through smelling, hearing, seeing, and tasting that something is “just right”—to know by seeing the progression from the light, swelling foam of an initial boil to a flat surface punctuated by tiny bubbles, by hearing the same progression from a soft, cottony, slurring sound to a series of sharp, staccato explosions, by judging from the degree of syrupiness or the smooth, enveloping consistency on a wooden spoon when a reduction has arrived at the point, a few seconds before which it is too thin, a few seconds after which it will collapse into grease or burn; to know by pinching and judging the resilience of a lamb chop or a roast leg of lamb when to remove it from the heat; to recognize the perfect amber of a caramel the second before it turns burnt and bitter; to feel the right fresh-heavy-cream consistency of a crêpe batter and the point of light but consistent airiness in a mousseline forcemeat that, having absorbed a maximum of cream to be perfect, would risk collapsing through any further addition….

      Happily, cooking of quality is, in addition to everything else, an expression of the personality of the cook, and a recipe followed to the letter by two individuals, in each of whom may be a finely developed tactile sense, will produce, thanks to individual sensibilities, two different dishes, both of which may be excellent.

       French Food and Menu Composition

      Good and honest cooking and good and honest French cooking are the same thing. Details differ, although climate is probably a greater factor than nationality (the molasses in a New England winter beanpot seems as bizarre to a French palate as do the tropical excesses of red-hot pepper to French and American alike). Certainly there are national dishes, just as there are regional dishes—sage-and-onion stuffing and apple pie will remain forever English and American (although there is nothing unique about the former except for the choice of herb, and the latter is nothing but a tarte aux pommes with a lid), as will beurre blanc remain French—but it is comforting to realize that the principles of good cooking do not change as one crosses frontiers or oceans, and that the success of a preparation depends on nothing more than a knowledge of those principles plus personal sensibility.

      A meat stew, for instance, is a preparation of pieces of meat seared in fat, enough flour added to bind the sauce, one or several aromatic elements, and liquid, all gently cooked until done. It СКАЧАТЬ