French Provincial Cooking (8 page)

I shall not quickly forget my first dinner at Gaertner’s. An onion tart, flat as a plate but still somehow oozing with cream, preceded a subtly flavoured sausage served hot with a mild and creamy horseradish sauce as the only accompaniment, followed by
haricots verts
fairly saturated in butter; we were then beguiled into eating a sweet called a
Vacherin glacé.
This turned out to be an awe-inspiring confection of ice-cream, glacé fruits, frozen whipped cream, and meringue, which left me temporarily speechless. But coffee and a glass of very good Kirsch soon put matters right. Indeed no Alsatian meal is complete without a glass of one of the local
eaux-de-vie
made from fruit for which the country is famous. Apart from the fact that a taste for Framboise, Mirabelle, Kirsch, Quetsch, Prunelle and so on is very easy to acquire, some such
digestif
after a meal is almost as much a necessity as the wine which is drunk with it.

English visitors are apt to disregard this fact, looking upon the final liqueur as a luxury or a feminine frivolity; but these are not liqueurs at all as we understand the word; they are pure fruit spirits with a powerful bouquet (particularly the Framboise, which has such an overpowering scent of raspberries that the actual taste comes as rather an anti-climax) and a high alcoholic content without being in the least fiery or coarse. Taken in moderation, they are the best possible aids to digestion after a copious meal.

I cannot resist describing one more of the Gaertner dinners, for so often a second meal in a restaurant where the first impressions were good proves to be a disillusion. On this occasion it was the reverse. M. Gaertner’s skill and his creative imagination became even more apparent. His
pâté de foie gras
and
mousse de foies de volaille,
smooth, pink, and marbled with green pistachio nuts and black truffles, served on a big, flat dish and surrounded with fine sparkling jelly, were as good and delicate as they looked. The
coq au coulis d’écrevisses
, a plainly cooked chicken with the palest of rose pink sauces of the most perfect creamy texture and subtle flavour, was accompanied by a bowl of plain, moist rice, and was the most lyrical of dishes. It would be impossible to imitate this sauce of river crayfish with any lobster or other sea fish; some restaurateurs do attempt to pass off such imitations but they are coarse and rough compared to the real thing. Not for nothing has M. Gaertner two Michelin stars; but his prices seemed relatively very moderate. Cooking of this quality is rare, and cheap at any price. The utter lack of bombast or ostentation with which it is served would also be uncommon elsewhere but is typical of Alsace. Expressions of appreciation are accepted with courteous reserve. Extravagant or indiscriminate praise would be received, one feels, with a chilling silence.

And if after these descriptions anyone still thinks that a visit to Alsace would entail the consumption of quantities of the national and somewhat formidable
choucroute garnie,
or the noodles and pastes and cakes and breads and
kugelhopf
for which Alsatian cooks are famous, I can only say that there is no necessity, so long as you don’t eat at the brasseries, ever to worry about these things, although it would be a pity not to try them once at least.

Following the Loire from the port of Nantes in Brittany down through Anjou and Touraine to the Orléanais, the traveller in search of good food will find some of the most lovely and typical dishes in all French provincial cookery. Not extraordinary or spectacular dishes, perhaps, but, based as they are on raw materials of very fine quality and cooked in quite simple traditional ways, they make a strong appeal to English tastes. For not even the most bigoted of Englishmen could level the time-honoured taunts of ‘messed-up food’ or ‘poor materials disguised with rich sauces’ at the beautiful fish, the sole and mackerel and sardines, the mullet and the bass, the lobsters, scallops, clams, oysters, mussels and prawns of the Breton coast, at the lamb reared in the salt marshes, at the Nantais ducklings served with the tiny green peas or the baby turnips of the district. From Le Mans and La Flêche come chickens which rival those of Bresse, from the Prévalaye butter which has been famous at least since Madame de Sévigné’s day, from Angers and Saumur the delicious fresh cream cheeses called
crémets
which are eaten with sugar and fresh cream, from Touraine the
rillettes de porc
which figure in every local hors-d’œuvre, and which you can see piled up in gigantic earthenware bowls and jars in all the market places and in the
charcuteries.

At restaurants in Nantes, Tours, Angers, Vouvray, Langeais, Amboise and many other places along the banks of the Loire is to be found the unique speciality of this country, the famous
beurre blanc
which, starting off as a sauce to counteract the dryness of freshwater fish such as pike and shad, has become so popular that any excuse to eat it is good enough. Made solely from a reduction of shallots, which are to Angevin cooking what garlic is to Provence, and wine vinegar whisked up with the finest butter, the
beurre blanc
is Anjou’s great contribution (although the Nantais also claim it as their own) to the regional cookery of France.

From Touraine comes another interesting recipe, a dish of pork garnished with the enormous, rich, juicy prunes which are a speciality of the Tours district.

This remarkable dish is to be found on the menus of at least two restaurants in Tours, and the recipe, given to me by one of them, is on page 362.

In Tours also, as well as in many Breton restaurants, are to be found
palourdes farcies
which are clams served in the shell with a lovely
gratiné
stuffing; then there are various versions of chicken cooked with tarragon, and a
dodine de canard
which is not the stewed duck in red wine usually associated with this name, but a very rich cold duck galantine served as a first course. Here, too, I remember wonderful wine-dark
matelotes
of eel, and a very excellent dish of
alose à l’oseille,
shad grilled and served with a sorrel sauce. It is only for a short spell during the early summer that one comes across this dish locally, for it is then that the shad—which, incidentally, is not nearly such an uncomfortably bony fish as it is advertised to be—comes up the estuary of the Loire. But on the whole I think it is less for the food, delicious as it is, than for the lovely white wines of Anjou and Touraine, particularly those of Sancerre, Pouilly and Vouvray, that one remembers meals in this part of the country. It always seems to me that while one can drink just as superb Burgundies and Bordeaux in England as in France (and, nowadays, not very much more expensively), these Loire wines have, when drunk on the spot, a lyrical quality which often seems to be missing when one drinks them in England. But the experts would probably say that this is just a question of mood and surroundings.

The following account, which originally appeared, in French, in a professional catering magazine, seems to me of great interest as a record both of French country-house hospitality before the 1914 war and of the impression left by this kind of cooking upon the most celebrated chef of his day.

‘Although it is already a good long time ago, I well remember a shooting party given by one of my friends who owned a vast property in an exquisite valley of the Haute-Savoie. My friend had chosen this domain so that he could go there to rest from time to time, far from the irritations of a too active life. It was the beginning of November, a period when the shooting offers particularly attractive sport, especially in these rather wild districts. About ten guests were assembled on the Thursday evening, and it was decided that at dawn the following morning we should all set out, dispersing as chance directed, in search of a few coveys of partridge.

‘Our meal, that evening, was composed of a cream of pumpkin soup with little croûtons fried in butter, a young turkey roasted on the spit accompanied by a large country sausage and a salad of potatoes, dandelions and beetroot, and followed by a big bowl of pears cooked in red wine and served with whipped cream.

‘Next morning at the agreed hour, we were all ready, and furnished with the necessary provisions and accompanied by local guides, we climbed the rocky paths, real goat tracks, without too much difficulty; and before long the fusillade began. It was those members of the party who had gone ahead who were opening the shoot by bagging two hares; the day promised to be fairly fruitful. And indeed so it turned out, since we were back at the house by about four o’clock, somewhat tired, but proud to count out: three hares, a very young chamois, eleven partridges, three capercailzies, six young rabbits and a quantity of small birds.

‘After a light collation, we patiently awaited dinner contemplating the while the admirable panorama which lay before us. The game which we had shot was reserved for the next day’s meals.

‘Our dinner that evening consisted of a cabbage, potato and kohl-rabi soup, augmented with three young chickens, an enormous piece of lean bacon and a big farmhouse sausage. The broth, with some of the mashed vegetables, was poured over slices of toast, which made an excellent rustic soup. What remained of the vegetables were arranged on a large dish around the chickens, the bacon and the sausage; here was the wherewithal to comfort the most robust of stomachs, and each of us did due honour to this good family dish.

‘To follow, we were served with a leg of mutton, tender and pink, accompanied by a purée of chestnuts. Then, a surprise—but one which was not entirely unexpected from our host, who had an excellent cook—an immense, hermetically sealed terrine, which, placed in the middle of the table, gave out, when it was uncovered, a marvellous scent of truffles, partridges, and aromatic herbs.

‘This terrine contained eight young partridges, amply truffled and cased in fat bacon, a little bouquet of mountain herbs and several glasses of
fine-champagne
cognac. All had been lengthily and gently cooked in hot embers. At the same time was served a celery salad. As for the wines, we had first the excellent local white wine, then Burgundy, and finally a famous brand of champagne. The dinner ended with beautiful local fruit, and fine liqueurs.’

‘The next day, Saturday, after breakfast, which consisted of boiled eggs, fresh butter from the farm and coffee with cream, we spent the morning visiting the farm and the neighbourhood. At half-past twelve we were once more gathered in the great dining-room, with two extra guests. The mayor and the village curé had been invited, an invitation which must have been all the more acceptable to them because of their rather monotonous lives in this remote part of the country.

‘Luncheon was composed partly of the trophies of the previous day’s shooting; the pure mountain air had advantageously taken the place of any apéritif; nor did we have any hors-d’œuvre but instead, some
ombres-chevaliers
³
from the lac du Bourget, cooked and left to get cold in white wine from our host’s own vineyards. These were accompanied by a completely original sauce, and here is the recipe:

RECIPE: Grated horseradish, mixed with an equal quantity of skinned walnuts finely chopped; a dessertspoon of powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, the juice of two lemons, enough fresh cream to obtain a sauce neither too thick nor too liquid.

‘After the
ombres-chevaliers
, we had eggs scrambled with cheese, enriched with white truffles which a shepherd had brought from the boundaries of the Savoie, close to the frontier of Piedmont.

‘Then came an excellent civet of hare
à la bourgeoise,
assuredly far superior to all the fantasies known as
à /a royale
; there seems no point in giving the recipe here, for it is to be found in the
Guide Culinaire.
The majestic roast consisted of the capercailzies in the centre of a great dish, surrounded by the partridges, and the small feathered game of which we had made, the day before, a hecatomb.