Random extended selections from Marcel Rouff's 1924 novel, Passionate Epicure: Life and Passion of Dodin-Boffant, Gourmet, adapted for the 2023 film Taste Of Things by director Trần Anh Hùng, from which an original obsession with the 1924 novel formed...
"Exceptionally endowed with those qualities which make for great gastronomic achievement she had, under the direction of the king of gourmets, the lord of perfect eating, lavished upon them the rarest of sensations, the most thrilling experiences; she had exalted them, blissful souls, to the highest peaks of cloudless joy. Eugénie Chatagne, inspired interpreter of the superior intentions which Nature has implanted in all foodstuffs, had, by employment of refinements, display of talent, application of, resort to infallible taste and perfection of execution, wrenched cooking away from the materialistic sphere to raise it, sovereign and absolute, to the most trancendent regions which humanity can envisage."
"This soup was quite simply a masterpiece. Very complex, of lengthy preparation, it had a slightly old-fashioned, Greuze-like charm; but also certain Ribéra brutalities... There was one single taste, but each part of this taste kept its own personal and natural quality. The basis was of two superimposed stocks, both very strong and concentrated, the one of a large skirt of beef, and the other of the juice of several pounds of fresh vegetables, cooked in a very little water to which a suspicion of liqueur Champagne had been added to give it body. To this quintessence a light mixture of mushroom and white asparagus in equal parts had been added; an alert palate could also distinguish a few cups of chicken broth in which several egg yolks with a generous dose of nutmeg had been beaten up for additional smoothness. Upon this divine and odoriferous liquid, like treasure islands, swam parboiled artichoke bottoms laden with a butter-fried stuffing in which carps' roes and mushrooms were mashed up together with cream; under the smoking surface, diving into the mirror-like depths, pearls heavy with beauty, were small rissoles of shrimp-tails laced in melted cheese."
"Master... Tuesday I shall still wait for you.... I have set two ducklings to marinate in an ancestral marc for a stuffed duckling tart; and I am considering a dish of eels à la poulette. There will be roses everywhere and I shall wear a flowered organdie for you."
"Menu of the meal offered by the President Dodin-Bouffant to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Eurasia.
- Dainties before the Soup
- Adèle Pidou's Soup
- Brillat-Savarin's Fritters
- Dodin-Bouffant's Pot-Au-Feu garnished with its owm Vegetables
- Soubise Purée
- Dessert
- White Wines of the slopes of Dezalay and of Château-Grillé
- Red Wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, of Ségur and of Chambolle."
--
This soup instantly won over everyone, and when the relieved five, lighter-hearted, attacked the Brillat-Savarin fritters, rapturous contentment descended upon them."
--
"Lawrence Durrell's lovely preface does not mention Dodin's pot-au-feu. 'Claude,' another Englishman, consistently chooses to translate the name of the dish as 'boiled beef,' even though a wide circle of delicate, poached sausage; an ample layer of chicken that has been raised only on bread and milk; and a slice of poached foie gras are crucial to the renown of Dodin's version."
"The beef itself, lightly rubbed with saltpetre and then gone over with salt, was carved into slices of a flesh so fine that its mouth-melting texture could actually be seen. The aroma it gave forth was not only that of beef-juice smoking like incense, but the energetic smell of tarragon with which it was impregnated and the few, very few, cubes of transparent, immaculate bacon in the larding. The rather thick slices, their velvety quality guessed at by every lip, rested languidly upon a pillow made of a wide slice of sausage, coarsely chopped, in which the finest veal escorted pork, chopped herbs, thyme, chervil.... But this delicate triumph of pork-butchery, cooked in the same broth as the beef, was itself supported by ample cuts from the breast and wing fillets of farm chickens, boiled in their own juice with a shin of veal, rubbed with mint and wild thyme. And, to prop up this triple and magnificent accumulation, behind the white flesh of the fowls (fed exclusively upon bread and milk), was the stout, robust support of a generous layer of fresh goose-liver simply cooked in Chambertin. The arrangement was repeated again, in the same alternating order, forming distinctly separate parts, each marked by a boundary of assorted vegetables cooked in the broth and then lightly warmed in butter; each guest was to extract, in one stroke, between spoon and fork, the quadruple enchantment which was his share."
"Silent and frowning he watched the bold intruder unwrap his dish. Suddenly, when the last rampart had fallen, the sanctuary was abruptly invaded by an intoxicating gust in which played, like naiads chasing each other in the waves, overtaking each other, brushing against each other, and then rolling over, all the freshness of succulent butters mingled with the rough and earthy scent of an incontrovertible Pouilly, the whole enhanced by a deep tidal odour, disturbing and bracing as an ocean wind. And the creation appeared, still smoking, upon the plates where it was portioned out. Two slices of firm, dense flesh whose admirable whiteness was lightly veiled by a trickle of amber butter, two slices separated from each other by a thick roll of stuffing whose warm, rosy, transparent colour suggested that it was kneaded from an old Burgundy, solidified by some miracle."
"Towards nine he would tramp down to the springs and drink (with many grimaces, holding his breath) of the waters. His eyes showed through the glass, dilated with horror at the beverage he was constrained to swallow, blushing with shame. As the doctor had advised him to let an interval of forty-five minutes elapse between each absorption of water he was condemned to three of these-without specifying what he was to do in the intervals, as soon as he had done his irksome duty he would hasten blissfully to the Horseshoe, settle himself upon a garden bench, and order a bottle of Alsatian wine. Then, after three quarters of an hour, he would return to the torture-chamber, and thence, very shortly, to his pleasure. In this manner he drank three glasses of the waters every morning, and three bottles of wine. Neither Adèle nor the doctor could convince him that serious treatment included only the first part of his programme."