balzac's feast

Honoré de Balzac died today in 1850 at the age of 51, leaving behind an enduring legacy in French literature.  His life was generally busy with writing and living amid the intrigues of Parisian society, and he loved food.  While working on a book, he kept his appetites in check, eating little and opting instead for pots of coffee to keep his pen moving across the page.  At other times, dining to delicious excess was more his style, with no oyster safe from his appetites.  This is all well-detailed in Anka Muhlstein's Balzac's Omelette:  A Delicious Tour of French Food and Culture with Honoré de Balzac, translated from the French by Adriana Hunter.  If you're a Balzac fan, you already know how food is a frequent backdrop in Balzac's works -- and you've probably already read this book since it was initially published in the U.S. in 2011.  If new to Balzac, the focus on the delights of the table and on 19th century French cuisine -- combined with the captivating character and words of the author himself -- will make Balzac's Omelette a tasty read.

Flicoteaux's restaurant is no banqueting-hall, with its refinements and luxuries; it is a workshop where suitable tools are provided, and everybody gets up and goes as soon as he has finished. The coming and going within are swift. There is no dawdling among the waiters; they are all busy; every one of them is wanted.

The fare is not very varied. The potato is a permanent institution; there might not be a single tuber left in Ireland, and prevailing dearth elsewhere, but you would still find potatoes at Flicoteaux's. Not once in thirty years shall you miss its pale gold (the color beloved of Titian), sprinkled with chopped verdure; the potato enjoys a privilege that women might envy; such as you see it in 1814, so shall you find it in 1840 ... When the whiting and mackerel abound on our shores, they are likewise seen in large numbers at Flicoteaux's; his whole establishment, indeed, is directly affected by the caprices of the season and the vicissitudes of French agriculture.  By eating your dinners at Flicoteaux's you learn a host of things of which the wealthy, the idle, and folk indifferent to the phases of Nature have no suspicion, and the student penned up in the Latin Quarter is kept accurately informed of the state of the weather and good or bad seasons. He knows when it is a good year for peas or French beans, and the kind of salad stuff that is plentiful; when the Great Market is glutted with cabbages, he is at once aware of the fact....

From A Distinguished Provincial at Paris (Lost Illusions) -- Honoré de Balzac

julia and minette...and other cats in the kitchen

Julia's Cats and/or Julia Child's Life in the Company of Cats by Patricia Barey and Therese Burson is a lovely little tail/tale about one of our first chef celebrities and all the felines who captivated her and husband Paul.  Starting with Minette who came in as a mouser at Chez Child in 1948, Julia was a cat lover who truly seemed to understand the curious quirks and ways of the whiskered ones.  If you're a fellow cat lover, you'll most likely read it in one sitting with a smile and occasional tear or two, and if you're a fan of Julia Child, you'll be even more so by the book's end.  And come to think of it, a birthdate of August 15th made Julia an astrological Leo -- and apparently all cats are regal and playful Leos, no matter what month they're born in.  

july and julie and julia

I have to note that I found this particular copy of Julie & Julia in the dumpster behind my apartment building.  However, it was way at the top of the dumpster and discovered on a bitterly cold March day, so it's not like I had to dive in there among festering heaps of garbage to pull it out.  The book wasn't with any other books so I don't think it was part of a group purge -- it just seemed like someone didn't like what they were reading and simply threw it out in protest.  Or they opened up their apartment window, hurled it off into the four winds and it happened to land in the dumpster below.

I read the book because I had heard much about it and then I saw the subsequent Meryl Streep/Amy Adams movie.  The film version of Julie & Julia, re-envisioned by the recently late great Nora Ephron, seemed more cohesive and left me with a stronger sense of the joy of food, cooking and life.  And I think that's how some other people and the Academy Award panel felt, but then again there is still a faction that prefers the edgier, more personal pace of the book, originally based on Julie Powell's blog.  And there's also a part of me that totally respects the frustration from whence her blog/book came, in terms of being trapped at a job that is just not where you want to be in life and wondering desperately how to escape.  The idea of taking on all of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was brilliant, and I think if I'd kept up with it as a blog before it was published I would have really enjoyed each new post and recipe success/fiasco and getting to know Julie as well as Julia.  However, I can see where hardcore Julia Child fans or foodies might have expected something more sensual and richly paced like Under the Tuscan Sun, which is ironically, a better book than film.  So as the French say,  à chacun son goût, or everyone has his or her own taste and that's why books can earn 5 star Amazon reviews and/or end up in city dumpsters.