Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [107]
Oysters are best when of moderate size and from colder waters. They are best eaten raw with only a squeeze of lemon or the vinaigre and shallot mixture served in France. Cold white wine makes them sacred.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
According to Plutarch, Cleopatra first appeared to Marc Antony sailing up the Cydnus River “in a barge with gilded stern and outspread sails of purple, while oars of silver beat time to the music of flutes and fifes and harps. She herself lay all along under a canopy of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in a picture, and beautiful young boys, like painted Cupids, stood on each side to fan her.”
Shakespeare, who knew a good thing when he saw it, immortalized the scene in Act II of his play:
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burned on the water, the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke ….
And so forth. It continues:
Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
Invited her to supper, she replied
It should be better he became her guest ….
From that night on, Antony and Cleopatra did everything possible to impress each other with the extravagance and opulence of the meals they ordered to be prepared. He had once made the gift of a house to a cook who had prepared a particularly successful dinner, but now, besotted, he was said to have given a city to one who pleased Cleopatra.
Joining her in Alexandria, Antony established his own court where he could entertain her. One evening, a visitor noticed that eight wild boars were being roasted and commented that many guests must be expected. No, the cook told him, only twelve, but since it was impossible to know exactly when Antony would be ready to dine, and since the roast must be cooked exactly to the minute, eight boars were needed, at different stages of completion, so that one would be perfect when the time came.
OLIVE OIL
The olive tree is as old as recorded history. Slow to mature and amazingly long-lived—from three hundred to six hundred years—today’s ancient, gnarled specimens with wood like iron may have produced their first fruit not long after Columbus set sail for the New World.
The first olive trees in Greece are said to have been planted in Mycenae, the city that the mythic hero Agamemnon ruled, ruins of which are still in existence. You can stand in what is thought to be the bedchamber where Agamemnon, returned at last from the Trojan War, was murdered by his unfaithful wife and her lover. All around and beneath is the incredible, mountainous countryside with groves stretching off in the distance as far as one can see. To walk through the Lion Gate and up the rocky path to the remains of the palace is to walk the nave of the immemorial.
Olives are green at first and black when left on the tree to ripen. The oil from their pressing comes in great quantities from Spain, France, Greece, California, and Italy, as well as from other places. One of its desirable qualities is that it contains no cholesterol. In the ancient world, it was also used as a medicine and even as a cleanser, there being no soap.
Italian olive oil, among the best, is carefully classified by law, the finest being first-pressed extra virgin: the whole olives are crushed without damaging the pit, and no chemicals of any kind are allowed. Extra virgin means lower acidity and hence, better flavor. Lesser-quality oils are virgin and pure olive oil, the latter usually having had chemicals added to reduce acidity.
For salad and all uncooked uses you should buy only extra virgin. For cooking, a lower grade may be used, although olive oil is not, like other cooking oils, a mere lubricant; it adds its own distinctive flavor.
Oddly enough, Italian law does not require that all the oil be from the