Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [23]
CHEFS
The word “chef” is now a common term for almost anyone who cooks, but it was formerly a designation of rank. The chef ruled the kitchen and those who worked in it.
In ancient Rome, the head chef sat on an elevated seat in the kitchen to supervise. The waiters were young boys in flimsy tunics open in back to make them accessible. There were special slaves who kept flies away from the table and others who set and cleared it. Some chefs were rewarded for their excellence by being freed—virtually all servants in a Roman household were slaves. In later times, some renowned chefs were even raised to the nobility.
It was Marie-Antoine Carěme, in his dazzling career as founder of French grand cuisine in the early nineteenth century who defined the modern chef as someone who devised the menu, ordered all supplies, and oversaw the cooking—duties that once had been the concern of a number of others. The artist chef was born.
Thackeray, in his novel Pendennis, describes one such: “It was a grand sight to behold him in his dressing gown composing a menu. He always sat down and played the piano for some time before. Every artist, he said, had need of solitude to perfectionate his works.”
KING’S GLASS
During the Middle Ages and after, the fear of being poisoned was very real among kings and their rivals. At the French court, the royal knife, fork, and napkin were kept under careful lock and key. Before use, all implements and dishes were rubbed with balls of breadcrumbs, which the servants were then obliged to eat.
Wine for the king and queen was tasted first by both the cupbearer and wine steward, and the glasses were served covered until the moment of drinking.
This strict ritual lasted until the French Revolution and began again under the Empire.
DIET
Every diet has its advocates and hour of popularity, but the iron rule of weight loss, like the advice of Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield, remains the same: Calories in must be less than calories burned, else misery.
Easier than a diet but with comparable results is a trip to Japan, where overweight people are nearly nonexistent, and where two weeks of Japanese food—soups, sushi, rice, soba, and udon noodles, and no sweets—can result in a weight loss of six or eight pounds.
The Japanese also eat seaweed, the brown Pacific kelp with long fronds rich in potassium and iodine. No marriage banquet is complete without it since it also symbolizes fertility.
BUTTER
Butter is made from churned cream that has generally been ripened by lactic acid–producing bacteria. Its taste may vary according to the locale and the feed of the dairy cows. In France, for example, butter from Normandy is highly regarded. The Greeks and Romans used butter mostly medically, as a dressing for wounds. By the Middle Ages, it was being sold as food in local markets and preserved in cool salt water.
Food cooked in butter tastes better and, browned, has a nicer color. Butter will blacken when heated too much, however, giving a burnt taste. Clarified butter will not and is sometimes called for in recipes that involve sautéing delicate things, such as skinned chicken breasts or fish.
Clarified butter is effortless to make. In a pan, gently heat a stick or two, perhaps cut into pieces, and skim off the foam that forms. Then carefully pour off the clear liquid which is the clarified butter, leaving the milky residue in the pan. In small crocks, it will keep in the refrigerator for weeks.