Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [39]
In the 18th century the British navy finally took measures to counter the disease that was killing more sailors than enemy action, and lemon juice was mixed with the daily rum ration. Later it was lime juice, hence the name “limey.”
The ancient Romans used lemons as an antidote to poison, and in the French court of Louis XIV they served as a cosmetic meant to redden the lips and make complexions pale. Lemon juice is still used as a rinse to lighten and highlight blond hair.
Good lemons should be heavy, with a distinctive fragrance. The rind may have chemicals on it and should be washed before use.
Lemon trees, like people, do not like too much rain and do best on coasts, where temperatures are mild and the air humid.
CHAUCER
On this day in 1374, Geoffrey Chaucer was awarded a royal grant of a pitcher of wine daily. It was eventually increased to 252 gallons annually. In The Canterbury Tales, his masterpiece, he tells of an aging knight who drinks claret and vernaccia to give himself courage before entering the bedchamber of his new, young bride. This was effective enough to enable him to pleasure her until break of day when, dipping a sop of bread in the wine, he ate, began singing, and dallied with his wife again.
Little is known of Chaucer’s life other than entries in official records. The son of a well-to-do wine merchant in London, he was sent on royal missions, given lucrative positions, and was once charged with rape, but seems to have paid to have the suit withdrawn.
A towering figure in English literature and a source for Shakespeare (Troilus and Cressida), he has been influential to this day. He died on October 25, 1400, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He was between fifty-six and sixty years old.
VATEL
No matter how much thought and care has gone into the planning and execution of a meal, disaster can strike. Fritz Karl Vatel, a Swiss immigrant who worked as a steward for Louis XIV’s finance minister, Nicolas Fouquet, and later at the great estate of Chantilly outside Paris, took his problems perhaps too much to heart. The Prince de Condé had given him the responsibility for food and entertainment during a celebration in honor of the king, but even on the first day, things began to go wrong. There wasn’t enough meat for guests who showed up unexpectedly, and then the sky clouded over for the fireworks display. Neither of these could have been foreseen or remedied by Vatel, but he felt his reputation was destroyed. The next day when the fish for the meal didn’t arrive as scheduled, he gave up hope for regaining his honor and fell on his sword just as the shipments were passing through the castle gates. He was thirty-five.
Nearly three hundred years later, Vatel was scolded posthumously by Phileas Gilbet, a much-respected French cook and author of a number of books on food, as well as a collaborator on Auguste Escoffier’s Le guide culinaire. Always ready for a scuffle with colleagues alive or dead, Gilbert wrote that every cook can recall disasters, “but recourse to the cook’s knife (in the absence of a sword) would solve nothing, and it is in such difficult circumstances that firmness of character emerges in the one who commands …. Such a one will never lose his head and would not dream of committing suicide. An authoritative appeal to the goodwill of his team temporarily at a loss, some brief and clear orders called out over the tumult of the upset pots and pans, and the problem is resolved. The service continues ….”
WINE PRICE
Wine maketh merry but money answereth all things.
—ECCLESIASTES 10:19
When you’re paying more in a restaurant for the wine than for the food, you may ask yourself, why is the wine so expensive? The reason is a three-tier system that governs the price in most states.
Let’s assume it costs a winery ten dollars to produce a bottle. The importer or wholesaler pays about twelve dollars for it and later sells it to a liquor store or restaurant for an additional