Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [95]
Truffles begin to grow in the spring and early summer. Even after they reach full size, some time must pass before they are completely mature, so it is in the late fall and early winter that they are at their best. Canned truffles are not to be compared with the fresh ones, and genuine black or white truffles are hard to find in the United States, in addition to being, as everywhere, expensive, several thousand dollars a pound. The white are the more expensive. Chinese truffles, judged inferior, are cheaper.
In the house of one of his mistresses, the actress Mlle George, Dumas wrote that no mercy was shown to the truffle; “it was compelled to yield every sensation it was capable of giving.” Sliced into paper-thin leaves by Mlle George’s beautiful hands, sprinkled with some pepper and a touch of cayenne, impregnated with some olive oil, they were included in a salad.
BREAKING THE FAST
To eat well in England, you should have breakfast three times a day.
—W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Breakfast, breaking the fast since dinner the previous night, is a reflection of the country in which you eat it. A traditional English breakfast, with enough protein to keep you going until teatime, can include ham and eggs, oatmeal, toast, and kippers, which are not for the faint of heart at that time of day. In Japan, breakfast includes rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, fish, tea, and sometimes a raw egg. For Germans, it is cold cuts, cheese, yogurt, and heavy, dark breads. The French, on the other hand, subsist on a croissant and coffee, and the Italians, going a step further, have what seems to be a dinner roll in place of the rich, buttery croissant.
HAM
There are two kinds of ham, raw and cooked. Raw really means preserved, treated with salt or brine, and then, in many cases, smoked.
Prosciutto is an example of raw ham, the most famous being prosciutto di Parma, for which the pigs are fed on whey left over from the making of cheese. The ham—from the rear leg—is laid on trays of rock or sea salt and turned weekly for at least a month, then dried in the upland air for three to six months or even longer. It is served in paper-thin slices, mild and velvety.
Among other notable raw hams are jambon d’Ardennes from Belgium, Westphalia ham, and jambon de Bayonne, smoky and dark, from France.
Kentucky ham is renowned, as is Virginia. Smithfield ham is the cream, so to speak, of Virginia hams—lean, smoked over hickory and applewood, and aged for at least a year. It should always be cooked, usually baked after soaking and simmering first.
A little ham goes a long way, and shreds of it are enough to give flavor to lentils, for example, or minestrone or bean soup.
There was a time when trichinosis—a sometimes fatal parasitic disease caused by roundworm in poorly cooked or raw meat, particularly pork—was widespread. At 140 degrees F the meat becomes safe, though the USDA inspection stamp on meat virtually ensures safety.
CURNONSKY
In 1872, Maurice Edmond Sailland, a food writer who was to become known as Curnonsky the near-legendary Prince of Gastronomy was born this day in Angers, France.
He assumed his pen name in 1890 after the publication of an open letter he had written to Emile Zola that he signed with the pseudonym Curnonsky, and that was followed soon afterward by a money order from the paper’s editor, along with a request for more articles. For more than two decades he was on the staff of newspapers. In the 1920s, he turned to writing about food and gastronomy.
A large man, popular and bear-like, he was a lover of the good life and in 1927 was chosen as Prince of Gastronomy in a publicized election sponsored by the newspaper Paris-Soir. From then on he was addressed as Prince and was prominent at every dinner and banquet of distinction. His image, with a big white napkin tied beneath his chins, was familiar in every restaurant and kitchen, and his name became a household word.
Though he loved public attention, he lived simply and never entertained, describing