Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [105]
Most of the books are in French, which is not surprising since for centuries French chefs headed the kitchens of most of the royal courts of Europe and managed to write down what was going on. Just as French was the lingua franca in the world of the diplomats, French was the lingua franca in the world of the summit cooks, a world unmarked by borders.
Flachard is an exceptionally tall, thin fellow who sports exquisite shoes, boots, and bottines; speaks in a measured vieille France manner; and rain or shine bicycles twenty minutes to work each morning across Paris from the seventeenth to the seventh arrondissement. His ivory-tower shop maintains an active mailing list reaching into eight countries, where the collectors are avid to grab Flachard’s latest finds. Flachard’s high-end finds are not kitchen home companions—one does not risk gravy on an 1823 edition of a work by the legendary Antonin Carême or a treatise on the economic viability of the potato by the agronomist and army apothecary Antoine-Augustin Parmentier.
The other day I dropped in on Flachard, a way stop I enjoy every few months because it feels like a trip into a literary Paris of Once Upon a Time that I happen to adore. He was hunched over a table piled with ledgers, papers, index cards, and other paraphernalia. If Dumas or Balzac had walked in we probably would have said hello without surprise. The crowded scene is deceptive. Although the narrow premises appear to be an uncharted sea of books, Flachard, who knows his stuff, can locate in an instant any requested volume even when it is hidden deep behind two others. Thoughtfully, he has spirited the most valuable items out of sight. Thus one can feel free to browse without succumbing to a wave of excessive temptation.
Flachard was finishing preparation on his catalog (Number 39), a lovingly produced illustrated booklet describing exceptional items currently available. He mails out several thousand of his catalogs twice a year. Requests to purchase the catalog are frequent. He turns them down, saying, “The catalog is not for sale. Buy a book and I give you the catalog for free.”
With books priced in the hundreds and thousands of euros, the response at first sounds disdainfully lofty. Actually it is not as high-handed as it first might seem. The shop offers a considerable selection of quality books more digestibly priced from twenty to sixty euros. Consequently, obtaining Flachard’s gift catalog is not completely beyond reach. Serious collectors keep the catalog on their shelves as a source of reference.
Flachard was excitedly poring over a recently acquired set of fifty-five official menus commemorating banquets, dinners, and receptions that had taken place between 1900 and 1960. The precious trove represented the private collection of Pierre de Fouquières, who had been the French foreign office’s chief of protocol during what obviously was a highly entertaining period. On many occasions it was Fouquières who represented France at the party.
The stunningly designed menus in the Fouquières collection that Flachard was cataloging evoked the social history of an era. The wedding of the crown prince of Iran to Fawzia, the ravishing sister of Farouk of Egypt, was a lavish affair. Fifteen elaborately illuminated menus attest to the fifteen banquets that celebrated the ceremony. Fawzia eventually was repudiated for having produced only a daughter.
The elegant Fouquières, who from his photo was the quintessence of Fifty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong, had impresarioed glorious official receptions for delegations of Italians, Swiss, Belgians, Americans, English, and Norwegians. In 1911, Fouquières was an official guest at the festive dinner at the Calcutta Club for the marriage of Tikka Sahib, the son of the maharajah of Kapurthala, the mythically rich family whose fief was one of the princely states of India. According to the menu, the Kapurthala wedding dinner was as dazzling as anything dreamed up by Bollywood decades later.