The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season

The Appellation Contrôlée system is particularly complicated for the wines of the Côte d’Or, for not only is each of a number of communities distinguished by the right to an A.O., but each community is broken up into a number of so-called climats, each named and many with A.O. rights, in which case the name of the community need not be mentioned on the label (La Tâche, for instance, is a Vosne-Romanée, Le Clos de Tart a Morey-Saint-Denis, etc.). Others with A.O. rights mention the community in conjunction with the climat and still others, with no A.O. rights beyond the name of the community, print in small letters beneath the Appellation Contrôlée the name of the climat. To complicate things even further, many climats, though they may represent tiny plots of land, are shared by a number of different proprietors, who, naturally, do not all vinify their wines in the same way or with the same care. Many are bought by négociants, sometimes before the vinification, sometimes after, and, of course, négociants, too, are more or less honest. Certain négociants’ practices, strictly forbidden but difficult to control, such as adding large quantities of sugar to the crushed grapes before fermentation to bring up the alcohol content or mixing heavier, more alcoholic wines from the Côtes-du-Rhône and Algeria with the Burgundy base, have done tremendous harm to Burgundy’s reputation. Many people are convinced that the best of the Burgundies are powerful, heavy, inky-colored wines that leave mangled systems in their wake, whereas, in fact, the best are light in color (a wonderful, transparent ruby, turning “tile-colored” with age), contain no more than 12½% alcohol, are delicate and rich with nuance on the palate, and, to quote the Bourgignons, “They leave the breath clean and the head clear.”

A label tells everything. Indifferent wines tend to lean on grandiose and meaningless phrases—Grand Vin d’Origine, for instance. The finer the wine, the more specific the information. One may know the vintage (wines that bear no year or the mention V.S.R.—Very Special Reserve

—are a mixture of several years designed to produce a rounder, smoother—and more anonymous—product), the specific vineyard (climat, cru, growth), whether the wine was made, cared for, and put into bottles by a private winegrower, or bought, cared for and bottled by a négociant (who may be an owner as well, and wine that is produced from his own property will be so indicated on the label—or he may have exclusive rights to buy the entire production of a specific vineyard, and this, too, will appear on the label).

Said by some to mean Vins Spécialement Recommandés.

This information will no doubt seem rather dreary to many readers, but, when buying Burgundy wine, unless one simply settles on a Romanée-Conti, it is absolutely essential to be able to read the label correctly. The name of the American importer will also appear on the bottle, and, for those whose knowledge of the source is limited, that, too, may be an indication of relative quality.

Clos de Bèze is the most prized section of the climat of Cham-bertin, itself the first growth of the community of Gevrey-Chambertin; other vineyards with special A.O. rights beside the community appellation, but not within the Chambertin climat, incorporate the name of Chambertin also, but their modifying names (Charmes-, Mazoyères-, etc.) precede that of Chambertin. The label indicates the name of the proprietor and that the wine was put into bottles on the property (Mise au Domaine).

Bonnes-Mares is a border climat, part of which is within the community boundaries of Morey-St.-Denis, the other part in Chambolle-Musigny. Since the climat enjoys its own A.O. rights, it is unnecessary to mention either of the community names. The label specifies Récolte du Domaine, which indicates that the vineyard is the property of the firm. It does not say Mise au Domaine or Mise à la Propriété, since for practical reasons a négociant must care for all his wines in a central cellar (in this instance in Beaune) where they are also put into bottles. The Monopole de Vente (exclusive sale rights) refers only to the domaine, for there are many other proprietors in the climat of Bonnes-Mares.

Musigny is the first growth in the community of Chambolle-Musigny (the village having added to its own name that of its first growth, as have Gevrey and Vosne). As the label describes the firm only as négociants, it is understood that the wine has been bought from a winegrower whose vines are in the climat of Musigny, and “raised” and put into bottles in the négociant’s cellars.

Far to the north in Burgundy, midway between the Côte d’Or and Champagne, Chablis (which pro duces four categories of wine: Grand cru, Premier cru, Chablis—with no modifier—and Petit Chablis), makes dry, nutty white wines of great quality. They are not flamboyant and they need to be known intimately to be appreciated at their true value.

BORDEAUX

There is an endless and foolish quarrel between Burgundy and Bordeaux enthusiasts. It would seem that for many people it is impossible to love the one without detesting the other. Clichés concerning the opposing characters of the one and the other abound. It is claimed that Burgundy wines are “sensual” and beloved by brash youth, whereas the wines of Bordeaux are “intellectual” and that the wisdom that comes only with age is essential to an understanding of their full beauty. Mostly foolishness, of course, although in a general way I think that one might claim for the wines of Bordeaux—in particular for the reds of Graves and Médoc—that they are drier and more reserved in personality (though never sardonic).

Bordeaux age more slowly than Burgundies and live longer, a Burgundy being most often perfect to drink when it is from four to ten years of age, whereas the great Bordeaux attain their maximum qualities between the ages of ten to twenty. This is all approximate, and both count many exceptions (I have drunk forty-year-old Burgundies that were at the height of their glory and five- or six-year-old Bordeaux whose decline had already set in).

Bordeaux wines often suffer in the judgment of the uninitiated because they are drunk too young. The great red wines of Bordeaux, and in particular those of Graves and Médoc, have an extremely high tannic content, which renders them harsh and often unpleasant in their youth. The greater the château (the “first growths” start out each year’s production of wine in new oaken kegs, supplementing the wine’s natural tannin with that of the wood), and the better the year, the more tannic the wine. It is precisely this tannin that forms, in a manner of speaking, the structural support for the body of the wine, and permits it to age elegantly without collapsing, while at the same time the harshness of the tannin disappears, and the tannin itself, in part, withdraws into the sediment that is found in old wines.

The outlying regions of the Bordelais number among the largest wine-producing areas in France. Most make good table wines and many benefit from special Appeliations Contrôlées.

The great Bordeaux red wines come from Médoc (in which the villages of Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Saint-Estèphe, Margaux, Moulis and Listrac claim their own A.O.), Graves, Saint-Emilion and Pomerol, and the great whites from Graves, Sauternes and Barsac.

The white wines are made principally from the Sauvignon and the Semillon grapes, and the reds from Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Malbec. The last is used less now than in the past and other varieties have been almost completely eliminated. In the Haut-Médoc and among the finest Graves, the proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon is high—50 percent to 75 percent, and up to 95 percent for the greatest vineyards. Saint-Emilion and Pomerol contain generally about one third Cabernet Sauvignon and 50 percent Merlot. The finest wines are grown in soil so poor that to raise anything else in their place would be unthinkable (Graves means gravel and is so named because of the makeup of its soil).

Among the wines of Bordeaux, it is easier to know what one is buying than in Burgundy, for each vineyard (or château) is the property of a single person or society, and in most instances the labels are marked Mise en Bouteilles au Château, an assurance to the buyer that the wine has been cared for and put into bottles by the proprietor. The role of the négociant is thus more often minimized to that of distributor.

The best of the wines from the Haut-Médoc are, when drunk under the right conditions, probably the most subtle of all red wines. (Practically no white is produced.) Château Margaux makes a small quantity of pleasant, nonvintage white wine, marketed under the name of Pavillon Blanc du Château Margaux. Those from Pauillac are generally the “biggest,” “fullest,” “roundest,” but the wines from Saint-Estèphe (Cos d’Estournel, Montrose, Calon-Ségur) have a special elegance of their own, those from Margaux (Margaux, Malescot-Saint-Exupéry, Rauzan-Gassies), a particular earthy flavor, and the Saint-Juliens (Ducru-Beaucaillou, the Léovilles, Talbot), a direct, clean quality that is nonetheless not lacking in nuance.

The famous 1855 classification of the wines of Médoc remains essentially dependable. Two wines from outside of Médoc (Haut-Brion from Graves and Yquem from Sauternes, the latter the only white wine mentioned in the entire classification) are included among the five first growths. Of the others, two are from Pauillac, Latour and Lafite (a third, Mouton-Rothschild, classed as a second growth, is now considered by everyone to be equal in quality), and the other is Château Margaux. These wines are respectfully referred to as les Grands Seigneurs.

Graves is the victim of a curious misconception, as widespread in France as elsewhere. It is generally believed to produce only white wines, all of which are thought to be sweet, whereas, in fact, some of Bordeaux’s most elegant reds are Graves, and its finest whites are all dry and exquisitely perfumed.

Of the reds, those who have drunk old vintages of Château Haut-Brion (in recent years, I suspect the makers of having experimented too heavily with modern techniques of vinification) will not soon forget them. Perhaps my most “transcendental” wine-drinking experience is related to a 1926 Château Bouscaut, whose delicate and complicated bouquet—that of a great wine whose gentle decline has begun—recalled dried rose petals, field mushrooms, decayed leaves and quantities of other autumn odors impossible to define, combined with elusive memories of fresher, fruitier qualities. The beauty of such a wine is elaborated in one’s memory—more precisely defined in retrospect—but brings no deception on retasting. Other particularly fine red wines from Graves are: Pape-Clément, Haut-Bailly, La Mission Haut-Brion, Malartic-Lagravière, Carbonnieux, and Domaine de Chevalier.

The white wines of Graves, unlike many dry white wines, age gracefully and live long, and, although it is rare to find on the market any that are over ten years of age, the chance should not be missed to try one, should an older one present itself. Among the best of the Graves whites are the Châteaux: Bouscaut, Laville Haut-Brion, Couhins, Domaine de Chevalier and Carbonnieux.

The wines of Saint-Emilion and Pomerol—all reds—have a great deal in common; they are generally less aristocratic in personality than those just discussed, although certainly not lacking in elegance. They are often heavier of body. Less complicated, both in bouquet and on the palate, in youth they are more supple than the Médocs and Graves, and they mature more rapidly. The Pomerols, in particular, are often ready to drink after a couple of years in bottle (four years of age), but take age well, also. Each has its grand cru. Château Cheval Blanc is considered to be the greatest of the Saint-Emilions, and Château Petrus heads the Pomerols. Other great and good Saint-Emilions are the Châteaux Figeac, La Gaffelière-Naudes, Ausone, Canon, Grand-Mayne, Monbousquet. Vieux Château Certan and the Châteaux l’Evangile, Nenin, La Conseillante and Beauregard are among the Pomerols that demand a particular respect.

The wines of Sauternes and Barsac are sweet, and the fashion today is, unhappily, antisweet wine (with the pathetic result that even Château d’Yquem now markets a dry little white wine called Ygrec).

The richness of these wines depends on whether or not the summer is hot enough for the grapes to ripen early, before the autumn rains set in. When fully ripened, they are attacked by a fungus known as la pourriture noble (the English translation, “noble rot,” somehow sounds rather foolish to me), which dehydrates them, concentrating the rich fruit sugars in the withered, moldy pulp, and, of course, the mold itself gives a characteristic flavor. The separate grapes are clipped from the grape clusters as they are sufficiently altered by the pourriture noble, which may necessitate four or five passages through the vines before the entire harvest is realized. The bit of juice extracted from these grapes produces a wine rich in glycerine and alcohol (the fermentation of any must containing such a high natural sugar content stops automatically before all the sugar is transformed into alcohol, with the result that, in rich years, a high sugar content remains in the wine—which nonetheless counts a full 18% alcohol), whose natural enveloping sweetness is never sugary or cloying, whose bright gold turns deep amber with age, and which, in great years, outlives by far the men who make it. Its depth of bouquet and its expansion on the palate can be breathtaking. It should be sipped, sensuously analyzed for a long time in the mouth, but drunk in small quantities.

Therein lies its greatest drawback, for, in order to justify sacrificing a bottle of old Sauternes, there should be at least five or six people at table. Drunk well chilled, with a warm butter-crust apple pie (for which I do not intend to give the recipe in this book), both take on unforgettable dimensions.

Apart from Château d’Yquem (of which it has too often been said that it is the greatest white wine in the world), the Châteaux Rieussec, Suduiraut, La Tour Blanche, Gilette and Rayne-Vigneau, among others, produce wines of perfect quality whose prices are generally far more interesting than that of their famous neighbor.

THE LOIRE VALLEY

The Loire Valley is not, technically, a region, for the Loire River begins far to the south, winds all the way up through central France and across, to empty out into the Atlantic at the southern border of Brittany. The finest wines come from four distinctly different regions, and it follows that certain of them have little in common apart from their proximity to the same river. They are predominantly white.

Beginning at the mouth of the river, Muscadet (the Nantais region), made from the Muscadet grape (transplanted from Burgundy where it is known as “Melon”), is a light and very dry wine, best when drunk very young—one of the best with raw oysters. Its slight acidity renders it a useful and refreshing thirst quencher, but may perhaps proscribe it for certain stomachs. The same region produces a slight little wine from the Gros Plant grape which is a favorite among collectors of the little known.

Savennières (Anjou) makes good white wines from the Pineau grape (spelled differently to distinguish it from the Burgundy Pinots), the best known of which comes from a tiny vineyard, the Coulée de Serrant. Formerly a sweet wine, it has, for the last ten years, been vinified as a dry wine; the grapes are picked before being attacked by the pourriture noble. A suave, delicate wine with a slightly “peppery” taste, it improves greatly with age and is probably best, depending on the year, when five or six years old. It is splendid with smoked salmon, fish in sauce, and such dishes.

Vouvray (Touraine) now vinifies much of its production “dry” also, with less success, it seems to me. The Vouvrays are also made from the Pineau grape. The 1921s are still remembered with reverence. When made in the traditional way, they are perfect apéritif and dessert wines. A certain part of the production is treated like champagne to make a sparkling wine.

Farther along the Loire, Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé are made from the Sauvignon grape, known in that part of the country as Blanc Fumé because of the wines’ delicate, smoky taste, partly a result of the grape variety and partly of the earth in which it is grown. The Pouilly-Fumés (from Pouilly-sur-Loire–unrelated to Pouilly-Fuissé) have the more pronounced fumé taste of the two. The same vineyards make a wine from the Chasselas grape, which takes the name of the village (Pouilly-sur-Loire)—delicious when drunk very young, but of little interest once it is a year old. Sancerre produces also a small amount of rosé wine, which, like Bouzy and Gros Plant, is much cherished by curiosity seekers.

Close neighbors, but on the banks of the Cher, Quincy and Reuilly (not to be confused with Rully) are light and lovely mid-morning thirst quenchers (Sauvignon).

Three beautiful red wines come from the Loire Valley: Bourgueuil (of which the best is Saint-Nicholas de Bourgueuil), Chinon and Saumur-Champigny (the first two are from the Touraine, the third, from the Anjou). All are made from the Cabernet-Franc grape and experts claim to discern in them the odor of violets and the flavor of raspberry. When young, they have an astonishing deep purple-red “robe” and an exhilarating fruit. They share with the wines of Beaujolais the beauty of youth (and, like them, should be drunk slightly cool), but they age with more grace and eventually come to resemble certain old Bordeaux.

OTHER REGIONS

Alsace, all of whose wines (with the exception of Zwicker, a mixture) are named after grape varieties, produces one, made from the Riesling grape, which, at best, is in a class apart—a splendid wine with light fish dishes and far better than beer with sauerkraut. Gewürtztraminer enjoys great popularity, but its fruit and perfume are so overpowering that, despite its being relatively dry, I cannot imagine it being drunk with anything but a dessert.

The Jura makes a great white wine of a totally different character than that of any other French wine: Château-Chalon. Tastewise it falls somewhere between a fine sherry and the great white Burgundies. It remains in kegs for about six years, evaporation loss is never replaced, and thanks to this particular process of vinification, a layer of special bacteria forms on the surface of the wine that gives it its unique quality. It is powerful and, although very dry, has a rich fruit. It accompanies well certain rich, strongly flavored fish dishes (lobster in various sauces in particular) and can occasionally replace advantageously a red wine—with certain game birds, duckling, or pork dishes whose sauces are slightly sweet, for example. The Jura also produces a very small quantity of vin de paille (“straw wine”), the grapes of which are partly dried on layers of straw before being fermented. I have never seen this wine on the American market.

The Mediterranean coast produces few wines of quality. The white wines of Cassis are pleasant, though a bit alcoholic. (Cassis is the name of the village, and the wine must not be confused with cassis—black-berry liqueur—particularly since one of the favorite apéritifs in Burgundy is vin blanc cassis, a white Aligoté sweetened by the addition of a bit of blackberry liqueur. To an inexperienced ear it sounds much the same as vin blanc de Cassis.) At Bandol, the Domaine Tempier makes a rosé wine as good as any I know and a fine red wine that takes age well. All of the wines of southern France are made from a large number of grape varieties: Grenache, Picpoul, Clairette, Tibourin, Ugni and others. The quality of the Tempier red is due, in part, to the presence of the mourvèdre grape.

Near the Spanish border, in Catalan country, Banyuls enjoyed a great reputation in the past, but a time came when the product had sunk to an indifferent quality. Shortly after World War II, an energetic and impassioned major of Banyuls took the winegrowers in hand, organized impressive installations for vinification and storage, revised vinification techniques, and today the various Banyuls Grand Cru wines are again of splendid quality. They are not “table wines,” although they accompany nicely certain dishes in the preparation of whose sauces they have played a part, but are, rather, of the same family as the great ports, and the vinification is similar. It begins as for red table wines, but the fermentation is “muted” before completion by the addition of an eau de vie, thus raising the degree of alcohol and imprisoning a certain amount of the natural sugar in the wine. Banyuls is aged in kegs out of doors, exposed to the sun. These wines are extremely useful (as is port) in many culinary preparations, and are fine aperitif and dessert wines.

Kitchen Layout and Equipment (#ulink_a66c7623-425f-5e7f-8f3c-3c023e05f0bd)

My kitchen I love, but would recommend to no one else. It contains more equipment and fewer conveniences than most home kitchens, and the organization of space is totally impractical. The largest room in the house, it is the one in which I live, work, cook and receive.

Weather permitting, meals are served out of doors, but during a good half of the year the dining table automatically finds its place before the immense fireplace, which dominates the room and is the only source of heat. Before it, all roasts are turned on a spit; in it, meats, fish and vegetables are grilled. Buried in its ashes, such vegetables as potatoes, beets and eggplant are baked, and often an earthenware pot is half buried in the ashes to pass the night. From time to time, when intense heating is not necessary, I climb to the roof top and suspend a marinated, rolled boar’s belly or other delicacy in the chimney to be smoked, and over a period of several days I regularly nourish the smoldering olive wood with bundles of rosemary.

Beside the fireplace is a small professional cookstove. Its top is a cast-iron plate heated from beneath by a system of gas flames and refractory bricks, permitting one to move pans all over the surface, exactly as with old-fashioned wood- or coal-burning cookstoves, in order to find the precise degree of heat desired. To the side are two open gas flames, and the oven, deep, solid and hermetic, is also heated on the same principle as that of the old-fashioned cookstove. The flames are beneath, but the heat is circulated through hollow walls that encircle the oven.

The work table, chopping boards and refrigerator—alas—are at the other side of the room, the heart of which is blocked by the dining table and, worse still, beyond the table, by a huge and encumbering pillar that supports the main beam of the room. Despite the size of the room, space is lacking. Earthenware casseroles are piled seven or eight deep, the mantel of the fireplace is hung heavy with omelet and crêpe pans, the copper pans, for lack of a better place, are hung the length of the room, including above the stove (which prompts rapid tarnishing), the soup tureens and sauceboats are kept on shelves so high that a ladder is necessary to reach them, and the largest of the marble mortars, far too heavy to be easily displaced, has never found a permanent place and needs constantly to be shifted.

The following suggestions, then, often represent, in terms of organization, that which my kitchen lacks and which I miss bitterly. As to small equipment, I have contented myself with describing a selection from my own kitchen, excluding those articles common to all kitchens.

A kitchen should be as spacious and as light as circumstances permit. A basic work table or surface and a chopping board should ideally be placed between the sink and the stove, but should, in any case, be as near to the stove as possible. The surface of the chopping board should be at such a level that, standing before it, one may without either straining or bending one’s elbows easily place one’s hands flat on it (thus, the height of the table should be conditioned to the individual who will most often be working in the kitchen). Most table tops and chopping boards are too high, and one’s work is consequently less efficient and more tiring.

Electric ovens, well regulated, are very good for pastries, slow gratins and so-called casserole dishes, and ideal for the many preparations that require a very slow cooking process over a period of many hours. They are suitable for roasts, though I prefer a spit before an open fire. For rapid gratins and grilled meats they are less than satisfactory. As to cooking on top of the stove, I personally find electricity impracticable. A naked gas flame is imperfect, but with the use of asbestos pads and other insulating devices one can arrive at a fairly delicate regulation. A small professional or semiprofessional gas cookstove, similar to that described above, is, to my way of thinking, the most satisfactory solution. A system, whether it be incorporated into the stove or apart, of intense overhead heat for rapid gratins and glazing is useful. The broiler common to most American household stoves never gives a sufficiently intense heat for glazing. There should be some arrangement for heating plates.

In most home kitchens a fireplace such as mine is out of the question. Nevertheless, a small fireplace built into the wall at tabletop or stove-top level is altogether conceivable in a modern kitchen. Several of my friends have built such fireplaces in their kitchens, and others, impressed by the simplicity and the practicality of the arrangement, are in the process of doing so. They are people who are not city dwellers but live in comfortable, centrally heated houses equipped with small modern kitchens, and who, unlike myself, have no desire to recapture living patterns of the past with an of the attendant discomforts. They simply understand that the superiority of a roast on a turnspit before an open fire or of fish and meats grilled over fruitwood embers is pertinently real and not merely part of a past mythology.

Such a fireplace should be large enough to contain a small grill or to permit a spitted chicken or leg of lamb to be turned before it. An opening 25 inches wide by 20 inches high with a depth of 20 inches is sufficient. A platform approximately 15 to 18 inches deep—large enough to easily support the turnspit (tournebroche) and dripping pan (lèchefrite)—should extend outward from the fireplace floor. The corresponding space beneath the fireplace is used for storing wood.