July 16, 2024 • 51 mins
This well-loved reference book serves not just as an encyclopedia of gastronomy, but a window into the (mostly French) culinary world from when it was published. Anney and Lauren flip through the history behind the ‘Larousse Gastronomique’.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to save your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reechos and I'm more on Vogel Bum and
today we have an episode for you about the Laruez Gastronomique.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Which I had never heard of. Oh really, Oh but
I know for a fact doing this research. We have
referenced it before in other episodes, but I don't think
I've ever like put together that it was this big deal. Yeah,
really should have.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No, that's okay if you if you didn't know about it,
you didn't know about it, and that's fine. There's there's
no no, no shame in that. I grew up with
a copy in my household. My father had a copy
of the nineteen seventy seven translation of the nineteen sixty edition,
which is on my desk right now as we are
(01:00):
recording this, taking up a really enormous amount of room.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yes, Lauren showed me at beforehand, and quite quite substantial.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, I will say, yeah, and it weighs about as
much as the free weights that I used to work out,
so that I've gotten a good Yeah, that's that's fine.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, nice nice workout. Yeah, Well, was there any particular
reason this was on your mind? Lauren.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I think I owe like every year, I'm like, oh,
should we do something extra French for Bestille Day?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And then I write.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It occurred to me that this exists, and I was like, yeah,
what is the story behind that.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Let's look into it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I have a friend who's going to a Bestiel Day
party and she reached out to me and was like,
they want some French puns in your dress. Oh. I
was like, I you came to the right person. It's
a French kiss is my favorite. But that's like a
(02:11):
lot of work because the band kiss.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Obviously, Oh okay, obviously clearly.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yes. I gave her several suggestions. I think she's gonna
go with French toast, which is really fun.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
But that's great.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
No, I'm completely into that. I will say that while
doing my reading for this episode, Amazon dot Com reminded
me that I bought a copy of Larius Gesternomik in
two thousand and nine for a boyfriend who absolutely did
not deserve it. So thanks Amazon dot com. That's a
(02:52):
really that's a really great service that you provide.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
It's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Don't you love it? And that happens it's.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Been fifteen years. I wasn't looking for that information. It
was just like, hey, you already bought this.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Do you remember? Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Like and then you go down and yes, I do remember.
I wish I did it?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Who on the internet? It gets you every time. Yeah,
that this one, this one is full of rabbit holes,
much the way that this book is. So here we here,
we are.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yes, yes it is, I say with a heavy sigh.
You can see our past episodes that we've done on
cookbooks and French halt cuisine escoffier.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Oh, but I guess that brings us to our question.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah, I guess it does.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Laruss Gastronomique.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
What is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Uh, the Laruz Gastronomique is an encyclopedia of gastronom that
is the art and culture and history and science of
food and cooking. And this encyclopedia has a heavy emphasis
on French cuisine. It was first published in nineteen thirty
eight in French, written by a famous chef and writer
(04:16):
of the time, all Prosper Montaigne, in collaboration with one
doctor Alfred Gottschalk, whom there is essentially no record of anywhere,
but I understand that he did a lot of the
science and medicine related writing, so there we are. The
name Larus comes from its publisher, Edischel Larus, which is
a French reference publisher. And yes, this book is huge.
(04:38):
Any given edition has over a thousand pages with entries
on ingredients and preparations of those ingredients and cooking techniques
and types of pans and plating styles and French culinary
historical figures and on and on and on. It is
weird and like joyfully stuffy, and not particularly useful as
(05:00):
a guide for cooking unless you already know what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Like, it is not a cookbook.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It does have a lot of recipes, but there's an
old joker maybe truism that attempting to follow them exactly
will probably be disastrous. What it is is a really
beautiful reference work and time capsule in a way that
gives you a sort of stained glass window into the
French culinary scene of whatever era. The addition that you're
(05:30):
holding is from. It is pretentious and well loved reading.
It is like a choose your own adventure book that's
going to make you really hungry and hopefully delighted and
possibly a little bit confused. About what all humans get
up to. Sounds great to be it is. Oh, you're
(05:56):
really gonna like it, and we're gonna we're gonna work
this out anyway. We're going to get into its author
and publishing in the history section. But it's been through
several revisions and updates in the nineteen sixties and eighties
and nineties, and today twenty seventeen is the most recent edition.
It's definitely been translated into English and Spanish, and I
(06:16):
think more recently Dutch and German, but I couldn't. It
was hard for me to tell from my corner of
the Internet. So if y'all have more up to date information,
let me know. And yeah, the Larus, as it is
affectionately known in the culinary world, has fans from Julia
Child and Tony Boordane and j Ken g. Loupez Alt
(06:37):
to Alice Waters and Thomas Keller and Jacques pa Pin
because it loves g astronomy and what it does go
in on it goes deep. The older editions especially are
just really dodgily French, with bear to downright incorrect detail
on anything international and the The American English editor of
(07:01):
the nineteen eighty four version which we got in nineteen
ninety eight, told The New York Times that she was
frustrated sometimes that she couldn't correct things only like delete
or ignore quote. You have to remind yourself constantly that
the point of view in this work is strictly French.
I got the feeling that they still don't take us seriously.
(07:26):
For for example, in the nineteen sixty edition right published
here in the seventies, the entirety of the United States
gets a little bit less than a page. There is
a two paragraph entry on the narwall, though, and an
entry on the Roman mythological figure Escalaface, who was the
(07:48):
dude who rated out Persephone for eating those pomegranate seeds.
He was apparently also Pluto's cook. Huh, sure.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Does really go places.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Apparently.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The two thousand and nine English edition has an entry
for tacos that reads a cornmeal pancake filled with a
thick sauce, minced meat, seasoned with chili, pepper, black beans,
or avocado pure with onion.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Hmm, which is not really how I would describe docco.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
But no, yeah, anyway, it could be.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, I mean right, I mean that can be a
version of a taco anyway. Yeah, but like, okay, you
want to know about eel. There is information on different
varieties of eels, and then a section of basics about
like cleaning and cooking them, followed by forty eight eel
recipe entrees from eel aspects to eel risotto and beyond.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Beyond.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
There's a section on garnishes that is ten pages long.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Okay, there's a lot of stuff you can use as garnishes.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Oh sure, and different ways of cutting them up. Yeah,
and stuff and different should they traditionally go with just
for flavor? Would would y'all want to want to read
out an entry? I was thinking about the entry on asparagus. Okay, yeah, okay,
I'm opening the book. This is the sound of me
(09:36):
flipping through the book right now.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Asparagus a genus of Liliassier, containing more than one hundred
species found in temperate and warm regions of Europe and America.
Asparagus grows wild and meadows and bushy places, especially in
sandy soil over a great part of France, as well
as on sandy coasts on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean sides.
In France, asparagus came into vogue during the reign of
Louis the fourteenth things do Quintini, who was the first
(10:01):
to grow asparagus in Les Rois silas he was able
to supply the royal kitchen with asparagus all year round.
Asparagus officitionalis common. Asparagus has been widely cultivated since time
immemorial as a garden vegetable. Its young sprouts or shoots
are eaten, either whole or just the tips i e.
Terminal buds. In Spain, young shoots of certain species which
have long, sharp thorns on the stems are also eaten.
(10:22):
It keeps going. And this is sort of long, but
I find it. I find it illustrative, so I'm gonna
keep going.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
A great number of asparagus varieties exist, but for cooking purposes,
these fall into several main types. A French asparagus, of
which the best known and most delicious is a particular
species Italian asparagus or purple Genoa asparagus, White Belgian asparagus,
white German asparagus. There's also green asparagus, which is subdivided
into two types, small used for garnishes and known as
asparagus tips, and large, which is prepared like that French asparagus.
(10:53):
Early asparagus can be found in France from February onwards
and is usually sold at high prices. Method of preparation
this is simple scrape or better still, peel the asparagus,
wash and tie into medium sized bundles and cook in
a fairly full pan of boiling salted water. Allow one
and a half teaspoons per liter or one in three
quarters pints generous quart. When it's cooked, drain the asparagus
(11:15):
thoroughly and arrange on a dish covered with a napkin,
or on a special asparagus dish which is equipped with
a flat strainer. The cooking period varies from eighteen to
twenty minutes, depending on the size and nature of the asparagus.
It should not be overcooked, as this renders it watery
and tasteless.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
A note.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
At the end of the season, asparagus becomes a little
bitter and should be put into fresh water for a
short time. After it has been cooked, drain thoroughly. Hot
work cold asparagus is served with various sauces. When it
is to be served cold, it should be left under
a running tapped cool Generally speaking, allow for about six
hundred grams or one and a quarter pounds asparagus per
person served with sauce, and then it goes on for
(11:54):
another page and a half about asparagus recipes. Well, I
kind of wanted to read that entire section, and I
know that probably listening to me read it was either
soothing up your alley or incredibly annoying pick your pick
your poison.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
But like, I just think it.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Really illustrates the breadth and depth and weirdness of the
information that Montagnier chose to put into this volume. Also,
is it just me or is a pound in a
quarter of asparagus as a serving bonkers?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I would agree, I think that's bonkers cool, Yes, checking
I also love the and you know, not wrong, but
I love the like simply and it's all this stuff.
I would never do.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
What.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I've never peeled and asparious my life, right.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And I'm not sure how much he's asking me to
peel and like, and I'm kind of going like, I
I just toss it in an olive oil and salt
and pepper, and I roast it until it's roasted. That's
what I do to asparagus. I don't have a special
asparagus dish with drainage. Now I feel like I should.
I guess you should.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Definitely that's what we're really learning here, the ways we lack.
But yeah, it's also the specificity of this is the
way you cook it. I think it's pretty.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah right, I mean the different recipes have like different
things to say about it.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
But but wow, wow, sos just love it. I just
I love this book.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
This is this is exactly why people love this book,
because it is it's just like that and it just
goes on like that about everything.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I'm like, all right, yeah, get it.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Luis feels like it's got a personality.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah. Oh absolutely, kind.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Of a strange one. But you're like, in dear, but well,
what about the nutrition.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Definitely donate this book, certainly, not in one sitting, definitely not.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Definitely not. Well, we do have some numbers for you,
we do.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Okay, so this varies from addition to edition, but you
could expect approximately four thousand articles and two thousand, five
hundred recipes per volume. Illustrations and photos vary the most,
perhaps as expected, from like a thousand to seventeen hundred
or so.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And it does have I didn't mention.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Earlier really beautiful detailed drawings and black and white plates
like photographs, and then in the newer edition's color color
insert pages and oh they're gorgeous. They're gorgeous, and a
lot of them are for very see like like karem
(15:01):
or Escoffier style preparations of things, and I'm like, oh, man,
I would never make that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
That's so cool. It's nice to look at it.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yes, yeah, I did weigh the addition that I own,
it weighs a solid five pounds at least.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
I don't know if my scale actually works, and I
think that that's.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
On the light side for these buddies.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I have to say, when you were doing your reading,
I was like, wow, one rip, there you go.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah, uh huh.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Absolutely, As I was trying to like awkwardly like get
it near the microphone anyway, I could not, for the
life of me find info on like how many copies
have been printed over the course of this book's history.
The best that I can do that is that as
of two thousand and nine, over thirty five thousand copies
had been sold in the United Kingdom. So I don't
(15:58):
know what that means on a large scale.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
It's interesting I wonder if because there's so many additions
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, or maybe maybe it was this information that I
that I was having trouble accessing on the LaRue publisher's website.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Or I don't know, you know, Yeah, well it does
have a lot of fans, whatever the case. And uh,
it has a long history, fascinating history. I was not anticipating, yeah,
me neither as to how it got there.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I didn't know any of those. This was a great ride.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So yeah, we are going to get into all of
that as soon as we get back from a quick
break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. Okay, So,
if you remember our French Cuisine episode, French cuisine has
long made a name for itself when it comes to
things like innovation, technique, and fine dining. And this happened
through a lot of ways, including refining of techniques, the
mother sauces, refining of restaurant cooking practices and menus, all
(17:13):
kinds of things. By the nineteenth century, we see their
eyes of celebrity chefs like Antonin Kherim and Auguste Scoffier,
people who wielded this incredible influence and shaped so much
of our restaurant culture and our cooking techniques to this day,
a lot of things are French inspired cuisine or a
(17:34):
fusion with French cuisine and techniques, which has its pros
and cons.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, a lot of the time when you have a
fancy restaurant, you're vaguely required to include some of that.
And yes, that's a different episode, though tiny bit more detail. Right, Like,
the reasons why French cuisine gained the sort of reach
are like many socio political reasons, plus a few really
(18:00):
timely cookbook authors, plus the French Revolution because that ended
the guild system that had previously restricted how culinary industry
workers could work, and also shut down some of the
wealthy households that had employed those workers, and furthermore opened
up the economy for the creation of restaurants by those workers.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
However, it wasn't always smooth sailing, and over time arguments
and disagreements broke out in the community of French cuisine professionals,
especially between chefs and food writers and journalists.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, and to specify, because there is some overlap in
that Venn diagram, this was a matter of people who
worked in kitchens versus people who wrote about food, but
who had no professional experience, who nonetheless had a lot
of popular influence over the culinary industry. It was cooks
(18:59):
versus this non professional class that often called themselves gastronomes.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Rights and all of this is a bit complicated, but
very basically due to a lot of things around unions
and workers' rights, ideas around what constitutes a chef, the
growing solidification of French cuisine and therefore growing competitiveness, and
(19:26):
the increased culinary publications in France, there were some divides
that made themselves evident, and one of these factions was
led by Prosper Montagnier, who was a chef and culinary
writer right so.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Montaigner was born in eighteen sixty five out in Carcasson
in southwest France. His father ran hotels and basically forced
him to apprentice as a cook at one in Toulouse.
Prosper wanted to go into art and architecture, but he
had a real talent for cooking and wound up working
with some of the greats in a bunch of the
(20:02):
large fancy elk cuisine kitchens of the day in France
and Monte Carlo and Italy. He published his first book
in nineteen hundred, and by nineteen oh seven had basically
dropped his career as a chef to pursue his interest
in culinary writing. Rumor has it that he helped his
friend Ascoffier with Scaffee's nineteen oh three book Le Guide,
(20:23):
Colinaier and Yeah. Montaigner wrote columns on cooking and astronomy
for like a bunch of magazines and newspapers. He wrote
a few cookbooks angled towards niche topics like military cooking,
healthy cooking, meatless cooking, home cooking, and did a lot
of teaching and lecturing and demonstrations around France. During World
(20:45):
War One, he helped feed the French army and set
up the cooking school within the French military. He would
be named a Knight in the Legion of Honor for
his culinary work in nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
He did decide to start his own stunt in Paris
in nineteen twenty and it was a popular place for
the top food writers, chefs, politicians and artists of the time.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
It was called simply no reference to the simply from
earlier Montagne, triteur trieteur being a word that translates directly
as caterer, but I understand it had a more casual connotation,
more like a guy who serves food. So so pretty
cheeky restaurant name there.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yes, despite his popularity, though his restaurant closed after about
a decade of operation due to finance.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, it was so well known there that there was
a write up about its closure in the Chicago Sunday
Tribune that said, the whole gastronomic world of the French
capital received a severe blow to the stomach.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Ooh yeah, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Montagner retired to writing and speaking after that restaurant closure,
and part of his right was this kind of heated
argument that he was in with gastronomes about what good
food is or about what French cuisine is.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yes, and his ideas are a bit hard to pin
down for me from the time and place that I
am in with the information in English that I have,
but I would say he was very passionate about Parisian cuisine.
He worked very hard to be recognized and therefore felt
that everyone else should meet his very specific standards as
(22:37):
well as well as his specific ideas about what constituted
French cuisine. And this meant that those in his camp
may have looked down on regional cuisine and women chefs,
which was common at the time.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, for the first half of that there was this
idea among the chefs cooking it that Parisian cuisine was
the most struck shared and developed and refined, and that
therefore everything else was like kind of just food, Like
it can be great, it should be enjoyed, but it's.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Different from what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
About the second half during this era, you know, women
were just entering the workforce really, and there was pushback
against that from dude workers, you know, partially because of
sexism and partially because of financial competition. I don't know
that Montaigne in particular had a problem with women in
the workforce. One of his teaching stints was at a
(23:35):
school for women in the hotel end of the service industry,
which again is where like a lot of fancy cooking
was happening at the time. But you know, I wasn't there.
I can't say for sure, for absolutely sure. One of
his close collaborators, Gilbert, wrote some really sexist articles about ladies,
So there we are.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, hard to say. Also, this could be me projecting
it probably is me projecting, but Montaignier seemed to be
fueled in part by Spike or I guess like a
more positive or not. That depends on how you look
at it. Take on it was that he was extremely
(24:18):
competitive and was determined that his take on French cuisine
would be the dominant one.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Heading up the other side of this debate was.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
The Prince of Gastronomes, Maurice Edmondsayad, a pen named Kurnanski
or Cure as he often went by. He was a
prolific and well known food journalist who from nineteen twenty
one to nineteen twenty eight published this massive work, The
Franz Gastronomique Guide to Culinary Wonders and Good French Ends
(24:54):
after traveling around and visiting restaurants and ends across the country.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, sort of like a proto Michelin Guide.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yes, But Montaigner and his ilk were not happy about
this because it went against what they believed in and
was also during a time of change that was really
impacting the restaurant industry increased access to cars, increased traveling.
At least in part because of that, Kurinovsky's work was
hugely successful and it majorly catapulted his career.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah, he was really widely published and read. He was
on the radio, he was a big deal. And I
think the issue here was that these professional chefs were right.
They were working to make a respectable industry for themselves,
and they felt like it was being diluted by these
writers who did not understand what it's like to cook professionally,
(25:48):
or even really anything about like the history of French cuisine,
and who were diverting the public's interest and business. They
were enthusiastic, but the chef's argument was that they were ignorant, right, And.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
This all came to a head in October of nineteen
twenty eight after an illustration was published depicting Kirnatsky in
a chef's outfit in a respected publication, and Montaignier wrote,
and these are translations, so please correct me if I'm off.
We must get rid of these false fathers of the table,
(26:27):
who understand nothing about eating or drinking, and who I
am convinced have no other goal than to create, if
I may say so, advertising gastronomy. Oh I know, it
gets so juicy, Oh my gosh. And then quote it
(26:48):
is your duty, Prince to instruct the high dignitaries of
your court, as well as the members of your academy
in gastronomy. This I can tell you because I have
heard some of them hold forth over a dish, and
I assure you that I have never heard such nonsense uttered.
This would be of no importance if such remarks did
(27:10):
not come out of private life. But your subjects do
not stop there. They want to make their ideas on
gluttony known to the general public, and to do this
write long articles, which I have the duty to tell
you are well designed to ridicule French cuisine. Who I mean,
(27:32):
I can feel the burn from here.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Yeah, it's walm.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
That is wow. So it was heated. It was heated,
and it is in this atmosphere. The Rufse Gastronomique was
first published in nineteen thirty eight, curated by Chef Mont
(28:01):
with doctor Gotstalk as the scientific collaborator. As you said, Lauren,
so yeah, Matigne kind of took matters into his own hands.
And yes, it was massive and featured not only a
putha of recipes, biographies, methods, tools, histories, histories of eating
(28:21):
of restaurants. It also featured cooking terms overviews of basic
ingredients and advice on storing them. It was just like no, this, yeah,
this is it.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And like, knowing the history of this heated debate, it
really feels like this encyclopedia was a huge well, actually
in the face of people who don't know what they're
talking about, culinarily speaking like like oh, hey, you love
blah blanc, but you don't know how it's made. You know,
(28:55):
you know what boo I got you.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
You can look that up right here. You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
It's like, really, look at all of this experience and knowledge.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
You know, I know, I know that you're like struggling
with some of these technical definitions. So I just laid
it up for you. I just laid it out for you.
Glad to help, yes, to be fair. Montagnier also clearly
like loved the heck out of all of this subject matter,
and I think he really wanted to like document some
(29:30):
of this stuff that was really only available as like
oral history or industry information, and that he wanted to
share it. I think he started writing The Tone in
nineteen thirty two or thereabouts. He worked with the publisher
Additional l Rouse to put it out the company that
company had been formed back in the eighteen fifties by
one Pierre Larousse, a linguist who became known for publishing
(29:53):
like broad and detailed and often beautifully illustrated reference works.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I would also say in again, and this is just
coming from me, since it was such a time of
like shift and change, I get to understand the desire
to get this all written down or to have like
a reference work in the face of tumultuous time. So
what might have felt very much like everything's changing, So
(30:23):
it makes sense. The work notably had a preface by
Philia Gilbert Lauren mentioned earlier, who had previously been one
of the other chefs in this whole debate, but he
was more team Cure at this point. I'm telling you
there was drama. We had to pull back because it's
so fascinating and we had to stick to the subject.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
But yeah, a little bit of drama. There was a really.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Great piece written in French about all of this media drama,
and it was terrific.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It was it was A Scoffier also contributed a preface.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
What had happened with the prefaces is that A Scoffier
wrote one shortly before his death in nineteen thirty five,
having seen like a good chunk of the work in progress,
but probably very little of the actual finished product. And
because he talks about that in his preface, Gilbert wrote
an addition to sort of like round the whole thing out.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yes, And this book became an invaluable resource for those
looking to make the cut in traditional Western fine dining.
It was hugely influential. It has become a much loved
and referenced cookbook.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Or maybe not cookbook but reference work. Yes sure, totally
aced reference work.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yes yes.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Mondaignier died in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
New editions were published in nineteen sixty, nineteen sixty seven,
and nineteen eighty four under Robert J. Cortin, a food
writer and journalist, and this was seen by some as
the final blow in the Montaigne versus Cure debate.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Right because Courtin was apparently very much of the Cure
school of thought, like he wrote about taking back the
word gastronome.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
He was that kind of guy.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
So it was like, oh, oh, Cure won that one,
Sorry about it.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Montagner.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
At any rate, he was also in his thirties during
German occupation of France. During World War Two, a Nazi
sympathizer and collaborator. Yeah, he got sent into prison about
that after the war, which is great. But then after
he was released basically got away with like a successful
multi decade food writing career without anyone really knowing anything
(32:38):
about his past, which is less great. A lot of
this came out in an obituary about him when he
died in nineteen ninety eight, So an obituary this is
also a lot of drama. Yes, wow, And I'm like,
whoa screw that guy?
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, I went directly.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
He like just pivoted from being like, well, I'm going
to write all these really antisemitic things.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
To uh, yeah, food.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I guess that's not going to get me sent to
prison again.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Right cool?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Anyway again, rabbit holes, y'all?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Anyway? Uh okay.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
The nineteen sixty revision, called Nouveaux disgastronomik uh brought in
new material about mid century cooking technologies like deep freezing
and freeze drying, also contemporary understandings of dietary science, some
more information on like French and other wines, what and
like various food and wine associations that had come up
(33:43):
since the you know, nineteen thirties.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
The nineteen eighty four revision was another big one, with.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
New entries reflecting nouvelle cuisine and like various new and
non French things like the banana split, kiwis, spring rolls,
food additives, microwave ovens.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Whoa Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
The first edition in English was published in nineteen sixty one.
It was an adaptation of the original from thirty eight.
Apparently it was the work of like twenty culinary experts
over three years to wrangle the translation. These English translations
have also gone through edits for clarity for like American
(34:26):
versus British English readers. Yeah, we got a version of
the nineteen sixty fourteen revision by nineteen seventy seven. That's
the one I inherited from my dad. The eighty four
translation came through a bit quicker landing in English just
four years after it was published, motivated by the fiftieth
anniversary of the original publication.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And in nineteen ninety six, renowned chef Joel rubouchonp kicked
off something of a renaissance for Gashonomik. At the time,
Rubuchamp was the chair of a committee for Larousse, and
he signed on to take over the curatorship of Larousse.
From there, the encyclopedias opened up to become more international.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, that one was translated into English by two thousand
and one, and Robachon was perhaps a more Montaignier appropriate.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Choice for curator. He was right. He was a chef.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Like his first his first restaurant got three Michelin stars
within like three years. Like he was a very chef
ley chef.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
So yeah, chevley chef. The two thousand and seven edition
was released under the name Grand Larousse Gastronomique from Robachon
and his committee, several members at the time were powerhouses
of French cuisine.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, really illustrious committee. We got that
one in two thousand and nine. It had an additional
eighty five biographies of chefs, nine hundred new photographs, a
total of three eight hundred recipes, and apparently they mucked
about a bit with the way that entries were organized.
I don't know the most recent addition only in French
thus far, I think is from twenty seventeen. Rubbichem passed
(36:12):
away in twenty eighteen, so I'm not positive of his
total influence on that one. But yeah, the committee committee
still stands. And you know, Montagnier has not been as
remembered as some of his like rock star contemporaries, but
he's not forgotten small things like in twenty fourteen, Carcassone
(36:33):
named their fresh market after him. There are cooking prizes
and gastronomy clubs named after him. After he passed. A
group of friends, friends, perhaps in quotation marks Yell decide
founded this organization for culinary professionals and passionate amateurs that
they named after him. The idea is that the gastronomes,
(36:57):
if you will, get to participate in like educational events
and promote castronomy to the public, while the professionals benefit
from the networking and the publicity. Yeah and yeah, that's
kind of the history of the Luska Soronomique so far.
(37:19):
I'd like to leave y'all though, with the opening of
the preface from Escolfaier to bring it full circle.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Yeah, he wrote.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
The history of the table of a nation is a
reflection of the civilization of that nation, to show the
changes in the order and serving of meals from century
to century, To describe and comment on the progress a
French cuisine, is to paint a picture of the many
stages through which a nation has evolved since the distant
times when as a weak tribe, men lived in dark caves,
(37:51):
eating wild roots, raw fish, and the still pulsating flesh
of animals killed with the spear.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
That's more intense.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Gets intense there, Yeah, yeah, I thought, right, Yeah, it
starts off real soft.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
But wow, I.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Like it though, right, yeah, and it is right like,
that's that's the whole reason why all of this is cool.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
That's why we do the show.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Heck, you know, yeah, I don't know if Montaignier would
like us.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
No, probably not, well, probably not.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Hey, we try to not be ignorant.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
We try to read up on stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Okay, we try very hard, and we.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Do not presume to know more than chefs or anyone really.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Absolutely not, absolutely not. Well, this was a really fun, interesting,
strange one. As we've said, we were kind of limited
to what we could find in English or could translate
to English. So if anybody has any resources more information
about this, we would love that. And if you have
(39:01):
a copy, oh, we love seeing the reference books, the
cookbooks that you all.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Have, If you have a favorite passage, if you have
a story about it, Yeah, we would love We would
love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yes, but I think that's what we have to say
about Laruese gastronomik for now.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yes, we do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with the smooth big book. Oh big book
made me a little nervous to see it, to be honest. Yep, yep, yep,
(40:08):
Aaron wrote. Last summer, I listened to the semi fictional
Foods Little House episode and immediately knew I had to
tell you about the cookbook sitting on my bookshelf with
dog eared pages marking the recipes I have made, including
molasses on snow candy. Every time snow was in the forecast,
which is not all that often in Virginia, I made
(40:28):
sure we had molasses on hand to make Laura's jawbreaking
dental dental filling pulling treat. I don't think I ever
ate more than one piece, and it was always a mess,
but a tradition I have now passed down on to
my kids. Molasses aside my strongest association with the Little
House series is Laura's wedding cake, which I literally begged
(40:52):
my mom to help me make for my twelfth birthday
in nineteen ninety six. The introduction to the recipe set,
remember that this cake comes from the days before egg
beaters and cake flour. We ask that you beat the
whites by hand, not only to know what Laura felt,
but because the resulting texture will be different from that
(41:13):
of machine whipped whites. The recipe then instructs in regard
to blending the sugar into the butter, quote, this will
be hard work, best done at arm's length or in
the lap. And later on beating the egg whites. Quote,
this will take about ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Yep, ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
That's it. Yep.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Oh my poor mom and I followed the recipe to
a tea. We both mixed that damn cake batter until
our arms about fell off, but I was happy to
have felt the way Laura did in the books, with
a real pioneer experience. Finally, after Happy Birthday was sung,
it was time to reap the reward of all that
(41:56):
hard work, and I was crushed.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
The cake was truly awful, like a hard bland rock.
My mom reminded me that long ago, sugar ratios and
cakes were not what they are nowadays, and I don't
know that our weak modern arms were up to the
whipping task either. I don't think anyone finished even a
(42:22):
single slice. I knew there was surely photographic evidence of
this cake, and I couldn't possibly write this email to
you without it. Thus it took me an entire year
to organize decades of family photos to find it, attached
to a picture of me smiling with the offending cake
moments before heartbreak was realized. I have also included the
(42:46):
recipe from the cookbook. Should you feel masochistic enough to
try it yourself, Oh dear, oh oh wow.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
See this right here is why I love and hate
cooking and like equal measure. Yes, it just it stresses
me out because I'm like, is this actually gonna work?
Am I gonna be left with anything vaguely edible at
the end of this hard labor.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Especially after there's something like a birthday cake where it's
like the presentation you can't have a piece missing, so
you can't try it right, So the anticipation of like
what if it's terrible? Yeah, can be overwhelming, and then
if it is terrible and yeah, no one can eat
(43:38):
a slice.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I mean at that point that's kind of funny. I
hope I know that it was funny sooner than later.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Agreed. Agreed. And I also have to say, like now,
as an adult, unless I was doing a specific project,
I would never do this, But as a kid, I can.
I can see the allure of like I'm gonna do
it like.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Waura, you're your own.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Oh absolutely, I would have been so into that at
the age of twelve.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yes, me too, so I it doesn't sound like you do,
but I hope you don't blame yourself. I'm glad it
sounds like you've moved on from the heartbreak. Thanks for
finding the picture and sending their rest.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
We love it.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Oh goodness, Rose wrote, it's been ages. Loving the show
always a bright spot in my busy day, and I
always try to slow down and savor it. Ah, that's
for you, Annie. I had to stop and write in
when you brought up NOTT. Though I've traveled to and
lived in Japan frequently for the past twenty four years,
like many other foreigners, I was quickly introduced at NATO
(44:51):
and I was not a fan. I didn't mind the taste,
but the slimy texture, which the Japanese fondly called nibba neba,
was downright on palatable to me. Neba neaba foods also
include raw okra, raw eggs, mozuku, seaweed, and grated mountain
yam called yamino are other popular naba neba foods and
(45:12):
can often be layered on top of each other as
a nibaeba parfe for the ultimate slime experience. Fast forward
to twenty eleven and I had become an elementary ESL
teacher for a school district in Ichi Prefecture. Part of
my duties every day was to have school lunch with
one of my classes. The most popular lunch by far
(45:32):
was the one pictured below. It consisted of a bowl
of rice, a packet of nor sheets, soup of the day.
This one was a porcacho miso soup, So damn good
veg of the day. This happens to be sauted cabbage,
fried tofu and baby tiny fish and a big ol'd
PLoP of nut though with teeny tiny bits of white
American cheese cut up into it, plus milk. Please note
(45:55):
that this is the smallest amount of Nato I was
permitted to get. Meanwhile, the children would lose their damn
minds over this lunch and fight to see who would
get the largest piles of nato and cheese, often going
back for seconds and thirds, and it was the only
meal the kids would consistently demolish. Now, it would be
(46:16):
just fine if this meal showed up once a month
or so here and there at a school. The thing
is I was a rotating teacher. I visited the same
five schools every week, and somehow I ended up with
three to four days of the same Nato lunch one
week every month. As eating lunch was an official part
of my job, I had to eat it. Over time,
(46:39):
I kind of got into it. It's typically made little
hand rolls, but I tended to pile the nato on
the rice, then crush and sprinkle the ore on top.
Fast forward to modern times. I still eat Nato my
whole life. I've had gallbladder issues. By no means am
I a doctor or am I giving medical advice. But
I found when my gallbladder acts up, that the sliminess
(47:00):
of foods like nat though has a soothing effect. I
now eat not so frequently for the taste and because
it makes me feel good. Below in the second photo
is a typical breakfast or light lunch consisting of bread
da jore. Typically dark rye or pumper nickel goes well
with the funky na though flavors cream cheese. The rich
taniness is a good counterbalance to the earthy not though,
(47:21):
and the rye or pumper nickel. Cucumber crunchy and fresh
provide some moisture to the dry bread. Spicy fricake for
extra texture and flavor, and then green onion just love them. Finally,
I wanted to say I've never heard or seen anyone
warm up not though before eating it. It is often
sold frozen and needs to be thawed before using. I
(47:44):
could see microwaving it if it was frozen. That is
probably what I was talking about. Apologies if I misspoke
on that one. Yeah, yeah, I'm still looking out and
I have not had any look.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
But I have to say this all sounds really good to.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
It does.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Oh yeah, all of that sounds really right, especially your
like modern take on like a breakfast or light lunch
there that although both of them sound I've never had
nato served with cheese and now I'm fascinated by this idea.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yes, oh well, Lauren, we have quite the list of
male coming up for you. I'm excited to see it,
all right, Yeah, I will.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Say, Annie, I'm pretty sure that it's a menu item
at Roussan's, which is a local Atlanta Japanese weird place.
So I'm pretty sure you can get it from there.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
I could, I could.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
I might be wrong, that's all right, I'll check into Okay, Yeah,
the next time that I come across it, I will
definitely tell.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
You, yes, please. Do I have to say that the
white American cheese, right, that's what gets me, the cheese, Okay, Okay. Also,
and this could just be me coming from my American perspective,
but that sounds way better than the lunches I was
(49:17):
getting my school.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Yeah, American school lunches are a particular type of pain.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yeah, at least I can't say for everyone, but at
my school we weren't. That sounds much better than what
we were get. Yeah, and at least like there was
a vegetable that seems cool. That does seem really cool? Uh? Yeah,
(49:50):
we did do an episode on school lunches, right, did we? Well? Anyway,
we all.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Talked about it.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
I think that, yeah, for sure we should do one
because that is fascinating and the in terms of the
United States mostly depressing topic.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
But yes, but yeah, there was a way to skirt
around having a vegetable in a United States school.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Yeah, thanks Reagan, let's go. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Anyway, but I do love how you also kind of
got cursed into this, always having it, and now you
like it.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
It worked out, it worked out.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
Well. Thank you so much to both of these listeners
for writing in. If you would like to try to
as you can or emails hello at saborpod dot com,
and we're also.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
On social media.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saber pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Save is production of by Heart Radio. For more podcasts
to my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or where you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to save your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reechos and I'm more on Vogel Bum and
today we have an episode for you about the Laruez Gastronomique.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Which I had never heard of. Oh really, Oh but
I know for a fact doing this research. We have
referenced it before in other episodes, but I don't think
I've ever like put together that it was this big deal. Yeah,
really should have.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No, that's okay if you if you didn't know about it,
you didn't know about it, and that's fine. There's there's
no no, no shame in that. I grew up with
a copy in my household. My father had a copy
of the nineteen seventy seven translation of the nineteen sixty edition,
which is on my desk right now as we are
(01:00):
recording this, taking up a really enormous amount of room.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yes, Lauren showed me at beforehand, and quite quite substantial.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, I will say, yeah, and it weighs about as
much as the free weights that I used to work out,
so that I've gotten a good Yeah, that's that's fine.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, nice nice workout. Yeah, Well, was there any particular
reason this was on your mind? Lauren.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I think I owe like every year, I'm like, oh,
should we do something extra French for Bestille Day?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
And then I write.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It occurred to me that this exists, and I was like, yeah,
what is the story behind that.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Let's look into it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I have a friend who's going to a Bestiel Day
party and she reached out to me and was like,
they want some French puns in your dress. Oh. I
was like, I you came to the right person. It's
a French kiss is my favorite. But that's like a
(02:11):
lot of work because the band kiss.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Obviously, Oh okay, obviously clearly.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yes. I gave her several suggestions. I think she's gonna
go with French toast, which is really fun.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
But that's great.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
No, I'm completely into that. I will say that while
doing my reading for this episode, Amazon dot Com reminded
me that I bought a copy of Larius Gesternomik in
two thousand and nine for a boyfriend who absolutely did
not deserve it. So thanks Amazon dot com. That's a
(02:52):
really that's a really great service that you provide.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
It's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Don't you love it? And that happens it's.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Been fifteen years. I wasn't looking for that information. It
was just like, hey, you already bought this.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Do you remember? Do you remember?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Like and then you go down and yes, I do remember.
I wish I did it?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Who on the internet? It gets you every time. Yeah,
that this one, this one is full of rabbit holes,
much the way that this book is. So here we here,
we are.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yes, yes it is, I say with a heavy sigh.
You can see our past episodes that we've done on
cookbooks and French halt cuisine escoffier.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Oh, but I guess that brings us to our question.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah, I guess it does.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Laruss Gastronomique.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
What is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Uh, the Laruz Gastronomique is an encyclopedia of gastronom that
is the art and culture and history and science of
food and cooking. And this encyclopedia has a heavy emphasis
on French cuisine. It was first published in nineteen thirty
eight in French, written by a famous chef and writer
(04:16):
of the time, all Prosper Montaigne, in collaboration with one
doctor Alfred Gottschalk, whom there is essentially no record of anywhere,
but I understand that he did a lot of the
science and medicine related writing, so there we are. The
name Larus comes from its publisher, Edischel Larus, which is
a French reference publisher. And yes, this book is huge.
(04:38):
Any given edition has over a thousand pages with entries
on ingredients and preparations of those ingredients and cooking techniques
and types of pans and plating styles and French culinary
historical figures and on and on and on. It is
weird and like joyfully stuffy, and not particularly useful as
(05:00):
a guide for cooking unless you already know what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Like, it is not a cookbook.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
It does have a lot of recipes, but there's an
old joker maybe truism that attempting to follow them exactly
will probably be disastrous. What it is is a really
beautiful reference work and time capsule in a way that
gives you a sort of stained glass window into the
French culinary scene of whatever era. The addition that you're
(05:30):
holding is from. It is pretentious and well loved reading.
It is like a choose your own adventure book that's
going to make you really hungry and hopefully delighted and
possibly a little bit confused. About what all humans get
up to. Sounds great to be it is. Oh, you're
(05:56):
really gonna like it, and we're gonna we're gonna work
this out anyway. We're going to get into its author
and publishing in the history section. But it's been through
several revisions and updates in the nineteen sixties and eighties
and nineties, and today twenty seventeen is the most recent edition.
It's definitely been translated into English and Spanish, and I
(06:16):
think more recently Dutch and German, but I couldn't. It
was hard for me to tell from my corner of
the Internet. So if y'all have more up to date information,
let me know. And yeah, the Larus, as it is
affectionately known in the culinary world, has fans from Julia
Child and Tony Boordane and j Ken g. Loupez Alt
(06:37):
to Alice Waters and Thomas Keller and Jacques pa Pin
because it loves g astronomy and what it does go
in on it goes deep. The older editions especially are
just really dodgily French, with bear to downright incorrect detail
on anything international and the The American English editor of
(07:01):
the nineteen eighty four version which we got in nineteen
ninety eight, told The New York Times that she was
frustrated sometimes that she couldn't correct things only like delete
or ignore quote. You have to remind yourself constantly that
the point of view in this work is strictly French.
I got the feeling that they still don't take us seriously.
(07:26):
For for example, in the nineteen sixty edition right published
here in the seventies, the entirety of the United States
gets a little bit less than a page. There is
a two paragraph entry on the narwall, though, and an
entry on the Roman mythological figure Escalaface, who was the
(07:48):
dude who rated out Persephone for eating those pomegranate seeds.
He was apparently also Pluto's cook. Huh, sure.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Does really go places.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Apparently.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The two thousand and nine English edition has an entry
for tacos that reads a cornmeal pancake filled with a
thick sauce, minced meat, seasoned with chili, pepper, black beans,
or avocado pure with onion.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Hmm, which is not really how I would describe docco.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
But no, yeah, anyway, it could be.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, I mean right, I mean that can be a
version of a taco anyway. Yeah, but like, okay, you
want to know about eel. There is information on different
varieties of eels, and then a section of basics about
like cleaning and cooking them, followed by forty eight eel
recipe entrees from eel aspects to eel risotto and beyond.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Beyond.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
There's a section on garnishes that is ten pages long.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Okay, there's a lot of stuff you can use as garnishes.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Oh sure, and different ways of cutting them up. Yeah,
and stuff and different should they traditionally go with just
for flavor? Would would y'all want to want to read
out an entry? I was thinking about the entry on asparagus. Okay, yeah, okay,
I'm opening the book. This is the sound of me
(09:36):
flipping through the book right now.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Asparagus a genus of Liliassier, containing more than one hundred
species found in temperate and warm regions of Europe and America.
Asparagus grows wild and meadows and bushy places, especially in
sandy soil over a great part of France, as well
as on sandy coasts on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean sides.
In France, asparagus came into vogue during the reign of
Louis the fourteenth things do Quintini, who was the first
(10:01):
to grow asparagus in Les Rois silas he was able
to supply the royal kitchen with asparagus all year round.
Asparagus officitionalis common. Asparagus has been widely cultivated since time
immemorial as a garden vegetable. Its young sprouts or shoots
are eaten, either whole or just the tips i e.
Terminal buds. In Spain, young shoots of certain species which
have long, sharp thorns on the stems are also eaten.
(10:22):
It keeps going. And this is sort of long, but
I find it. I find it illustrative, so I'm gonna
keep going.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
A great number of asparagus varieties exist, but for cooking purposes,
these fall into several main types. A French asparagus, of
which the best known and most delicious is a particular
species Italian asparagus or purple Genoa asparagus, White Belgian asparagus,
white German asparagus. There's also green asparagus, which is subdivided
into two types, small used for garnishes and known as
asparagus tips, and large, which is prepared like that French asparagus.
(10:53):
Early asparagus can be found in France from February onwards
and is usually sold at high prices. Method of preparation
this is simple scrape or better still, peel the asparagus,
wash and tie into medium sized bundles and cook in
a fairly full pan of boiling salted water. Allow one
and a half teaspoons per liter or one in three
quarters pints generous quart. When it's cooked, drain the asparagus
(11:15):
thoroughly and arrange on a dish covered with a napkin,
or on a special asparagus dish which is equipped with
a flat strainer. The cooking period varies from eighteen to
twenty minutes, depending on the size and nature of the asparagus.
It should not be overcooked, as this renders it watery
and tasteless.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
A note.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
At the end of the season, asparagus becomes a little
bitter and should be put into fresh water for a
short time. After it has been cooked, drain thoroughly. Hot
work cold asparagus is served with various sauces. When it
is to be served cold, it should be left under
a running tapped cool Generally speaking, allow for about six
hundred grams or one and a quarter pounds asparagus per
person served with sauce, and then it goes on for
(11:54):
another page and a half about asparagus recipes. Well, I
kind of wanted to read that entire section, and I
know that probably listening to me read it was either
soothing up your alley or incredibly annoying pick your pick
your poison.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
But like, I just think it.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Really illustrates the breadth and depth and weirdness of the
information that Montagnier chose to put into this volume. Also,
is it just me or is a pound in a
quarter of asparagus as a serving bonkers?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I would agree, I think that's bonkers cool, Yes, checking
I also love the and you know, not wrong, but
I love the like simply and it's all this stuff.
I would never do.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
What.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I've never peeled and asparious my life, right.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And I'm not sure how much he's asking me to
peel and like, and I'm kind of going like, I
I just toss it in an olive oil and salt
and pepper, and I roast it until it's roasted. That's
what I do to asparagus. I don't have a special
asparagus dish with drainage. Now I feel like I should.
I guess you should.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Definitely that's what we're really learning here, the ways we lack.
But yeah, it's also the specificity of this is the
way you cook it. I think it's pretty.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah right, I mean the different recipes have like different
things to say about it.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
But but wow, wow, sos just love it. I just
I love this book.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
This is this is exactly why people love this book,
because it is it's just like that and it just
goes on like that about everything.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I'm like, all right, yeah, get it.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Luis feels like it's got a personality.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah. Oh absolutely, kind.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Of a strange one. But you're like, in dear, but well,
what about the nutrition.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Definitely donate this book, certainly, not in one sitting, definitely not.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Definitely not. Well, we do have some numbers for you,
we do.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Okay, so this varies from addition to edition, but you
could expect approximately four thousand articles and two thousand, five
hundred recipes per volume. Illustrations and photos vary the most,
perhaps as expected, from like a thousand to seventeen hundred
or so.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And it does have I didn't mention.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Earlier really beautiful detailed drawings and black and white plates
like photographs, and then in the newer edition's color color
insert pages and oh they're gorgeous. They're gorgeous, and a
lot of them are for very see like like karem
(15:01):
or Escoffier style preparations of things, and I'm like, oh, man,
I would never make that.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
That's so cool. It's nice to look at it.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yes, yeah, I did weigh the addition that I own,
it weighs a solid five pounds at least.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
I don't know if my scale actually works, and I
think that that's.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
On the light side for these buddies.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
I have to say, when you were doing your reading,
I was like, wow, one rip, there you go.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah, uh huh.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Absolutely, As I was trying to like awkwardly like get
it near the microphone anyway, I could not, for the
life of me find info on like how many copies
have been printed over the course of this book's history.
The best that I can do that is that as
of two thousand and nine, over thirty five thousand copies
had been sold in the United Kingdom. So I don't
(15:58):
know what that means on a large scale.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
It's interesting I wonder if because there's so many additions
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, or maybe maybe it was this information that I
that I was having trouble accessing on the LaRue publisher's website.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Or I don't know, you know, Yeah, well it does
have a lot of fans, whatever the case. And uh,
it has a long history, fascinating history. I was not anticipating, yeah,
me neither as to how it got there.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I didn't know any of those. This was a great ride.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So yeah, we are going to get into all of
that as soon as we get back from a quick
break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. Okay, So,
if you remember our French Cuisine episode, French cuisine has
long made a name for itself when it comes to
things like innovation, technique, and fine dining. And this happened
through a lot of ways, including refining of techniques, the
mother sauces, refining of restaurant cooking practices and menus, all
(17:13):
kinds of things. By the nineteenth century, we see their
eyes of celebrity chefs like Antonin Kherim and Auguste Scoffier,
people who wielded this incredible influence and shaped so much
of our restaurant culture and our cooking techniques to this day,
a lot of things are French inspired cuisine or a
(17:34):
fusion with French cuisine and techniques, which has its pros
and cons.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, a lot of the time when you have a
fancy restaurant, you're vaguely required to include some of that.
And yes, that's a different episode, though tiny bit more detail. Right, Like,
the reasons why French cuisine gained the sort of reach
are like many socio political reasons, plus a few really
(18:00):
timely cookbook authors, plus the French Revolution because that ended
the guild system that had previously restricted how culinary industry
workers could work, and also shut down some of the
wealthy households that had employed those workers, and furthermore opened
up the economy for the creation of restaurants by those workers.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
However, it wasn't always smooth sailing, and over time arguments
and disagreements broke out in the community of French cuisine professionals,
especially between chefs and food writers and journalists.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, and to specify, because there is some overlap in
that Venn diagram, this was a matter of people who
worked in kitchens versus people who wrote about food, but
who had no professional experience, who nonetheless had a lot
of popular influence over the culinary industry. It was cooks
(18:59):
versus this non professional class that often called themselves gastronomes.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Rights and all of this is a bit complicated, but
very basically due to a lot of things around unions
and workers' rights, ideas around what constitutes a chef, the
growing solidification of French cuisine and therefore growing competitiveness, and
(19:26):
the increased culinary publications in France, there were some divides
that made themselves evident, and one of these factions was
led by Prosper Montagnier, who was a chef and culinary
writer right so.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Montaigner was born in eighteen sixty five out in Carcasson
in southwest France. His father ran hotels and basically forced
him to apprentice as a cook at one in Toulouse.
Prosper wanted to go into art and architecture, but he
had a real talent for cooking and wound up working
with some of the greats in a bunch of the
(20:02):
large fancy elk cuisine kitchens of the day in France
and Monte Carlo and Italy. He published his first book
in nineteen hundred, and by nineteen oh seven had basically
dropped his career as a chef to pursue his interest
in culinary writing. Rumor has it that he helped his
friend Ascoffier with Scaffee's nineteen oh three book Le Guide,
(20:23):
Colinaier and Yeah. Montaigner wrote columns on cooking and astronomy
for like a bunch of magazines and newspapers. He wrote
a few cookbooks angled towards niche topics like military cooking,
healthy cooking, meatless cooking, home cooking, and did a lot
of teaching and lecturing and demonstrations around France. During World
(20:45):
War One, he helped feed the French army and set
up the cooking school within the French military. He would
be named a Knight in the Legion of Honor for
his culinary work in nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
He did decide to start his own stunt in Paris
in nineteen twenty and it was a popular place for
the top food writers, chefs, politicians and artists of the time.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
It was called simply no reference to the simply from
earlier Montagne, triteur trieteur being a word that translates directly
as caterer, but I understand it had a more casual connotation,
more like a guy who serves food. So so pretty
cheeky restaurant name there.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yes, despite his popularity, though his restaurant closed after about
a decade of operation due to finance.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, it was so well known there that there was
a write up about its closure in the Chicago Sunday
Tribune that said, the whole gastronomic world of the French
capital received a severe blow to the stomach.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Ooh yeah, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Montagner retired to writing and speaking after that restaurant closure,
and part of his right was this kind of heated
argument that he was in with gastronomes about what good
food is or about what French cuisine is.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yes, and his ideas are a bit hard to pin
down for me from the time and place that I
am in with the information in English that I have,
but I would say he was very passionate about Parisian cuisine.
He worked very hard to be recognized and therefore felt
that everyone else should meet his very specific standards as
(22:37):
well as well as his specific ideas about what constituted
French cuisine. And this meant that those in his camp
may have looked down on regional cuisine and women chefs,
which was common at the time.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, for the first half of that there was this
idea among the chefs cooking it that Parisian cuisine was
the most struck shared and developed and refined, and that
therefore everything else was like kind of just food, Like
it can be great, it should be enjoyed, but it's.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Different from what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
About the second half during this era, you know, women
were just entering the workforce really, and there was pushback
against that from dude workers, you know, partially because of
sexism and partially because of financial competition. I don't know
that Montaigne in particular had a problem with women in
the workforce. One of his teaching stints was at a
(23:35):
school for women in the hotel end of the service industry,
which again is where like a lot of fancy cooking
was happening at the time. But you know, I wasn't there.
I can't say for sure, for absolutely sure. One of
his close collaborators, Gilbert, wrote some really sexist articles about ladies,
So there we are.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, hard to say. Also, this could be me projecting
it probably is me projecting, but Montaignier seemed to be
fueled in part by Spike or I guess like a
more positive or not. That depends on how you look
at it. Take on it was that he was extremely
(24:18):
competitive and was determined that his take on French cuisine
would be the dominant one.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Heading up the other side of this debate was.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
The Prince of Gastronomes, Maurice Edmondsayad, a pen named Kurnanski
or Cure as he often went by. He was a
prolific and well known food journalist who from nineteen twenty
one to nineteen twenty eight published this massive work, The
Franz Gastronomique Guide to Culinary Wonders and Good French Ends
(24:54):
after traveling around and visiting restaurants and ends across the country.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, sort of like a proto Michelin Guide.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yes, But Montaigner and his ilk were not happy about
this because it went against what they believed in and
was also during a time of change that was really
impacting the restaurant industry increased access to cars, increased traveling.
At least in part because of that, Kurinovsky's work was
hugely successful and it majorly catapulted his career.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah, he was really widely published and read. He was
on the radio, he was a big deal. And I
think the issue here was that these professional chefs were right.
They were working to make a respectable industry for themselves,
and they felt like it was being diluted by these
writers who did not understand what it's like to cook professionally,
(25:48):
or even really anything about like the history of French cuisine,
and who were diverting the public's interest and business. They
were enthusiastic, but the chef's argument was that they were ignorant, right, And.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
This all came to a head in October of nineteen
twenty eight after an illustration was published depicting Kirnatsky in
a chef's outfit in a respected publication, and Montaignier wrote,
and these are translations, so please correct me if I'm off.
We must get rid of these false fathers of the table,
(26:27):
who understand nothing about eating or drinking, and who I
am convinced have no other goal than to create, if
I may say so, advertising gastronomy. Oh I know, it
gets so juicy, Oh my gosh. And then quote it
(26:48):
is your duty, Prince to instruct the high dignitaries of
your court, as well as the members of your academy
in gastronomy. This I can tell you because I have
heard some of them hold forth over a dish, and
I assure you that I have never heard such nonsense uttered.
This would be of no importance if such remarks did
(27:10):
not come out of private life. But your subjects do
not stop there. They want to make their ideas on
gluttony known to the general public, and to do this
write long articles, which I have the duty to tell
you are well designed to ridicule French cuisine. Who I mean,
(27:32):
I can feel the burn from here.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Yeah, it's walm.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
That is wow. So it was heated. It was heated,
and it is in this atmosphere. The Rufse Gastronomique was
first published in nineteen thirty eight, curated by Chef Mont
(28:01):
with doctor Gotstalk as the scientific collaborator. As you said, Lauren,
so yeah, Matigne kind of took matters into his own hands.
And yes, it was massive and featured not only a
putha of recipes, biographies, methods, tools, histories, histories of eating
(28:21):
of restaurants. It also featured cooking terms overviews of basic
ingredients and advice on storing them. It was just like no, this, yeah,
this is it.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
And like, knowing the history of this heated debate, it
really feels like this encyclopedia was a huge well, actually
in the face of people who don't know what they're
talking about, culinarily speaking like like oh, hey, you love
blah blanc, but you don't know how it's made. You know,
(28:55):
you know what boo I got you.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
You can look that up right here. You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
It's like, really, look at all of this experience and knowledge.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
You know, I know, I know that you're like struggling
with some of these technical definitions. So I just laid
it up for you. I just laid it out for you.
Glad to help, yes, to be fair. Montagnier also clearly
like loved the heck out of all of this subject matter,
and I think he really wanted to like document some
(29:30):
of this stuff that was really only available as like
oral history or industry information, and that he wanted to
share it. I think he started writing The Tone in
nineteen thirty two or thereabouts. He worked with the publisher
Additional l Rouse to put it out the company that
company had been formed back in the eighteen fifties by
one Pierre Larousse, a linguist who became known for publishing
(29:53):
like broad and detailed and often beautifully illustrated reference works.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I would also say in again, and this is just
coming from me, since it was such a time of
like shift and change, I get to understand the desire
to get this all written down or to have like
a reference work in the face of tumultuous time. So
what might have felt very much like everything's changing, So
(30:23):
it makes sense. The work notably had a preface by
Philia Gilbert Lauren mentioned earlier, who had previously been one
of the other chefs in this whole debate, but he
was more team Cure at this point. I'm telling you
there was drama. We had to pull back because it's
so fascinating and we had to stick to the subject.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
But yeah, a little bit of drama. There was a really.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Great piece written in French about all of this media drama,
and it was terrific.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It was it was A Scoffier also contributed a preface.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
What had happened with the prefaces is that A Scoffier
wrote one shortly before his death in nineteen thirty five,
having seen like a good chunk of the work in progress,
but probably very little of the actual finished product. And
because he talks about that in his preface, Gilbert wrote
an addition to sort of like round the whole thing out.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yes, And this book became an invaluable resource for those
looking to make the cut in traditional Western fine dining.
It was hugely influential. It has become a much loved
and referenced cookbook.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Or maybe not cookbook but reference work. Yes sure, totally
aced reference work.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yes yes.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Mondaignier died in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
New editions were published in nineteen sixty, nineteen sixty seven,
and nineteen eighty four under Robert J. Cortin, a food
writer and journalist, and this was seen by some as
the final blow in the Montaigne versus Cure debate.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Right because Courtin was apparently very much of the Cure
school of thought, like he wrote about taking back the
word gastronome.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
He was that kind of guy.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
So it was like, oh, oh, Cure won that one,
Sorry about it.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Montagner.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
At any rate, he was also in his thirties during
German occupation of France. During World War Two, a Nazi
sympathizer and collaborator. Yeah, he got sent into prison about
that after the war, which is great. But then after
he was released basically got away with like a successful
multi decade food writing career without anyone really knowing anything
(32:38):
about his past, which is less great. A lot of
this came out in an obituary about him when he
died in nineteen ninety eight, So an obituary this is
also a lot of drama. Yes, wow, And I'm like,
whoa screw that guy?
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, I went directly.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
He like just pivoted from being like, well, I'm going
to write all these really antisemitic things.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
To uh, yeah, food.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I guess that's not going to get me sent to
prison again.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Right cool?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Anyway again, rabbit holes, y'all?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Anyway? Uh okay.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
The nineteen sixty revision, called Nouveaux disgastronomik uh brought in
new material about mid century cooking technologies like deep freezing
and freeze drying, also contemporary understandings of dietary science, some
more information on like French and other wines, what and
like various food and wine associations that had come up
(33:43):
since the you know, nineteen thirties.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
The nineteen eighty four revision was another big one, with.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
New entries reflecting nouvelle cuisine and like various new and
non French things like the banana split, kiwis, spring rolls,
food additives, microwave ovens.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Whoa Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
The first edition in English was published in nineteen sixty one.
It was an adaptation of the original from thirty eight.
Apparently it was the work of like twenty culinary experts
over three years to wrangle the translation. These English translations
have also gone through edits for clarity for like American
(34:26):
versus British English readers. Yeah, we got a version of
the nineteen sixty fourteen revision by nineteen seventy seven. That's
the one I inherited from my dad. The eighty four
translation came through a bit quicker landing in English just
four years after it was published, motivated by the fiftieth
anniversary of the original publication.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And in nineteen ninety six, renowned chef Joel rubouchonp kicked
off something of a renaissance for Gashonomik. At the time,
Rubuchamp was the chair of a committee for Larousse, and
he signed on to take over the curatorship of Larousse.
From there, the encyclopedias opened up to become more international.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, that one was translated into English by two thousand
and one, and Robachon was perhaps a more Montaignier appropriate.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Choice for curator. He was right. He was a chef.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Like his first his first restaurant got three Michelin stars
within like three years. Like he was a very chef
ley chef.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
So yeah, chevley chef. The two thousand and seven edition
was released under the name Grand Larousse Gastronomique from Robachon
and his committee, several members at the time were powerhouses
of French cuisine.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, really illustrious committee. We got that
one in two thousand and nine. It had an additional
eighty five biographies of chefs, nine hundred new photographs, a
total of three eight hundred recipes, and apparently they mucked
about a bit with the way that entries were organized.
I don't know the most recent addition only in French
thus far, I think is from twenty seventeen. Rubbichem passed
(36:12):
away in twenty eighteen, so I'm not positive of his
total influence on that one. But yeah, the committee committee
still stands. And you know, Montagnier has not been as
remembered as some of his like rock star contemporaries, but
he's not forgotten small things like in twenty fourteen, Carcassone
(36:33):
named their fresh market after him. There are cooking prizes
and gastronomy clubs named after him. After he passed. A
group of friends, friends, perhaps in quotation marks Yell decide
founded this organization for culinary professionals and passionate amateurs that
they named after him. The idea is that the gastronomes,
(36:57):
if you will, get to participate in like educational events
and promote castronomy to the public, while the professionals benefit
from the networking and the publicity. Yeah and yeah, that's
kind of the history of the Luska Soronomique so far.
(37:19):
I'd like to leave y'all though, with the opening of
the preface from Escolfaier to bring it full circle.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Yeah, he wrote.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
The history of the table of a nation is a
reflection of the civilization of that nation, to show the
changes in the order and serving of meals from century
to century, To describe and comment on the progress a
French cuisine, is to paint a picture of the many
stages through which a nation has evolved since the distant
times when as a weak tribe, men lived in dark caves,
(37:51):
eating wild roots, raw fish, and the still pulsating flesh
of animals killed with the spear.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
That's more intense.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Gets intense there, Yeah, yeah, I thought, right, Yeah, it
starts off real soft.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
But wow, I.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Like it though, right, yeah, and it is right like,
that's that's the whole reason why all of this is cool.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
That's why we do the show.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Heck, you know, yeah, I don't know if Montaignier would
like us.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
No, probably not, well, probably not.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Hey, we try to not be ignorant.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
We try to read up on stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Okay, we try very hard, and we.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Do not presume to know more than chefs or anyone really.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Absolutely not, absolutely not. Well, this was a really fun, interesting,
strange one. As we've said, we were kind of limited
to what we could find in English or could translate
to English. So if anybody has any resources more information
about this, we would love that. And if you have
(39:01):
a copy, oh, we love seeing the reference books, the
cookbooks that you all.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Have, If you have a favorite passage, if you have
a story about it, Yeah, we would love We would
love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yes, but I think that's what we have to say
about Laruese gastronomik for now.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yes, we do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with the smooth big book. Oh big book
made me a little nervous to see it, to be honest. Yep, yep, yep,
(40:08):
Aaron wrote. Last summer, I listened to the semi fictional
Foods Little House episode and immediately knew I had to
tell you about the cookbook sitting on my bookshelf with
dog eared pages marking the recipes I have made, including
molasses on snow candy. Every time snow was in the forecast,
which is not all that often in Virginia, I made
(40:28):
sure we had molasses on hand to make Laura's jawbreaking
dental dental filling pulling treat. I don't think I ever
ate more than one piece, and it was always a mess,
but a tradition I have now passed down on to
my kids. Molasses aside my strongest association with the Little
House series is Laura's wedding cake, which I literally begged
(40:52):
my mom to help me make for my twelfth birthday
in nineteen ninety six. The introduction to the recipe set,
remember that this cake comes from the days before egg
beaters and cake flour. We ask that you beat the
whites by hand, not only to know what Laura felt,
but because the resulting texture will be different from that
(41:13):
of machine whipped whites. The recipe then instructs in regard
to blending the sugar into the butter, quote, this will
be hard work, best done at arm's length or in
the lap. And later on beating the egg whites. Quote,
this will take about ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Yep, ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
That's it. Yep.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Oh my poor mom and I followed the recipe to
a tea. We both mixed that damn cake batter until
our arms about fell off, but I was happy to
have felt the way Laura did in the books, with
a real pioneer experience. Finally, after Happy Birthday was sung,
it was time to reap the reward of all that
(41:56):
hard work, and I was crushed.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
The cake was truly awful, like a hard bland rock.
My mom reminded me that long ago, sugar ratios and
cakes were not what they are nowadays, and I don't
know that our weak modern arms were up to the
whipping task either. I don't think anyone finished even a
(42:22):
single slice. I knew there was surely photographic evidence of
this cake, and I couldn't possibly write this email to
you without it. Thus it took me an entire year
to organize decades of family photos to find it, attached
to a picture of me smiling with the offending cake
moments before heartbreak was realized. I have also included the
(42:46):
recipe from the cookbook. Should you feel masochistic enough to
try it yourself, Oh dear, oh oh wow.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
See this right here is why I love and hate
cooking and like equal measure. Yes, it just it stresses
me out because I'm like, is this actually gonna work?
Am I gonna be left with anything vaguely edible at
the end of this hard labor.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Especially after there's something like a birthday cake where it's
like the presentation you can't have a piece missing, so
you can't try it right, So the anticipation of like
what if it's terrible? Yeah, can be overwhelming, and then
if it is terrible and yeah, no one can eat
(43:38):
a slice.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I mean at that point that's kind of funny. I
hope I know that it was funny sooner than later.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Agreed. Agreed. And I also have to say, like now,
as an adult, unless I was doing a specific project,
I would never do this, But as a kid, I can.
I can see the allure of like I'm gonna do
it like.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Waura, you're your own.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Oh absolutely, I would have been so into that at
the age of twelve.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yes, me too, so I it doesn't sound like you do,
but I hope you don't blame yourself. I'm glad it
sounds like you've moved on from the heartbreak. Thanks for
finding the picture and sending their rest.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
We love it.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Oh goodness, Rose wrote, it's been ages. Loving the show
always a bright spot in my busy day, and I
always try to slow down and savor it. Ah, that's
for you, Annie. I had to stop and write in
when you brought up NOTT. Though I've traveled to and
lived in Japan frequently for the past twenty four years,
like many other foreigners, I was quickly introduced at NATO
(44:51):
and I was not a fan. I didn't mind the taste,
but the slimy texture, which the Japanese fondly called nibba neba,
was downright on palatable to me. Neba neaba foods also
include raw okra, raw eggs, mozuku, seaweed, and grated mountain
yam called yamino are other popular naba neba foods and
(45:12):
can often be layered on top of each other as
a nibaeba parfe for the ultimate slime experience. Fast forward
to twenty eleven and I had become an elementary ESL
teacher for a school district in Ichi Prefecture. Part of
my duties every day was to have school lunch with
one of my classes. The most popular lunch by far
(45:32):
was the one pictured below. It consisted of a bowl
of rice, a packet of nor sheets, soup of the day.
This one was a porcacho miso soup, So damn good
veg of the day. This happens to be sauted cabbage,
fried tofu and baby tiny fish and a big ol'd
PLoP of nut though with teeny tiny bits of white
American cheese cut up into it, plus milk. Please note
(45:55):
that this is the smallest amount of Nato I was
permitted to get. Meanwhile, the children would lose their damn
minds over this lunch and fight to see who would
get the largest piles of nato and cheese, often going
back for seconds and thirds, and it was the only
meal the kids would consistently demolish. Now, it would be
(46:16):
just fine if this meal showed up once a month
or so here and there at a school. The thing
is I was a rotating teacher. I visited the same
five schools every week, and somehow I ended up with
three to four days of the same Nato lunch one
week every month. As eating lunch was an official part
of my job, I had to eat it. Over time,
(46:39):
I kind of got into it. It's typically made little
hand rolls, but I tended to pile the nato on
the rice, then crush and sprinkle the ore on top.
Fast forward to modern times. I still eat Nato my
whole life. I've had gallbladder issues. By no means am
I a doctor or am I giving medical advice. But
I found when my gallbladder acts up, that the sliminess
(47:00):
of foods like nat though has a soothing effect. I
now eat not so frequently for the taste and because
it makes me feel good. Below in the second photo
is a typical breakfast or light lunch consisting of bread
da jore. Typically dark rye or pumper nickel goes well
with the funky na though flavors cream cheese. The rich
taniness is a good counterbalance to the earthy not though,
(47:21):
and the rye or pumper nickel. Cucumber crunchy and fresh
provide some moisture to the dry bread. Spicy fricake for
extra texture and flavor, and then green onion just love them. Finally,
I wanted to say I've never heard or seen anyone
warm up not though before eating it. It is often
sold frozen and needs to be thawed before using. I
(47:44):
could see microwaving it if it was frozen. That is
probably what I was talking about. Apologies if I misspoke
on that one. Yeah, yeah, I'm still looking out and
I have not had any look.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
But I have to say this all sounds really good to.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
It does.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Oh yeah, all of that sounds really right, especially your
like modern take on like a breakfast or light lunch
there that although both of them sound I've never had
nato served with cheese and now I'm fascinated by this idea.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yes, oh well, Lauren, we have quite the list of
male coming up for you. I'm excited to see it,
all right, Yeah, I will.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Say, Annie, I'm pretty sure that it's a menu item
at Roussan's, which is a local Atlanta Japanese weird place.
So I'm pretty sure you can get it from there.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
I could, I could.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
I might be wrong, that's all right, I'll check into Okay, Yeah,
the next time that I come across it, I will
definitely tell.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
You, yes, please. Do I have to say that the
white American cheese, right, that's what gets me, the cheese, Okay, Okay. Also,
and this could just be me coming from my American perspective,
but that sounds way better than the lunches I was
(49:17):
getting my school.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Yeah, American school lunches are a particular type of pain.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Yeah, at least I can't say for everyone, but at
my school we weren't. That sounds much better than what
we were get. Yeah, and at least like there was
a vegetable that seems cool. That does seem really cool? Uh? Yeah,
(49:50):
we did do an episode on school lunches, right, did we? Well? Anyway,
we all.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Talked about it.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
I think that, yeah, for sure we should do one
because that is fascinating and the in terms of the
United States mostly depressing topic.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
But yes, but yeah, there was a way to skirt
around having a vegetable in a United States school.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
Yeah, thanks Reagan, let's go. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Anyway, but I do love how you also kind of
got cursed into this, always having it, and now you
like it.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
It worked out, it worked out.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
Well. Thank you so much to both of these listeners
for writing in. If you would like to try to
as you can or emails hello at saborpod dot com,
and we're also.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
On social media.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saber pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Save is production of by Heart Radio. For more podcasts
to my heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or where you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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