During these times, many of us would have been far happier as trout making occasional little jumps up above the water’s surface for the view of the carnage. Has my country become a pack of wild hogs bent on eating the world? Tune in to the end of this column. Certain members of my family, in the midst of the usual Nordic emotional squalor, used to say, “It’s always darkest before it gets darker.”
I recently drove from Montana to my cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on Route 2. The road is so pleasant I returned the same way. During the entirety of the five days of driving, I was able to get CBC on the radio and became quite concerned with what our media calls “our northern neighbor”—our media, those desperate schoolmarms of banality. CBC is a great deal more pungent than our own National Public Radio. It was fun to be transformed into an “alarmed citizen” of another country. I became angry at Canada’s own lust for conquest when I heard of MP Peter Goldring’s plan to annex the Turks and Caicos. CBC then segued to the difficulties in the beef industry, the embargo being an obvious vengeance move by the Bush cronies for Canada’s refusal to join the party in Iraq. Having recently read Slaughterhouse Blues: The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America by Stull, Schlosser, and Broadway, I found it hard to warm to the problems of the cattle raisers, though in truth the middlemen—processors and retailers—are the central malefactors. Ranchers are much like writers who are told to feel fortunate when they receive 10 percent of the gross for their efforts. All in all, though, I wondered if I should have joined in the singing of “O Canada” at a garden party at Margot Kidder’s on Canada Day evening in Livingston, Montana. I actually mouthed the words, not having a singing voice, rather owning one that resembles shoveling coal. Rosie Schuster seemed to have forgotten her own national anthem, doubtless an alcohol-related glitch or a politically related stance.
It is understandable indeed to drink the wine of forgetfulness. I’m somewhat of an expert in this area. How can one combat the feeling of helplessness in being mere photons within the berserk fate of nations? Some of us were not willing to accept that the French, Germans, and Canadians were collectively less intelligent than Texans. Often my rebellious nature is reduced to smoking in nonsmoking motel rooms, but recent events fueled my rage, which is that of a forest fire—and they are always described as “raging.”
So in May I took myself and my wallet to France in protest over being told by the media and government that I shouldn’t drink French wine. I wanted to encounter these “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” at close hand, though in truth I’ve made at least twenty trips to France and this one had the unpleasantness of a book tour.
But France! How I love even its occasionally caustic nastiness. At de Gaulle I wilt in relief to be temporarily out of the Holy Roman Empire (even Jesus has lately become an oil guy), though some of the wilting might be ascribed to the nice wines I drank en route on Air France. Due to the acutest claustrophobia, I have to sit up front. Many years ago when I sat in back, the sweat of my animal fears soaked through my new clothes. It is hellish to be a sensitive poet with partly canine genes.
To keep my rebellion aggressively fresh, I walked over to the lavish Bon Marché food court, luckily a scant block from my hotel, where I bought a smallish picnic brunch of several cheeses, a slab of foie gras, bread, and a couple of bottles of Gigondas, nothing fancy, though at the checkout line I trotted back for several varieties of herring to be safe. These picnics are a habit, and I have to eat everything because my room has no refrigerator. The wine will keep a couple of hours but not much longer. Because forests and greenswards are in short supply in Paris, I have my picnics in my room overlooking the garden of the Hôtel Matignon, where I watch birds cavort and also politicians doing extremely low-impact exercises. Michel Braudeau, the editor of La Nouvelle Revue Française, once told me that “it is unthinkable not to have a decent lunch,” but then I’m booked for seventeen dinners in a row, and I can no longer be absolutely free with my tummy twice a day. For a change I only drank one of the bottles of Gigondas before my après-flight nap. I very much wanted to say, “Give me freedom or give me death” while I drank the wine, but I’m superstitious enough not to taunt the gods who manage such things.
An attractive aspect of Paris is the freedom of the press. I’ve been told the press isn’t as free as it seems, but if you consider the many cities in America that have been reduced to a single newspaper that may not wish to quote you exactly, it is wonderful to shoot off your mouth without regard for propriety. For instance, years ago in Chicago I was asked for my feelings about the recent death of Nixon and I said that a wooden stake should be driven through his heart to make sure. The newspaper refused to quote this! In Paris, however, when I said that as a gourmand, I couldn’t be a politician because they regularly shit out of their mouths and that would taint my dining experiences, the newspaper quoted me in full.
You safe souls in a neutral country might wonder what it’s like to lead this life of foreign intrigue, fraught with danger and the tension of walking into the Select or Montparnasse and boldly ordering “un verre de Brouilly.” To work up an appetite, I walk relentlessly, picking out a pert bottom to follow though these young ladies walk so fast it’s a real workout. Soon enough, though, my thoughts naturally turn to jambon persillé.
Frequently in Paris I dine at L’Assiette on rue du Château. Alain Senderens of Lucas Carton is often there, and Catherine Deneuve, unlike her American counterparts, may be eating heartily in a corner. Years ago I took an actress-model to dinner in New York City, and she ate only a single oyster and a single shrimp on a paltry bed of arugula. Her meal cost me forty-two bucks, an unlucky number, and she put ice in her Meursault. On this current imperiled trip, I had fresh hand-caught turbot two evenings in a row with a group of wine-drinking French leftists. I always have a secret side dish of potatoes Parmentier in which is hidden a large artisanal boudin noir. As a chain-smoking heavy wine drinker, I am not concerned with such trifles as vache folle (mad cow disease). In Burgundy, for instance, my breakfasts always include five different kinds of fromage de tête from the butcher shop of M. Dussert in Arleuf. A glass or two of Collioure or Domaine Tempier Bandol defends my body from viral intruders.
Two and a half weeks in France went swiftly, with my third eye ever alert (I actually have only one) and trained from my time as a private detective in Key West. I admit most of those who followed me merely wanted a book autograph, but then there seemed to me an uncommon number of men in their thirties in butch haircuts and wearing Haspel drip-dry suits, a virtual CIA uniform.
Unlike life herself the best came last. After an exhausting time at the Palace Hotel in Lausanne (Bush himself was at a meeting at the far end of Lac Léman but chances are he wasn’t following me) where I had a wonderful goat stew (cabri) with hot peppers, I went to Burgundy for a few days of restful serious eating. In Burgundy I stay with my friends Gérard Oberlé and Gilles Brézol, who are renowned left-wing trenchermen. They also have twenty-five thousand books in their manoir so that I have something to read. More important, they are close friends of Marc Meneau, who owns L’Espérance in Vézelay, my favorite restaurant in France. Marc had planned a special lunch to help us recover from the collective brutality of life in our time. Such a meal requires a lengthy period at the table and this one took six hours during which all world problems were gracefully resolved. My French is poor, which enabled me to eat more than the others. Marc had butchered a little cul noir, a local black-assed piglet, which set a theme for the lunch. We began with some amusettes: choux au boudin noir jus de pomme, melon en gelée à l’anis, oreille de porc braisée aux fèves. Everyone seems to understand that eating pigs’ ears restores morale. We drank a Bourgogne Vézelay La Vigne Blanche bottled by Meneau, also a Sancerre Le Chêne Marchand 1990 by Lucien Crochet.
Now it was time to get serious. Next came gelée d’homard aux filets de sole en chaud froid et petits pois, after which there was tête de porc cul noir à la broche vol-au-vent aux pieds de porc et herbes du jardin. I began to flag a bit but Didier Dagueneau’s Pouilly-Fumé Silex restored me, along with a Château Montrose Grand Cru Classé de Saint-Estèphe 1986. Marc knew I was missing morel mushroom season back home, so was kind enough to prepare a paume de ris de veau rôtie aux morilles galette de pomme de terre au jus de morille. I ruined an eight-dollar shirt when I punctured the faux potato, and morel juice squirted out with enormous force. I slowed down with the many desserts and cheeses, taking a thirty-yard walk in the garden. I recall that there was a three-year-old cantal made from the milk of cows with lyre-shaped horns (poetry!), two more wines, and a goblet of ancient Calvados. When we got back to the manoir in the twilight, we decided against preparing any supper.
I promised at the outset of this column to tell you what the United States is going to do. It turns out it’s too expensive for us to eat the whole world. The total check for the Iraq war and restoration will be six hundred billion dollars. If only this much money had been spent on French wines for our entire populace, there never would have been a war, only well-oiled diplomacy.