The Hosts
Luncheon
Monday Seventeenth November
of the Third Year
of the Twenty-First Century
•
The great authors and great cooks
who have inspired us in the realization of this menu
Le Maréchal de Richelieu
Nicolas de Bonnefons
Pierre de Lune
Massialot
La Varenne (Le Cuisinier Français)
Marin (Dons de Comus)
Grimod de la Reynière (Almanach des Gourmands)
Brillat-Savarin (Physiologie du Goût)
Mercier (Tableau de Paris)
La Chapelle (La Cuisine Moderne)
Menon
Carême
•
The Principal Works
1654 Les Délices de la Campagne Bonnefons
1674 L’art de Bien Traiter Le Sieur Robert
1662 Le Nouveau et Parfait Maître d’Hotel Pierre de Lune, écuyer de cuisine du duc de Rohan
1663
1691 L’école Parfaite des Officiers de Bouche Anonyme
1691 Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois Massialot
1651 Le Cuisinier Français La Varenne, écuyer du Marquis d’Uxelles
1733 Le Cuisinier Moderne Vincent La Chapelle (Major work)
1782 Tableau de Paris Louis-Sébastien Mercier
1739 Dons de Comus ou les Delices de la Table François Marin
1742 Nouveau Traité de la Cuisine Menon
1745 La Cuisinière Bourgeoise Menon
1755 Les Soupers de la Cour Menon
1740 Le Cuisinier Gascon Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Prince de Dombes
1808 Manuel des Amphitryons Grimod de la Reynière
1823 La Physiologie du Goût Brillat-Savarin
•
Marc Meneau and Françoise Meneau
Vincent David et Pierre Rouvier, Christophe Baillon, Julien Viollet, Laure Trèche, Stephane Barre, Régis Baillot, Jean-Baptiste Marin, Virginie Rota, Estelle Bachelet, Jonathan Ganirenq, David Sarrazin, Delphine Paoli, Jeremy Barnard, Thomas Grino, Martial Facchinetti, Vanessa Lagano, Damien B., Tristan Ringenbach, Pierre Voisine, Cécile Annet, Ryoji Usukie, Emeric Chambon, Adeline Bouvier, Bruno Leroux, Jean-Charles Boulmier, Brahim Kanouté, Christophe Chalon, Ludivine Maes, Stephane Romeu, Katia Chevalier, Ludovic Piganiol, Noémie Alves, Brice Bechard, Jean Claude Royer, Marie-Lyne Boivin, Evelyne Michel
Gheorghe Varga, Jacqueline Mestre
have put all of their passion into preparing this meal for you.
•
A Cook:
This is a man capable of inventing that
which you’ve never eaten anywhere else.
Not any man can be all together at once
Great at the oven
Great on the stove
And great at the spit.
Grimod de la Reynière
•
1st Service
Oils
(Nicolas de Bonnefons)
Clear soup of poultry
(rice–diced vegetables–crayfish)
(Marc Meneau)
Sauté of leeks and potatoes
(tartines of foie gras–truffles–lard)
Soups
(La Chapelle)
Velvety cream of squab with cucumbers
(cucumbers–cock crest fritters)
(Menon)
Crayfish bisque in feuilletage
In Les Delices de la Campagne, the Soup of Health is a conventional affair well supplemented with decent meat and reduced with a little broth. One made of cabbage would provide the essence of cabbage.
Nicolas de Bonnefons
Hors d’Oeuvres
(Menon)
Oysters on Camembert toast
(only the cream of Camembert is considered)
(Marin)
Chilled jellied loaf of poultry on sorrel cream
(chicken meat and livers poached in clear broth)
(Massialot)
Fresh Baltic herring with mayonnaise
(potatoes dressed in mayonnaise and
marinated fillets of fresh herring)
•
(Marin)
Tarte of calf’s brains with shelled peas
(morsels of brain breaded with parsley
and sautéed)
Louis XV’s omelet with sea urchin
(Louis XV very much loved to cook and
would make certain dishes of his own,
this omelet amongst them.)
(Marin)
Fillets of sole. Champagne sauce
(accompanied by monkfish livers)
Pike spiked with parsley and oven-roasted
In the last century considerable amounts of meat were served in pyramids. Small plates which cost ten times as much as a large one were not yet known. You couldn’t eat delicately for another half century.
Mercier, Tableau de Paris, 1786
•
2nd Service
(La Chapelle)
Brill served warm in a fennel stock
(oven-glazed brill–fennel cream with
anchovies–roasted currants)
Stew of suckling pig
(slow-cooked in red wine, thickened
with its blood–onions–bacon)
Warm terrine of hare with preserved plums
(served in its own cooking juices)
Poached eel
(with chicken wing tips, testicles,
tarragon butter)
Glazed partridge breasts
Savory of eggs poached with Chimay ale
Thin layers (mille-feuille) of puff pastry
sandwiched with sardines and leeks
The guy who works in the “new” style
Is preferable to the one who is completely out-of-date.
Menon
•
Between the second and third services,
a moment of rest in the salon,
where you may languish and sample your choice
of raviolis with carrots and cumin,
of thick slices of Noirs eggs,
of puff pastry with squab hearts.
A magnificent cider will refresh your palates
and disperse the first “fog.”
•
3rd Service
(Massialot)
Casserole of round slices of veal in the manner of Maxarine
(light stew of veal breast and cooked puree of
ham with oysters covered in the casserole
with pastry decorated as bay leaves)
Gratin of beef cheeks thinly sliced
(La Varenne)
Gray squab roasted with strands of parsley
(boned, stuffed with sweetbreads, squab
liver–scallions–wrapped with sprigs
of parsley, spit-roasted)
(Prince des Dombes)
Wild duck with black olives and
orange zest
Bush of crayfish and little slabs of
grilled goose liver
Terrine of the tips of calf’s ear
(Prince des Dombes)
Hare “in a bag” (en Musette)
and Port wine
(hare cooked in a calf’s bladder with Port)
Crispy breaded asparagus
(asparagus partly dipped in batter
and fried–sauce)
Light sponge cake with fruit preserve
Cucumber stewed in wine
•
Cordon Bleu: Term destined in culinary literature reserved for a simplified cuisine, placed within reach of all by the labors of the mother or father of the family. The Cordon Bleu was the insignia of the Knights of the Sacred Spirit. By what “miracle” does this word slip toward very skilled male and female cooks?
J. F. Revel
It is the moment of transition
from the salty to the sweet,
or from cooks to the pastry chef.
Swirl of turnip preserved in sweetened wine
radish preserved in vinegar
Warm salad with almonds
Cream of grilled pistachios
Stuffed cakes–Meringues–Macaroons–Chocolate “cigarettes”
Nothing arouses me but Taste.
Prince des Dombes
•
4th Service
Rosette of almond milk with almonds
Soft cheese of fresh cream with quince jelly
Rice whipped with sweetened egg whites and lemon peel
Ring-shaped cake (Savarin) flamed with rum
and served with preserved pineapple
Little molds of ice cream
Towering structure of every fruit imaginable in every manner imaginable
Diderot recounted to Sophie Volland
a meal he had made in the countryside
at the house of the fabulously wealthy Baron of Holbach.
“After lunch,” he said, “one takes a little walk
or one digests, if it’s even possible.”
•
Champagne Krug Grande Cuvée in Magnum
Pouilly Fumé 1999 Pur Sang (Didier Dagueneau)
Chablis Les Close 1999 in Magnum (Jean Marie Raveneau)
Montrachet 1989 (Château de Beaune)
Morgon 2001 (Marcel Lapierre)
Volnay Champans 1969 (Hubert de Montille)
Cider l’Argelette 1997 (Eric Bordelet)
Musigny 1990 in Magnum (Jacques Priour)
Château Latour 1989 in Magnum
Côte-Rotie 2000 (Jamet)
Wattwiller 2003 in half bottle
Vin de Constance 1998
Condrieu 2002 Les Ayguets (Yves Cuilleron)
Tokajis Aszu 6 Puttonyos 1983 (Château de Sárospatak)