Gerald Durrell - The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

But in addition to this almost Scotland Yard dossier on each place the Mich does something more; it tells you about food. France is an eminently sensible country where people take food seriously as an art form, which indeed the cooking and presentation of food is; an art form which has, unfortunately, become almost extinct in Britain. In France the choice of a dish is made with the same care as you would employ in choosing a wife, and in some cases even greater. Therefore the Mich has printed in its margins against the various restaurants certain symbols that guide and succour the person who takes food and its preparation seriously.

The first symbol is a small etching of crossed spoon and fork. One of these denotes a plain but adequate meal, two or three mean comfortable or very comfortable while four crossed spoons and forks mean the presentation is of exquisite excellence. After this the mind becomes bedazzled.

Four crossed spoons and forks accompanied by a star mean you will have an ambrosial meal in ideal circumstances and are on the first rungs of the gastronomic ladder that leads to that Paradise where you discover a place with four crossed spoons and forks and three stars. There are, however, only four of these in France . Getting three stars in the Mich is considerably more difficult than obtaining the Victoria Cross, the Croix de Guerre or the Purple Heart, and to get even one is an achievement that would make any serious chef die happy.

Once you have assessed the culinary worth of a place by the spoons, forks and stars in the margin you may then move on to something else which the Michelin company thoughtfully provides. Under each entry they list the specialities of the restaurant and the wines of which they are particularly proud. This means that — having chosen your place of refuge — you can then spend five minutes or so getting your taste buds overexcited by reading the list of specialities that are provided for your delectation, toying mentally with gratin of fresh-water crayfish tails, or turbot poached in cream, lobster soup, or a Charolais steak accompanied by cиpes , those marvellous wild mushrooms, black as sin, that look as though they should be witches’ umbrellas.

The Guide, therefore, is not merely a guide book, it is a gastronomic experience. Only once did I doubt this incomparable volume. Only once did I think — for a brief moment — that, in its zeal to leave no gastronomic stone unturned, the Mich might have overstepped the canons of good behaviour. This was some years ago when I was paying my annual pilgrimage to a small house I have in the South of France, to which I repair to try to pretend that Alexander Bell has never invented the telephone and to get some writing done.

That year Europe had crept out from under a warm, wet winter into a riotous, multicoloured fragrant spring. France, always one of the most beautiful of countries was, in consequence, like a magnificent piece of embroidery, ashine and aglitter with flowers so that the countryside was as ravishing and as multicoloured as a Fabergé Easter egg. It was the time of the mustard as I headed south and so the car drifted down country lanes that meandered through a landscape as yellow as a nest of canaries, a delicate but bold yellow. So enraptured was I at the flower-bedecked hedges and banks, the vast yellow fields of mustard, the tiled roofs of the cottages looking in the vivid spring sunshine as crisp as gingerbread, that I drove in a sort of daze.

At noon I stopped in a village that encompassed some fifty souls and bought for myself wine, a fresh loaf of brown bread, a fine, brave cheese and some fruit. Then I drove on until I found a gigantic field of mustard curving over the rolling hilts like a yellow carpet. Here I parked the car in the shade of some chestnut trees, took my provender and made my way into the delicate sea of yellow and green. I lay down among the fragile mustard plants and ate and drank, lapped in this sea of gold. Then, making up my mind that I must drive on, I fell deeply and peacefully asleep.

I awoke when the sun was getting low, slanting on to my bed of mustard, turning the pale yellow to old gold, and I realized I had driven without direction, slept far too long and now had not the faintest idea where I was. It was reaching that hour of the afternoon when all intelligent travellers on the French roads pull in to the side and start consulting their Michelins. But it was useless my doing this for I did not know where I was.

I got into the car and drove slowly along the road until, by good chance, I came upon a wagon piled high with fragrant cow manure being driven by a little man who looked like an animated walnut. With great good humour he reined in his two mammoth horses and showed me on the map exactly where I was, pointing out the very spot with a calloused forefinger brown with earth and sun. I thanked him and he clopped and jingled and creaked on his way, while I got out my Mich and started looking up every town and village in a thirty-mile radius. It was a fruitless task. Each one I looked up was treated frostily by the Mich and there was nothing of any gastronomic quality at all. I had apparently struck one of those curious blank spots in France where there was nothing — so to speak — Michelinable.

Then I spotted a village on the map some twenty kilometres away, but so tiny and remote I felt sure it would have nothing. I looked it up anyway since I was attracted by its name, Bois de Rossignol, the Nightingale Wood. To my astonishment the Mich informed me (almost quivering with delight) that the village boasted one tavern, “Le Petit Chanson” (which in view of the Nightingales struck me as being pleasantly apposite). Wonder of wonders, it not only had six rooms but baths, telephones, a garage, a red rocking chair for serenity and a “ jardin fleuri ”. In addition it had three crossed spoons and forks and a star. It closed for the winter but had reopened on this very day.

I read the description again, hardly believing my eyes, but there it was in black and white. Underneath the description of the amenities was the list of specialities. This riveted my attention for they would have done credit to a large hotel on the Côte d’Azur . The proprietor obviously made up his own names for his specialities, which argued a fine, free spirit. There were tails of fresh-water crayfish “in clouds of eggs”. There was beef in red wine, “For the Hunger of Theodore Pullini”. There was a “Tart of Wild Strawberries for the Delectation of Sophie Clemanceau”. I was enchanted and immediately made up my mind that I must, at all costs, stay at “Le Petit Chanson”. Slamming the Mich shut I started the car and drove with all speed to Bois de Rossignol, hoping to get there before all the other salivating gourmets on the roads should arrive before me and occupy all six rooms in the hotel.

The village, when I found it, was delightful. It consisted of some two dozen or so houses grouped amicably round a small, sunlit square, lined with huge plane trees that guarded a small and very beautiful fountain. One end of the square was dominated by a tiny and perfect little fifteenth-century church which raised an admonishing, slender spire to the gingerbread roofed houses around it. Every available space on window ledges on pavements and on the tops of walls was covered by regiments of flower pots, window boxes, tin cans and, in some cases wheel-barrows and old prams, all aglow and overflowing with spring flowers. I pulled up by a bench on which sat five old men, wizened, toothless, wrinkled as lizards, soaking up the evening sun, and asked them the way to “Le Petit Chanson”. Eagerly a chorus of quavering voices and a forest of gnarled hazel sticks pointed me through the village and out the other side. A few hundred yards along the road I came to a side-turning at which was a sign informing me that “Le Petit Chanson” lay to my left. The road was narrow and ran beside a baby river, green and silver in the sun, bounded on one side by woodland, and on the other by vineyards, the vines like black, many-branched arthritic candelabras each with a wig of new green leaves on top.