Gerald Durrell - The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

“An admirable choice, monsieur ,” he said, getting to his feet. “Now, please help yourself to more wine. I will just tell my wife of your wishes and then I will return and tell you the story of how we got our star.”

He went off into the hotel and presently reappeared with a dish of olives and some small but delicious cheese puffs.

“Yes, monsieur ,” he said thoughtfully, easing himself into the chair and taking a sip of wine, slouching easily in the attitude of the professional raconteur. “The fact that we have a star is, to my mind, a small miracle as I am sure you will agree when I tell you the full story. This all happened, of course, before the fourteen-eighteen war, for as you will have discerned, although I aim a fine upstanding man, I am no longer in the first flush of youth.

“In those days I was something of an artist, albeit an unsuccessful one. I still dabble a bit and do the odd oil or watercolour, but I found my true artistic métier was in the kitchen. However, in those days, as I say, I tried to earn a few francs by doing the odd portrait and pictures of people’s homes. In this way I earned a rather uneven living, but I enjoyed myself tramping through France and if no one bought my pictures I did whatever job was offered. I have mended roads, picked grapes and cherries and even been, for a short time, a snail farmer.

“Well, one spring in just such a season as this, my wanderings led me to this village. As you may imagine the countryside was looking magnificent and I was captivated by the colours and the scenery. I decided that if I could stay in this vicinity for a while I would be able to paint some really remarkable pictures. But, as was often the case with me, I had no money, so I had to set about looking for a job. As you may well believe in a village of this size jobs were as rare as a goose with five livers.”

He sighed and sipped his wine musingly. “Well,” he continued eventually, “there was a man in the village who had taken a fancy to me and he spoke to the proprietor of this hotel, saying what a fine fellow I was and asking him if he would consider giving me a job in the kitchens as a skivvy. The owner’s name was Jean Jacques Morceau, a strange, earnest man, short and fat and much given to hysteria over small events so that you sometimes thought him more like an old maid than a man. Nevertheless, monsieur , Morceau cooked like an angel. I do assure you that some of his inventions tasted as though they had been transported straight down from Paradise by kind permission of Le bon Dieu.

“His pastry was as light as cobwebs; his sauces burnt their way delicately into the very fabric of your mouth so that you thought you had been eating all the most fragrant flowers of the world. His omelette of crayfish tails and finely chopped fennel and walnuts was such a wonderful creation that I have seen men with tears of emotion running down their cheeks as they ate one. He had a white wine sauce in which he would simmer oysters and asparagus tips so that the result was so ambrosial that, if you were a person of fine sensibility and a delicate constitution, you could well faint with pleasure at the first mouthful. He had a way of stuffing wild duck with rice, pine nuts and white truffles soaked in brandy that created a flavour in your mouth as though a whole orchestra was playing: your palate rang with the music of the food. In short, monsieur , Jean Jacques Morceau was a gastronomic genius, a Leonardo da Vinci of the table, a Rembrandt of the taste buds, a veritable Shakespeare of the cuisine.”

The old man paused, took a sip of wine, popped an olive into his mouth and delicately spat the pip into an adjacent flower-bed.

“He also had a daughter, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life, monsieur , and really this was the cause of all the trouble, for, having laid eyes on her, I had eyes for no other women. She was incomparable. I, who had taken my pleasures with women in a light-hearted way (and I will not conceal from you that I liked the opposite sex and indeed had considerable success with them); I, who had sworn that I would never marry; I, the gay here-today-gone-tomorrow lover; I fell so deeply in love that I behaved like a calf that has lost its mother, running about like a headless chicken, carrying on like a dog betrayed by aniseed. There was nothing, not even murder, that I would not have done to marry that girl.”

He gave a great, heartfelt sigh, raised his eyes to heaven at his ancient folly, and took another drink. “I worked here for a year and with each of the 365 days I grew more deeply in love. What was even more extraordinary, the girl grew to love me. However, she was an only child, you understand, and so stood to inherit this hotel. Her father viewed all suitors with grave suspicion, since he felt they might well want to marry the hotel rather than the girl, in spite of her undoubted beauty. Therefore it was not surprising that we both knew that any attempt on my part to ask for her hand in marriage would be immediately misconstrued.

“We discussed it at great length, the girl and I, and we knew that to be successful we should have to move with great caution. It was then that I had my brilliant idea; at least, I thought it was brilliant at the time, but it turned out to be much more complicated than I had imagined.”

He lit a cigarette as yellow as mustard and poured out some more wine. “At that time, monsieur , the Michelin tyre company had just started issuing its now world-famous Guide and awarding stars for distinguished tables. As you know the Michelin man comes in secret to your hotel or restaurant and samples your cuisine. Only when this has been done are you aware that you have been tested, so, you understand, it is necessary for you to keep up the same standard at all times, for you are never sure when a Michelin man is lurking among your customers.

“Now Jean Jacques Morceau knew that he cooked like an angel but he also felt that his hotel was a little bit too distant from the great highways to attract the attention of a Michelin man. To know that he should be awarded a star and yet to be convinced that he would never obtain one, drove the poor man nearly crazy. He could talk of nothing else. It became a grand obsession that ruled his whole life. At the mere mention of the Michelin Guide he would fly into an hysterical rage and start throwing things. It is true, monsieur , with my own eyes I saw him throw a Bombe Surprise and a Turkey en Cocotte at the kitchen wall. It was terrible for him to have an all-consuming passion like that, but it served my purpose admirably. You see I told him that I had heard from my uncle (in the strictest confidence, of course) that he had just been appointed as a Michelin man.”

“And had your uncle been appointed?” I asked.

The old man laid a forefinger alongside his nose and closed one eye.

“Of course not,” he said, “in fact I had no uncle.”

“Then what was the point?” I asked, puzzled.

“Wait, monsieur , and I will unfold my whole plan to you. Naturally, when I told Morceau this he got wild with excitement, as I knew he would, and did his best to persuade me to get my uncle to come and stay. At first I said that it would be unethical and I could not possibly expect my uncle to do anything like that. This went on for a week or so, with Morceau doing his best to get me to change my mind. Then, when I had driven him to a near frenzy, I weakened. I said that, even if I did get my uncle down, I could not promise that he would award the hotel a star. Morceau said he quite understood this but that all he wanted was the chance to show his prowess in the kitchen. I expressed doubt about the whole project and kept him on tenterhooks for another few days. Then I said that I was in love with his daughter and she with me and if I agreed to get my uncle down he would have to agree to our getting betrothed. As you may imagine, this threw him into an hysterical fury. A newly made Tarte aux Pommes missed me by a hair’s breadth, and I did not dare venture into the kitchen for the rest of that day. However, as I had hoped, his obsession with the star was too strong and the following day and with the utmost reluctance he agreed to us getting engaged. The day after I put the engagement ring on her finger I went up to Paris to see my uncle.”