Gerald Durrell - The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

“But you said you hadn’t an uncle,” I protested.

“No, monsieur , I had no real uncle, but I had a substitute one, an old friend of mine called Albert Henri Périgord. He was the black sheep of a well-to-do family and he lived in a garret on the left bank of the Seine, painting a little, swindling a little and generally living on his wits. He had special qualities which I needed: he was of a very aristocratic and haughty mien, he knew a lot about food and wine which he had learnt from his father who was something of a gourmet, and lastly, he was enormously fat — in a way that you would expect a Michelin man to be — and could eat and drink more than any other human being I had met in my life. He engulfed food, monsieur , as a whale engulfs little shrimps, or so I am told.

“I went to Paris, called at the garret of Albert Henri and found him, as usual, without a sou to his name and (since he always was) ravenously hungry. I took him out to dinner and unfolded my plan to him. I said that I wanted him to come down here for a week, posing as my uncle, and then to take his leave and return to Paris . There he would write a polite note to Morceau saying that he would do what he could about a star but could promise nothing, as the final decision was not his: he could merely recommend.

“Needless to say Albert Henri was enchanted by the idea of a trip to the country and a week of eating as much as he could want, prepared by a culinary genius such as Morceau. I sent a telegram to Morceau telling him my uncle was coming down for a week and then Albert Henri and I went down to the Flea Market and got him some respectable second-hand clothes, for he had to look like a man of substance. Mind you, it was not easy, monsieur, for Albert Henri must have weighed every gramme of a hundred kilos. But at length we managed to fit him out with something and this, combined with his aristocratic bearing, made him look every millimetre the Michelin man he was supposed to be.

“We finally arrived down here to find my future father-in-law in a state of hysterical delight. He treated Albert Henri as if he were Royalty. I had warned Morceau, of course, that he was at no time to mention to my uncle that he knew he was a Michelin man, and I had warned Albert Henri not to divulge this information to Morceau.

“To see them together, monsieur , was a delight: the more Morceau fawned on Albert Henri the more haughty and regal did Albert Henri become, and the more regal he became the more Morceau fawned on him. My future father-in-law had gone to unprecedented lengths to ensure success. The kitchen had been scrubbed until every copper pot and pan shone like a harvest moon. The larder was stuffed to capacity with every sort of fruit and vegetable, every form of meat and game. More, in case he might suddenly find that he did not have the necessary ingredients to satisfy the ‘Michelin man’s’ every whim, my future father-in-law had taken the unprecedented and expensive step of having a car and a chauffeur at the ready so that they could dash, post-haste, into the nearest big town to procure whatever it was that this exalted guest might demand.”

The old man paused and chuckled reminiscently as he sipped his wine. “Never have I seen such cooking, monsieur, and never have I seen such eating. Morceau’s genius was in full flower, and the dishes that flowed from the kitchen were more complicated, more beautifully balanced, more delicious in aroma, texture, than anything that he had ever produced before. Of course, this made Albert Henri’s genius for over-eating come to fruition. They vied with each other, monsieur , like two armies fighting for supremacy. As the dishes became more and more ambrosial Albert Henri would order more and more dishes for each meal, until he was having six and seven courses, not counting the sweet and cheese, of course.

“If the eating was a Herculean task, washed down by rivers of wine, the preparing of the food was also a mammoth undertaking. Never have I worked so hard, in spite of the fact that we had engaged three temporary skivvies to do the vegetables and so forth. Morceau was like a man demented: he flung himself around the kitchen like a Dervish, screaming instructions, chopping, stirring, tasting and occasionally running, panting, into the dining-room to watch Albert Henri stuffing food into himself in such prodigious quantities that one could hardly believe one’s eyes. A word of praise from Albert Henri and Morceau would go purple with pleasure and gallop back to the kitchen to fling himself with renewed enthusiasm into the task of creating another dish more splendid than the last.

“I assure you, monsieur, that when he cooked his version of Liиvre Royale — and it took two days in the making — the aroma was such that they could smell it down in the village and all the villagers, to a man, trooped out here just to stand in the garden so that they could have the privilege of simply smelling the dish. It was when all this activity was at its height, when Albert Henri’s appetite appeared to get more gargantuan with each meal that he (Just having consumed some comfit of goose of incredible richness and fragrance) rose to his feet to toast the blushing Morceau. . . . and dropped dead.”

The old man sat back and watched my expression with satisfaction.

“Great heavens!” I exclaimed. “What did you do?”

The Patron looked grave and stroked his chin.

“I will not conceal from you the gravity of the situation, monsieur ,” he said. “Look at all the ramifications. If a doctor was called in it would lead to the eventual discovery that Albert Henri was not a Michelin man, and this might lead to Morceau putting an end to my engagement with his daughter, for in those days children obeyed their parents, especially the girls. This I could not allow. Fortunately at the moment when Albert Henri crashed to the floor there was only my future father-in-law and myself in the room. I had to think fast. Needless to say, Morceau had gone into a sort of hysterical decline when he discovered that Albert Henri was dead and so were his chances of getting a star. To get him in the right mood I pointed out the full horror of the situation: he had, with his culinary art, actually killed a Michelin man. If he had any hopes of ever getting a mention in the Michelin Guide, let alone getting a star, this dreadful fact must be kept from the Michelin company at all costs.

“Even in the condition he was in, weeping hysterically, he saw the wisdom of my words. What, he implored me, were we to do? Mon Dieu , I could not tell him that I had about as much idea of what to do as he had. I had to take the initiative or else the whole situation would disintegrate.

“Firstly, I said, he must dry his eyes, gain some control over himself and then go into the kitchen and send his daughter to her room, saying that she had been over-working (which was perfectly true). He must dismiss the kitchen boys, say that Monsieur Albert Henri Périgord had a headache and was retiring to bed. On no account was anyone to be allowed into the dining-room.

“Having tidied him up a bit — for in his frenzy of grief he had torn off his chef’s hat and trampled it underfoot and hurled a bottle of excellent Medoc at the wall, a lot of which had splashed over him — I sent him into the kitchen. Then I dragged the body of Albert Henri out of the dining-room through the hallway and down into the cellar which, being cool, we used for keeping our wines and game and poultry. I went back upstairs to find that Morceau had done everything that I had suggested, so that we had a moment’s respite.

“Morceau was beginning to show signs of considerable strain and I knew that he would break under it if I did not keep him occupied. I opened a bottle of champagne and made him drink. In his highly excited state the wine had a befuddling effect which calmed him down considerably. We sat there like two criminals, monsieur , discussing the best way of getting rid of a corpse weighing over a hundred kilos. It was a macabre discussion I can assure you.