White Truffles in Winter (29 page)

A menu, quite frankly, should be how a chef, an artist in his own right, sees the world. Not bits and pieces of things to eat.

While taste conveys the complexity of life, a good chef should keep in mind that food can have a meaning that is often not apparent but affects the palate nonetheless. For example, the “A1 sauce” is now very popular in America. I have tried it. It is very good. What is not understood is that when one takes a bite of a steak that has been smothered in “A1,” as the sauce was proclaimed by King George IV, they are eating history. The combination of malt vinegar, dates, mango chutney, apples and orange marmalade all serve as a reminder that the United States was settled by England and will always be England's. The bold combination of malt vinegar and orange marmalade—England's lifeblood—and those flavors of England's conquered—mango from India and apples so strongly identified with America—cannot be ignored.

Food is never as simple as one thinks it is. It is much more dangerous—seducing completely.

If you were to ask what one menu defines me, I would have to say it would be the final dinner that I served Kaiser Wilhelm II upon the Imperator. I would also have to say that it also defines my wife, the great poet Delphine Daffis. Perhaps in many ways, it defines her more.

T
HE GIFT SHOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT FOR SARAH—A
rare white truffle from Alba. The story of it was charming. The truffle was scented by Louie, a rather lazy yet prized pink pig, who discovered it by accident. The truffle was found out of season in late December. Highly unusual. The pig had been running loose along the snowy foothills of the Italian Piedmont Mountains. He'd escaped, actually. The farmer thought the pig was gone for good when he came upon the beast snorting with pleasure, and perhaps relief. Louie had been very unlucky that year. He was fleeing his own slaughter.

“I thought the damn beast had gotten too old,” the farmer told Escoffier.

“Age is merely a number.”

Escoffier was in Paris working on yet another book, this one for housewives, even though he had just published the fourth edition of
Le Guide Culinaire
a few years before. He was also making plans for a celebration of his eightieth birthday—a third trip to America.

“Age has no relevance to productivity.”

Sarah was also in Paris, making movies again. One leg. One lung. One kidney. Through the years, she had been losing parts of herself, but it made no difference to her. “As long as I can talk, I can work.”

And she loved film. Her first movie,
Le Duel d'Hamlet
, was an early silent shown with an accompanying Edison cylinder. Nearly a dozen films and a decade later, she was
79
years old and starring in talkies. Her house on Boulevard Péreire was to be transformed into a set.

“I will be perched on pillows, with the cameras rolling,” she wrote him. “It is in spending oneself that one becomes rich.”

“Age makes no difference at all,” Escoffier told the farmer. “Work keeps you young.”

The white truffle was the size of a hazelnut, firm and velvet to the touch. Escoffier told the farmer to charge it to the Ritz, although he had been retired from the company for many years.
It's the least they can do after all I've done.
The truffle was worth hundreds of francs, so much more than he had. It was so perfect for Sarah, he couldn't help it.
They will not begrudge me this,
he told himself and hoped he was right.

Escoffier wrapped the white truffle in a velvet pouch and the next day appeared at Sarah's door. Her son, Maurice, embraced him, and yet did not let him in.

“Another day, perhaps.”

Escoffier was surprised. He had heard that Sarah was ill, but she had been ill all her life.
It will pass,
he thought,
it always did, and he wondered when Maurice, the baby that nursed at Sarah's breast, had grown into this sad, elegant graying man.

Escoffier stored the rare truffle in a jar of Arborio rice and placed it in the back of the closet of his small
pied-à-terre
. In the cool darkness, the delicate taste would be somewhat preserved, but he knew that every day the truffle was not eaten it would diminish in its beauty. The rice would slow its decay, but also leach the taste.

Day after day, Escoffier called Maurice to ask if Sarah was able to take visitors. She was not. Escoffier did not move the truffle. He couldn't even look at it.

Time wore away at them both.

The Ritz was not pleased with Escoffier's “purchase.” When a young man from accounting appeared at Escoffier's door, the chef let him in, served him tea, and explained the company's options as he saw it.

“I am nearly eighty years old. My name is synonymous with the Ritz. If you wish to garnish my pension, you have that choice. Since the truffle was a gift for Miss Bernhardt, a national treasure, I'm sure the newspapers will be very interested in whatever action you take against me.”

Escoffier never heard from the Accounting Department again.

In March, Maurice finally called. Sarah was well enough to begin filming
The Fortune Teller
. She could see him, if only for a moment.

It had been nearly four months since the truffle had been pulled from the ground. Every time Escoffier had opened his closet, he tried not to think of it sitting there, but it was impossible. It was waiting, waning. The idea worried at him. He knew that after all this time, the rice had absorbed whatever taste remained and, perhaps, could not even hold that fleeting beauty in its grains.

Still, when her son finally called, Escoffier gently took the glass jar and placed it in the velvet pouch—
Whatever discovery we make, we make together
—and took the first cab to Sarah's house on Boulevard Pereire.

“She is not well,” the son had told him and Maurice looked grave when he arrived, but Escoffier was not prepared for the truth of it. When the door to her sitting room opened, it was filled with serious young people nodding their heads, adjusting lights, arguing, eating, smoking, laughing, and pushing the black beast of a camera back and forth as if it were unwilling to be tamed. In the center of it all was Sarah. Her eyes were dull, her face expressionless. It was as if she were waiting, not for the next shot, but for something darker.

Escoffier's chest began to hurt.

“Quiet!” a man shouted, and the room fell silent.

Later Escoffier would not remember what she had said, what lines she had spoken. All he would remember is that when the filming began her silver bell of a voice, undiminished by time, rang out. Clear, strong. It brought tears to his eyes.
Age matters not.
But when the shot was over, darkness again. The room quickly became undone. He was shaking when Maurice led him to her chaise. He kissed her pink painted cheeks.

“The legend remains victorious in spite of history,” she whispered.

“Are you hungry?”

“Aren't you?”

Her son wheeled her into the kitchen and left the two of them alone.

There was a bottle of Moët on ice, chilling. And eggs. Six. Garlic. Cream. Escoffier opened the velvet pouch. “It is very rare,” he said. “As you are.” But when he poured out the rice, the stench was overwhelming, like old chicken. He sliced the truffle. It had turned clay-orange and brittle.

“
Quand m
ê
me
,” Sarah said and then she laughed: all bones and fury.

And he laughed, too.

The eggs went uncooked. The champagne was not drunk.

Outside the window, the city of Paris, the city of smoke and silk, was silent.

“I love you, Cook,” she said.

“Chef.”

Over four thousand times Sarah had died on stage but nothing prepared her for actually dying. It was so quiet.
I was mistaken,
she thought. The next day, the camera caught the shift in her: the slight tug, the slip. The scene was over. Sarah was carried to her bed. Crowds gathered outside of her house for days. Waiting. Maurice issued hourly reports.

“I'll keep them dangling,” she said. “They've tortured me all my life, now I'll torture them.”

When the bells rang out and all of Paris took to the streets, weeping, Escoffier did not join them. He could not.

It was time to go home.

T
HE MADN FROM CUNARD HAD BEEN UNCLEAR. ESCOFFIER
was only told that he would be a guest of the cruise line and that his passage to America would be a gift for his eightieth birthday from his former employer. He'd be traveling on the RMS
Berengaria
, the Millionaire's Liner. That was understood. The letter was friendly; it mentioned that the ship was named after Queen Bérengère, who had married Eleanor of Aquitaine's son Richard I.

“The Queen and her Richard lived apart for decades,” the Man from Cunard wrote, “but we would not be so cruel as to separate you from your wife the famed poetess Delphine Daffis. It would be our great honor if she could join you on this voyage.”

The irony did not escape Escoffier. After sending back a confirmation for one, he promptly lost the letter. He was, after all, back in Paris again. Alone. It was difficult to keep things in order. Retirement at La Villa Fernand
had not been going well.
Again.
It was not so much the children and Delphine but the city itself. Monte Carlo had too much of the wrong kind of noise, the fidgeting sounds of everyday life. Paris was where he wanted to be but Delphine refused to leave her home and all the children. And so the chef wrote back saying that Madame Escoffier was too ill to travel and when he found out that she actually was, he was surprised but secretly relieved.

However, that was all the Man from Cunard wrote.

When Escoffier arrived at the dock, the massive ship gave him an uneasy feeling. It was as large as a small city, teeming with thousands of people. It looked very much like the
Titanic
. The Man from Cunard met him on the boarding platform and held his arm as they walked up the long plank.

The man was tall and thin, nondescript, like so many young men of the time. “Happy Birthday,” he said when he saw Escoffier and slapped his back as if they were old friends.

The Man from Cunard was American, of course. From “New York,” he said and continued talking, barely taking a breath. Escoffier could only understand a few words. Something about “flappers,” which made him hope that Josephine Baker was also on board with her
La Révue Nègre
from the
Folies Bergères
. He knew she had taken to the flapper style of costume. And then something about “millionaires.” The young man used the word so frequently, and with such zeal, that Escoffier did not have the heart to say to him,
“Je ne parle pas l'anglais,”
even though it was true. After all those years in England and two trips to America, Escoffier was still stubbornly ignorant of English, was still afraid that it would taint his ability to cook. And so he just nodded and smiled, knowing that the young are easily entertained by the sound of their own voice.

“We need to wait for Monsieur Bertrand,” Escoffier said.

The directors of the London Cunard Lines had arranged for the chef to travel with the inspector of Cunard Line's restaurants, an old friend.

The Man from Cunard recognized the inspector's name and tapped his watch. “Late,” he said.

Escoffier understood. His old friend was always late.

The Man from Cunard grabbed Escoffier's elbow and led him through the crowd. When the ship's captain was introduced, he seemed to be like many captains Escoffier had met before—he was of a comforting age, just gray around the temples, and neatly pressed.

For a moment, Escoffier wondered if that was true of the captain of the
Titanic
. Did he have that cool grace? He couldn't remember. They'd met before the ship left the dock but Escoffier could not remember a single thing about him.

On the other hand, Escoffier remembered his own staff in great detail, and often. The Widow's Fund he'd set up for them was still doing well and for the past fourteen years he'd been able to send yearly checks and notes of encouragement.

It was the very least he could do. He'd been asked to travel along on that voyage, to supervise, but declined. His staff was furious with him. The menus he'd created were too ambitious to cook in a kitchen that rolled with the waves. The last meal aboard the
Titanic
was remarkable. It was a celebration of cuisine that would have impressed the most jaded palate.

There were ten courses in all, beginning with oysters and a choice of
Consommé Olga
, a beef and port wine broth served with glazed vegetables and julienned gherkins, or Cream of Barley Soup. Then there were plate after plate of main courses—Poached Salmon and Cucumbers with
Mousseline
Sauce, a hollandaise enriched with whipped cream; Filet Mignon Lili, steaks fried in butter, then topped with an artichoke bottom,
foie gras
and truffle and served with a
Périgueux
sauce; a sauté of Chicken
Lyonnaise
; Lamb with Mint Sauce; Roast Duckling with Apple Sauce; Roast Squab with Cress and Sirloin of Beef.

There were also a garden's worth of vegetables, prepared both hot and cold. And several potatoes—Château Potatoes, cut to the shape of olives and cooked gently in clarified butter until golden and
Parmentier
Potatoes, a pureed potato mash garnished with crouton and chervil. And, of course
, pâté de foie gras.

To cleanse the palate, there was a sixth course of
Punch à la Romaine
, dry champagne, simple sugar syrup, the juice of two oranges and two lemons, and a bit of their zest. The mixture was steeped, strained, fortified with rum, frozen, topped with a sweet meringue and served like a sorbet. For dessert there was
a choice of
Waldorf Pudding, Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly, Chocolate and Vanilla Éclairs and French ice cream. Each course was served with a different wine. The final cheese course was served with fresh fruits and followed by coffee and cigars accompanied by port and, if desired, distilled spirits.

And this was just for first class passengers. Second and third classes were also catered to.

And the ship was sinking.

His staff must have spent their last hours exhausted and cursing him.

“Would you like to see the kitchen?” the Man from Cunard asked.

Escoffier shook his head. The word “kitchen” needed no translation.

As the tour progressed, and the Man from Cunard showed him the parlors and lounges of the vast ship, the velvet upon metal of it, Escoffier found himself thinking of other things. Not his eightieth birthday celebration, nor the elegance of New York, nor the possibility of Miss Baker and her revue performing that evening, but upsetting things, like the lawsuit against Monsieur Delsaut, who kept advertising that he was a student of Escoffier, and the letter Delphine had sent before he left. Yes, it did save him from lying to the Man from Cunard, but it was somewhat alarming: all about her legs and hands, and how they went numb from time to time.

“Neuritis,” the doctor called it and even though Delphine had written and said that it wasn't too serious, Escoffier wrote back promising to return to La Villa Fernand for a day or two.

“A holiday. And then back to work.”

What work?

He knew Delphine would think that when she received his reply. She had begun to speak of his work as if each new book or article was a faded flag to be used in his surrender from this world, folded over him in death.

“I'm not planning to die,” he always told her.

The Man from Cunard took Escoffier back topside and made some sort of joke about the lifeboats, at least Escoffier thought he did. The swinging boats seemed hungry. The Man from Cunard kept pointing at them and laughing; the wit of his comments was lost on the wind.

Escoffier smiled to be polite, but a numbing sensation came over him and part of his vision began to slip away. It was as if a storm cloud covered part of his right eye; there was flashing out of the corner of it and then darkness. In the left, everything had turned mosaic.

The great ship bellowed. A warning. “All aboard,” someone shouted. A flurry of people popped champagne and waved goodbye to those on the docks below.

Overhead Escoffier thought he saw a large flock of pure white birds.
Doves?
He squinted to see them, but it was difficult. He was quickly losing his sight.

“
Je suis aveugle
,” he said and pointed to his eyes. Blind.

“Blue,” the Man from Cunard said and pointed at his own eyes.

The white birds banked again, low this time. Escoffier wondered if anyone else could see them. They passed so closely, if he reached out, he knew he could touch them.

All around him, everyone continued drinking champagne, kissing, laughing, even though the birds flew fast and low through the crowds, weaving in and out. The sight of them made Escoffier's heart beat faster. The sun was sinking into the sea, the sky was streaked with red. The Man from Cunard took two glasses from a passing waiter and held his own high.

“Toast,” he said, and then said something about “peace.”

How odd,
Escoffier thought.
1926
. The world is at peace. Isn't it?

“Could we sit?” the old man asked.

The Man from Cunard cocked his head to one side, confused.

Escoffier pointed at a row of deck chairs filled with passengers, and that seemed to make the man even more confused.

How can these Americans not speak French?

“Sit,” Escoffier said again and mimicked sitting in an imaginary chair. “I need to sit down.” His eyesight was becoming more and more narrow. Soon the world would become a pinpoint.

The man nodded as if he understood but took Escoffier by the arm past chair after chair, and down below deck.

It wasn't worth arguing over, the old man thought.
I'll finish the tour and then rest in my stateroom.

They followed the arrows to the pool, obviously a point of pride for the cruise line; the Man from Cunard kept repeating the word “famous,” which Escoffier knew, and when the man opened the door to the swimming area, he understood why he had continued to use that word.

The pool was two decks high, Pompeian style. Next to it was a Turkish bath suite, with two hot rooms and parquet floors. It was tiled with small Italian mosaic designs. Escoffier knew it well. The last time he'd seen it, it was filled with Germans, the Kaiser was smiling in the corner, satiated and happy.

The ship itself was famous. Very famous.

“This is the
Imperator
,” Escoffier said.

The Man from Cunard recognized the name of the Kaiser's ship, a near doppelganger to the
Titanic
. He seemed pleased that he was finally being understood. He nodded enthusiastically. “The old girl is called
Berengaria
now,” he said slowly, loudly, as if Escoffier were deaf. “Spoils of War!” he was shouting. People turned.

The blindness was now complete.