The Black Sheep by Honore de Balzac

Author:Honore de Balzac
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141959900
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2009-11-24T16:00:00+00:00

14. A horrible and vulgar story

OLD Fanchette was the only person in Issoudun who disliked the fact that Flore Brazier had become all-powerful in her master’s household. She protested against the immorality of this union, taking the side of outraged morality. The fact is that, at her age, she felt humiliated that the ‘Fisherwoman’, once a little girl who had come barefoot into the house, was now her mistress. Fanchette had 300 francs a year invested in Government stock; this was how the doctor had advised her to invest her savings. As her late master had left her an annuity of 300 francs, she could live quite comfortably, and so, on 15 April 1806, she left the house, nine months after her old master’s funeral. Does not this date indicate to shrewd people the precise moment at which Flore ceased to be an honest woman?

Flore was clever enough to have foreseen Fanchette’s defection, for there is nothing like the exercise of power for teaching you the art of politics; she had decided to do without a maid. Without giving any indication of the fact, she had spent the last six months studying the culinary skills which earned Fanchette the status of a Cordon Bleu cook fit to be employed by a doctor. Doctors are just as appreciative of good food as bishops. Dr Rouget had perfected Fanchette. In the provinces, the lack of anything much to do and the monotony of life there direct the attention of the mind to good food. Although you do not dine as luxuriously in the provinces as you do in Paris, you dine better; the dishes are carefully thought out and planned in detail. In the depths of the countryside there are female cooks as brilliant as Carême himself, unsung geniuses who have the skill of turning a plain dish of beans into something worthy of the nods of approval which Rossini bestows on a perfectly executed piece of music. Whilst studying for his degree in Paris, the doctor had attended Rouelle’s chemistry lectures, and from them he had obtained ideas which he applied to the benefit of culinary science. He is famous in Issoudun for certain improvements that are scarcely known outside Berry. He discovered that omelettes were much lighter when the yolks and whites of the eggs were not beaten together in the brutal manner cooks generally adopt. In his view, the whites should be beaten up until stiff and the yolks folded in; a frying-pan should not be used, but instead a porcelain or earthenware cagnard. A cagnard is a sort of thick four-legged dish which does not crack when placed over the fire, because of the air circulating around it. In Touraine, a cagnard is called a cauquemarre. Rabelais, I think, speaks of cauquemarres being used for cooking those imaginary animals coquecigrues – which proves that this utensil is of great antiquity. The doctor had also discovered a way of preventing brown sauces from developing a bitter taste : but this secret, which unfortunately he confined to the limits of his own kitchen, has been lost.

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