If the lavish feasts and epic drinking sessions of The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870), are any indication, seventeenth-century France was the era of the gourmand. The musketeers—Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—and their young friend d’Artagnan, the Gascon nobleman who is the book’s hero, are frat boys of a different era, men for whom an ordinary evening at home is thus:
Dumas was a bon vivant and passionate cook who wrote in many genres, and his Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, a sprawling volume that traveled the alphabet from absinthe to zest, was the great project he felt he must complete before he died. (It was published posthumously.). According to the introduction to my abridged, translated version of that volume, Dumas “wrote novels and stories because he needed the revenue but produced his masterpiece, the Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, because he loved the work.” The book includes recipes, society gossip, bits of culinary history, and the writer’s meditations on hosting and entertaining. It is not, the introduction says, “a basic cookery book for an untaught bride.” I found it fun to read that a recipe for ortolans, a rare songbird, tells us that to kill them, we must “asphyxiate them by plunging their heads into very strong vinegar. It is a violent death that improves their flesh.”
I made three dishes mentioned in The Three Musketeers—the rabbit stew and fish stew cooked concomitantly in the passage quoted above (the mingled smells really did cause rejoicing) and a spinach salad to exonerate the spinach forgone in the book. For all three, I worked from Dumas’s cookbook, choosing a rabbit-stew option that seemed possible to execute for a person who had never cooked rabbit and, in the spirit of adventure, a fish stew calling for eel. Since drinking was so essential to Dumas and the musketeers, I paired the food with wines, either those mentioned in the book or approximations.
This cooking called for an eel head, rehydrated morels (they were great), and an old-fashioned soup-thickening technique called beurre manié, all well outside my comfort zone. I took as my inspiration these words of the musketeer Athos upon being sent into danger: “So let us go get killed where we are told to go. Is life worth the trouble of so many questions?” (...)
by Valerie Stivers, Paris Review | Read more:
Image: Valarie Stivers
Porthos was in bed, and was playing a game of lansquenet with Mousqueton [his servant], to keep his hand in; while a spit loaded with partridges was turning before the fire, and on each side of a large chimney-piece, over two chafing dishes, were boiling two stew-pans, from which exhaled a double odour of rabbit and fish stews, rejoicing to the smell. In addition to this … the top of a wardrobe and the marble of a commode were covered with empty bottles.The musketeers know no moderation. They order multiple bottles of wine for a quick drink, and at one point, one of them consumes an entire wine cellar. When Aramis plans to eat an omelet with a side of spinach, his friends ultimately convince him to say to the waiter, “Return from whence you came; take back these horrible vegetables … Order a larded hare, a fat capon, mutton leg dressed with garlic, and four bottles of old Burgundy.”
Dumas was a bon vivant and passionate cook who wrote in many genres, and his Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, a sprawling volume that traveled the alphabet from absinthe to zest, was the great project he felt he must complete before he died. (It was published posthumously.). According to the introduction to my abridged, translated version of that volume, Dumas “wrote novels and stories because he needed the revenue but produced his masterpiece, the Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, because he loved the work.” The book includes recipes, society gossip, bits of culinary history, and the writer’s meditations on hosting and entertaining. It is not, the introduction says, “a basic cookery book for an untaught bride.” I found it fun to read that a recipe for ortolans, a rare songbird, tells us that to kill them, we must “asphyxiate them by plunging their heads into very strong vinegar. It is a violent death that improves their flesh.”I made three dishes mentioned in The Three Musketeers—the rabbit stew and fish stew cooked concomitantly in the passage quoted above (the mingled smells really did cause rejoicing) and a spinach salad to exonerate the spinach forgone in the book. For all three, I worked from Dumas’s cookbook, choosing a rabbit-stew option that seemed possible to execute for a person who had never cooked rabbit and, in the spirit of adventure, a fish stew calling for eel. Since drinking was so essential to Dumas and the musketeers, I paired the food with wines, either those mentioned in the book or approximations.
This cooking called for an eel head, rehydrated morels (they were great), and an old-fashioned soup-thickening technique called beurre manié, all well outside my comfort zone. I took as my inspiration these words of the musketeer Athos upon being sent into danger: “So let us go get killed where we are told to go. Is life worth the trouble of so many questions?” (...)
Matelote of Eel Marinière
Take a Seine carp, an eel, a tench, a perch, and cut them in pieces. Slice 2 large onions. Put the onions on the bottom of a copper pot, then all the heads, then the body pieces, so the pieces from nearest the tail are on top. Season with salt, pepper, a bouquet garni, and a few cloves of garlic. Pour over all 2 bottles of white wine. Bring to a quick boil. Add 1 glass of cognac and flame. Add 20 or 30 little onions fried in butter. Make little balls of flour and butter and sprinkle it into your matelote. Shake to mix well. Serve hot, garnished with croutons and crayfish cooked in Rhine wine.
—Alexandre Dumas’ Dictionary of Cuisine, edited, abridged, and translated by Louis Colman
For the bouquet garni:
a few leaves of sage
a few sprigs of thyme
1/2 sprig rosemary
1 bay leaf
Tie all the ingredients together and place them in a piece of cheesecloth.
For the croutons:
1/2 baguette
Slice the baguette and fry the slices in butter till crispy, salting liberally.
For the soup:
1 eel, filleted, head reserved
2 catfish, filleted, head reserved
1 bass, filleted, head reserved
salt
pepper
1 white onion, in segments
4 cloves of garlic
1 bottle white wine, preferably Sancerre
2 1/2 cups water
20 or 30 little cipollini onions
8 tbs butter (2 for frying the fish, 6 for the beurre manié)
1/4 cup flour
Salt and pepper, to taste
Make a fish stock. Put the fish heads and the head of the eel, the onions, the garlic, the wine, and the water in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes and strain.
Brown the onions in the butter on medium-low heat until they’re very soft, about 30 minutes.
Prepare the fish. I followed Dumas’s directions and cut my fish as steaks, but they were bony and difficult to eat. In this recipe, I suggest using fillets.
Dry the fillets and season them thoroughly. Fry skin side down in two tablespoons of the butter until the skin is crisp.
Prepare the beurre manié. Mash the remaining butter with the flour until it forms a smooth paste. Make the paste into teaspoon-size balls. These will be used to thicken the soup.
Reheat the fish stock to a simmer, add the onions and fillets, and simmer until the fish is cooked through.
Add the beurre manié balls and continue to simmer until the balls have dispersed and the sauce has thickened.
Salt and pepper to taste. Serve garnished with croutons.
Take a Seine carp, an eel, a tench, a perch, and cut them in pieces. Slice 2 large onions. Put the onions on the bottom of a copper pot, then all the heads, then the body pieces, so the pieces from nearest the tail are on top. Season with salt, pepper, a bouquet garni, and a few cloves of garlic. Pour over all 2 bottles of white wine. Bring to a quick boil. Add 1 glass of cognac and flame. Add 20 or 30 little onions fried in butter. Make little balls of flour and butter and sprinkle it into your matelote. Shake to mix well. Serve hot, garnished with croutons and crayfish cooked in Rhine wine.
—Alexandre Dumas’ Dictionary of Cuisine, edited, abridged, and translated by Louis Colman
For the bouquet garni:
a few leaves of sage
a few sprigs of thyme
1/2 sprig rosemary
1 bay leaf
Tie all the ingredients together and place them in a piece of cheesecloth.
For the croutons:
1/2 baguette
Slice the baguette and fry the slices in butter till crispy, salting liberally.
For the soup:
1 eel, filleted, head reserved
2 catfish, filleted, head reserved
1 bass, filleted, head reserved
salt
pepper
1 white onion, in segments
4 cloves of garlic
1 bottle white wine, preferably Sancerre
2 1/2 cups water
20 or 30 little cipollini onions
8 tbs butter (2 for frying the fish, 6 for the beurre manié)
1/4 cup flour
Salt and pepper, to taste
Make a fish stock. Put the fish heads and the head of the eel, the onions, the garlic, the wine, and the water in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes and strain.
Brown the onions in the butter on medium-low heat until they’re very soft, about 30 minutes.
Prepare the fish. I followed Dumas’s directions and cut my fish as steaks, but they were bony and difficult to eat. In this recipe, I suggest using fillets.
Dry the fillets and season them thoroughly. Fry skin side down in two tablespoons of the butter until the skin is crisp.
Prepare the beurre manié. Mash the remaining butter with the flour until it forms a smooth paste. Make the paste into teaspoon-size balls. These will be used to thicken the soup.
Reheat the fish stock to a simmer, add the onions and fillets, and simmer until the fish is cooked through.
Add the beurre manié balls and continue to simmer until the balls have dispersed and the sauce has thickened.
Salt and pepper to taste. Serve garnished with croutons.
by Valerie Stivers, Paris Review | Read more:
Image: Valarie Stivers
