SOME EXCERPTS FROM BOOKS I HAVE WRITTEN

Part One: my book ont the genius of Escoffier, his food and recipes

Photo by Sam Hanna

When I saw in 2016 that Anthony Bourdain claimed “Jeremiah Tower was the guy who transformed American menus from what they were to what they are now,” it occurred to me I should write a book to tell that story. “He’s the history of everything. It’s all there. It’s a great story.”

After starting the book that became (April 2017) Start the Fire: How I Began a Food Revolution in America, I realizedI had already told some of the story in 1986 with my James Beard Foundation Award winning “Best American Regional Cookbook,” Jeremiah Tower’s New American Classics.

But perhaps it was time for a tune up.

In the 20 years since New American Classics, several new and at the time astonishing things about it have now become every day stuff. Just as when the latest fashion fad of Madonna’s leather bras by Jean-Paul Gaultier had stopped shocking the fashionista world, in came Molecular Gastronomy to shake up the foodie culinary world.

Chef Jacques Pepin: “Molecular gastronomy is like Jean-Paul Gaultier coming down the runway. You ask yourself ‘who would wear that,’ but eventually it trickles down to become prêt-a-porter,” or what you wear every day. And that is how classics happen, the things that trickle down and stick, not just because of popular assent, but because they fit.

In other words, whichever new and brilliant approaches to food, ingredients, and cooking are introduced, the kick start for the new thinking comes from the original benchmarks. It’s been a long time since Escoffier, but he is still a good foundation for thought.

The Good Cook, Richard Olney with Time Life, London/France 1878-1980

After leaving Chez Panisse and escaping the Big Sur forest fires and so leaving Ventana Inn, I went to help Richard Olney with his new Time Life series, “the Good Cook.” We did a new book every 2 months. In the South of France and London I translated three centuries of French cookbooks and recipes, then cooked the food, and styled the photos. Then later did the same in the USA for its version.

Jeremiah Tower’s New American Classics: 1986

My first cookbook and James Beard Foundation Awards winner.

Jeremiah Tower Cooks: 250 Recipes from an American Master: 2002

The Great Book of French Cuisine: Edited & Revised Edition: by Henri-Paul Pellaprat, 2003

America’s Best Chefs Cook with Jeremiah Tower: 2003

California Dish: What I Saw (and Cooked) at the American Culinary Revolution, 2004

A Dash of Genius: 2012

I have been obsessed with Escoffier since I was sixteen at England’s King’s College School near London. My drama teacher gave me “Ma Cuisine” for having played Algernon Moncrieff in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Ernest.” I thought it a curious choice, but I read it every night under the bed covers with a flashlight after my boarding school lights out. And was entranced. Later, in Harvard College and cooking for friends at our off campus house, I graduated from “Ma Cuisine” to his masterpiece, “Le Guide Culinaire.” I worked through it enough so that when I moved to a little house in Cambridge in my senior year, the first dinner I gave was pure Escoffier.

Dinner for Friends, Cambridge, 1965

Caviar Blinis

Frozen Zubrovka

Consommé Madrilène

Salmon en gelee aux truffles

Pouilly-Fume 1962

Filet de Boeuf perigourdine

Chateau-Neuf-du-Pape 1957

Peches Rose-Cheri

Asti Spumante

Coffee

Sercial Madeira 1884

On graduating in 1965 I bought the Vyvyan Holland English translation of Ma Cuisine. I thought it fitting that its translator was the son of the author of the play in which I appeared eight years before and for which I had been given the original book. Now I could read and understand all the technical bits in French that I had not understood before.

So, when Amazon asked me to write a book on Escoffier, I was primed. And called it “A Dash of Genius.”

“The day after France broke off diplomatic relations with Prussia, the War Ministry asked the “Societe des Cuisiniers de Paris” to provide the names of a dozen chefs in the reserve army to cook for the General Headquarters of the Rhine Army. One of the Moulin’s devoted customers was Colonel d’Andleau, who quickly scooped up Escoffier and his best friend and shipped both cooks off to the HQ. It was the time of “The Guns of August” and on the 14^th of that month the two men began to cook for generals.

The war lasted only eight months, but there were several narrow escapes. On his first day in camp the French Emperor Napoleon III, the Imperial Prince, and his chiefs of staff arrived in the early morning just as the Prussian artillery opened fire. As everyone in a panic broke camp Escoffier was able to grab a huge joint of beef from a late-night forager and some cans of food. Camped once again that evening he wondered how on earth he was going to cook the meat. Being surrounded by Prussian cavalry didn’t give much leeway because at any moment they would have to break camp again. He didn’t want to abandon his piece de resistance, and since he felt that “great danger leads to firm resolution,” he quickly decided that there was nothing for it but to prepare and cook it right away, even it took half the night. He and his assistant found some railroad ties blown up by the enemy to make the frame for a spit, a sword was used to skewer the joint, and a nearby hedge provided the fuel. As soon as the fire was just right, they set about cooking the meat. More swords were soon needed to fend off the curious spectators who, at the first aroma of roasting beef, turned into a band of thieves. Once the roast was cooked, they slept a couple of hours, and at 7 in the morning orders came in for a 9 o’clock full meal for the officers. Escoffier was rightly proud of his decision to cook the meat the night before, and with great panache drew up his menu using some eggs and potatoes from a farm 500 meters away.

Canned Sardines in Oil

Sausage

Soft-boiled Eggs

Roast Beef, Well Done

Potato Salad

My Sardines on Toast

Serves: 4

Beverage: chilled aquavit and pilsner beer

2 cans large sardines in olive oil

sea or Koshersalt

1 medium white onion, peeled, cored

1 Meyer lemon, seeded, finely chopped

½ cup fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped

2 TBS extra virgin olive oil

4 slices white sandwich loaf bread, crusts removed

4 TBS salted butter

Tabasco sauce

Drain the sardines and sprinkle with a little salt.

Coarsely grate the onion and mix with the Meyer lemon, mint, olive oil, and a pinch of salt.

Toast the bread and butter the slices.

Divide the sardines on each of the toast slices, and spoon the onion-lemon mixture over the top of the sardines. Serve immediately. Pass the bottle of Tabasco separately.

To drink at Escoffier’s breakfast were several liters of muddy water from the horse trough that Escoffier had passed through a small filter that he had bought before leaving Paris. Coffee and Fine Champagne Cognac were served just before they fled for their lives in the morning attack.

I had lived Escoffier fairly thoroughly before I started cooking professionally, but the first time I got to know the world’s most famous chef really well was in 1976 when sixty people in a dining room were waiting for me to send out the first dishes from my “One Week of Menus” at Chez Panisse.

Every night was a different menu, the week in red ink, and the night of dining in black.

Cornmeal Pancakes with Smoked Sturgeon

Serves: 6

Beverage: chilled vodka or champagne

1 cup yellow cornmeal

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups boiling water

2 eggs

1 cup milk

½ cup sifted all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons melted butter

¾ cup warm clarified butter

8 tablespoons sour cream

8 tablespoons fresh salmon caviar

18 thin slices smoked sturgeon

Mix the cornmeal and salt and stir in the boiling water. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Slowly stir in the milk. Mix in the flour and 2 tablespoons melted butter. Beat until the mixture is smooth. The batter should be the consistency of heavy cream. If it is too thick, thin with a little more milk.

Brush a well-seasoned crepe pan with clarified butter and heat. When the pan is hot, pour in about 3 tablespoons batter and tilt the pan to distribute the batter evenly. Cook until the underside is lightly browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn and cook the other side another 1 to 2 minutes.

Put each blini on a hot plate and pour 3 tablespoons clarified butter over the blini. Put 1 tablespoon sour cream in the center of each blini, then 1 tablespoon salmon caviar in the center of the sour cream. Put 3 slices sturgeon around each blini and serve immediately.

Chicken Paillard or Minute Steak with Radish Salad

There is no mention of “paillards” in Escoffier’s most famous cookbook, Le Guide Culinaire, but he must have prepared a lot of them and perhaps, as with sardines, he had enough of them when it came time to write the book. My inspiration for paillards came from my steak Diane lunches as a child on trans-Atlantic crossings in ocean-liner Escoffier-trained dining rooms. I chose it as much for the tableside theatrical flaming as anything else.

“Paillard” refers to a thinly sliced or pounded piece of meat or poultry that cooks very quickly either grilled, broiled or sauteed. It could be veal, lamb, venison, pheasant, duck, wild boar and so on, using any cut unevenly-shaped pieces (like chicken breasts) in which the ends of dissimilar thickness would otherwise cook at different rates, or any cuts that will benefit from the tenderizing.

The whole dish takes minutes to finish, and the chicken steaks can be prepared in advance. If you don’t have watermelon radishes, use red radishes. Make sure that the plastic you use is good quality and odorless, or the chicken will taste exactly as the cheap plastic. If you are going to put the chicken steaks in the marinade right after you pound them, you can use grease-proof or wax paper. But using paper too far in advance will result in soggy paper sticking to the chicken. If you have only small breast pieces, pound out two per person for a main course and put them both on the large oval plate with ends meeting under the radish salad.

Serves 4

Beverage: a fresh, young cold rose or slightly chilled pinot noir

2 large chicken breasts, skinned, boned (4 pieces)

I tablespoon ground cardamom

1 pinch ground cumin

1teaspoon red chili flakes

¼ cup peanut or olive oil

8 large watermelon radishes, trimmed, sliced very thinly on a slicer

2 oranges, zested, juiced

1 lemon, juiced

2 tablespoons sesame oil

¼ cup fresh cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped or small whole

2 tablspoons basil oil

salt

freshly ground black pepper

Remove the ‘tender’ from the inside of each half breast, and reserve for another use. Cut out any tendon or ‘white skin’ from both the thick and the thin end and discard. Slice the half breast lengthwise, keeping 1/8-inch intact on one long side. Unfold the chicken pieces and put them between two pieces of heavy very lightly oiled plastic and pound with the side of a cleaver. Spend more time on the thick end until the whole piece is evenly ¼ inch thick.

Mix the cardamom,cumin, and red chili flakes with the peanut or olive oil in a flat dish just large enough to hold the steaks in one layer. Add them, rub them all over with the marinade, and marinate for 3 hours, turning occasionally.

Start the grill or preheat the broiler.

Put radishes in a bowl with the orange and lemon juices, sesame oil, and a generous pinch of salt. Mix well.

Salt the chicken steaks lightly and grill or broil for 3 minutes on each side or until just barely cooked through. Then put on hot oval dishes. Place the salad equally in the center of each steak. Spoon some of the liquid from the radish salad over the chicken and the rest around the plate. Sprinkle the orange zest and chopped cilantro on the chicken. Drizzle the basil oil around the plate, and add some drops of sesame oil

Peach Melba

Throughout my childhood whenever I was taken by my parents to Prunier in Paris, The Mirabelle in London, or some other grand French restaurant, I would demand “La Peche Melba” for dessert. When I became a chef in California and didn’t know how to make a lace of spun sugar to put on top of the peaches in their ice sculpture (didn’t know how to make that either), I switched to my new favorite Escoffier fruit dessert, “Peaches Rose-Cheri.”The same poached peaches but with pineapple ice and champagne sabayon. I added pink rose petals scattered on top. Here is a variation still using white peaches.

White Peaches with Raspberry and Blackberry Sauces

Serves: 4

Beverage: late harvest Semillon, ice wine, or Sauternes

2 ripe white peaches

salt

3 cups medium sugar syrup

1 cup fresh raspberries

1 cup fresh blackberries

1 cup custard or crème anglaise

Add the peaches and a pinch of salt to the sugar syrup and simmer until the peaches are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, drain. Peel the peaches, cut in half, and remove the pits. Put the peaches back in the syrup for 2 hours with the pits and skins to add flavor. Chill the peaches until ready to serve.

Meanwhile make the two berries sauces by pushing the berries through a fine sieve by hand. Mix ¼ cup of the cold poaching syrup with each of the purees.

Spoon the custard on chilled plates and place a peach half in the center of each plate. Drizzle the raspberry and blackberry sauces over and around the peaches.

Table Manners: How to Behave in the Modern World and Why Bother, 2016)

Start the Fire: How I Began A Food Revolution In America, 2017

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