This blog was inspired by a divine aroma, a reminder of something I couldn't quite put my
finger on - perhaps of nursery school lunches when you're small and very
hungry, or that moment when you open the front door to find
that someone else has spent the afternoon cooking.... a tang redolent of
good times, of simple pleasures and of food, wonderful food. The smell
was coming from the kitchen; it was irresistible..... I had to know what was
cooking.
I
was in the home of an elderly French couple, I'd popped in to pick up a dozen
kilos of their homegrown tomatoes, and their lunch was on the go. I asked
Madame what she was cooking. 'Just something simple', she replied.
The something simple looked
as good as it smelled: in one pan a pheasant, jointed and sautéed to
golden perfection in its own juices, sat on a bed of onions and garlic . In another
pan, onions, glistening with olive oil, simmered alongside roughly chopped courgette, garlic and tomatoes,
all picked that morning from the potager. A fresh baguette and an
unlabelled bottle of wine sat on the table laid for 2, there was a camembert for afters on the sideboard.
Monsieur was due home any minute.
It
was a feast fit for a king – local, mainly organic ingredients, cooked simply
and to perfection. It was also just an everyday lunch to a couple who had eaten
like this all their lives, following the seasons, farming their land and still
working well into their 80's.
As
a journalist I've covered meals cooked by great chefs, Michelin starred
banquets with more champagne than you could shake a lobster's tail at, cooked
by the great and the good and utterly wonderful - France is rightfully known
for its haute cuisine and
long may it continue. But French home cooking has never been as
threatened as it is now. The rise of the frozen meal has happened here
just like everywhere else, and the French no longer have the time - or
the resources - to produce daily wonders cooked from scratch. Bistros are
closing at a rate of knots and there is current controversy over the widescale use
of frozen, or sous vide ready
prepared products being served up in traditional restaurants. Everything
from bundles of haricots verts rolled
in bacon to ready mixed scrambled egg is available and being used regularly in
a depressing number of French restaurants.
