The Secret Ingredient

I have watched my father making crepes probably more than 50 times. His pride was the old-fashioned way (that is extremely slow) he made the batter. First, he sieved the flour into a big bowl made of glass. The children my siblings and I were at that time loved the second step: digging a well, just so that the milk was surrounded by a snowy collar of flour. But first you only added half of the liquid in the well. Too much of it would create an avalanche of lumps, implying a culinary disaster. With a wooden spoon, my father would start to stir, making very small circles in the center of the bowl. The point was to avoid to touch directly the floor; it would merge into the milk naturally with the push of the milky waves. That being done (at least 5 minutes of careful wrist dancing), you could add the beaten eggs, the sugar, a pinch of salt and some oil. Stirring again, but energetically now that the flour was integrated in the milk. Eventually, my father would reach the step of adding the second half of milk. My father's batter was finally ready after 20 minutes of attention. My mother made hers in 30 seconds with the exact same ingredients thrown carelessly in the Kitchen Aid. Of course the taste was never the same.

When I moved out from my parents' house to live on my own, it did not last a week that I needed to eat crepes. An acute form of nostalgia. Or maybe just hunger. I followed my father's recipe religiously, to the point that I had to go back to the supermarket to buy a wooden spoon (I only had a plastic one.) As the reader can expect at this point of the story, the result of my efforts was disappointing: my crepes weren't the same than my father's. I tried it again and again, some times being more successful than some others. But it never tasted exactly the same. So I asked my father what was his secret ingredient. He summarized his recipe as I wrote it above: no more, no less.

M. F. K. Fisher in her article “the secret ingredient” compares this kind of mysterious cooks -the ones that cannot be imitated- to wizards and witches. She finishes his piece, writing that “perhaps that was the Secret Ingredient: the blind strength of timeless passion.” While this beautiful idea applies very well to Bertie, Fisher's sorceress of food, the ending of my story is way less poetic. My father has nothing of a wizard. Even better: there was a secret ingredient. It took me years to find out that it was the butter. The bubbles of the hot butter would indeed prevent the batter to spread all around the pan, creating tiny holes in the crepes which were the secret of their fluffiness. I used to cook my crepes with oil. Stupid mistake.

 So if you too want to find out the secret ingredient, first try butter. If you are into French cooking, I bet it's going to work !

The 'piuk-party' revision

Twelve. The ring bells. Like a horde of elephants, starving children rush out of the classrooms, reaching finally a democratic state of equality in this primitive race towards food. I am part of it. After going down the stairs, jumping the steps two by two, our human mass overcome the schoolyard.

Since there is not enough room in the dining hall for all of us, we are assigned a 'wave'. The first wave is allowed to eat at 11:30; the second at 12 and the third at 12:30: the hated one. We are released by groups of 15 but it feels like a drop to drop. Every day, it is likely that this waiting never comes to an end.

In rank under the covered playground, some of us try to cheat, overtaking the younger and being overtaken by the older, like links in the food chain.
Neither among the babies nor the daddies, I am ignored -and happy to be- into the social hierarchy that reigns in my middle school. As a 7th grade kid, I am left alone by the tyrannical 15 years old, the appealingly helpless 6th grade little snots being preferred to me. However, I better don't show off. This new freedom, gained at the return from the summer vacations, has to stay quiet. If I stand out, it could be seen as an insurrection and would excite the fury of the tyrants, breaking this status quo. No, being invisible is great. Being invisible is a luxury after being martyred for an entire school year.
Several supervisors are there, keeping a close eye on us while we queue. They pretend we are civilized. We all know -including them- it is not true. We all know it is the survival of the fittest.

Thus, every day it is a feeling of surprise and relief that seizes me, when I eventually enter the cafeteria, surrounded by my friends. They too, after the same struggle, managed to pass the door and to join the very selective group of the 'chosen.'

After picking my food (I stopped to be exigent a long time ago, being grateful to sustain myself, action without which I would pitifully die during recess under the wide-opened eyes of my companions of misfortune), I choose my seat among what is still available: most of time, some 4-spots tables (not enough for my friends and I), some isolated chairs here and there or the counter (but then, you can only talk with your sides neighbors). Never mind, it is better than nothing.
Here as well, a hierarchy prevails. A group of 11 years old is forced to split to let the big ones take the 8-seats table; they reign on the dining room like masters, spreading themselves everywhere. They are a plague, except that their power is not contagious.

When finally everybody has found a spot, more or less satisfying, the degustation can start. The program is the following: as a starter, I eat the daily diced vegetables salad. The overwhelming mayonnaise makes me consider the dish as a mayonnaise salad with vegetables and not a vegetables salad with mayonnaise. The main course is most of time a meat drown in a thick and greasy sauce and some starchy food. As for the dessert, I have the choice between the coffee-flavored flan (tasteless actually) and some unripe fruits. In short, a perfect assortment for what we call 'piuk-parties', a funny game consisting in mixing all these dishes and eating them altogether. Of course, it is designed for the braves only: Jeff, Maxim, Martin and some others boys but no girl. Ever.

I decided that I wanted to try. I wanted to prove them I was as able to do this as anybody around the table. To prove them girls could be as gross as boys. To prove them I had guts, for lack of balls.
The day's dishes were peas and carrots, a rubbery piece of pork and some mash. After officially announcing my participation to the game, they -boys and girls- laughed at me, incredulous. No speech would have convinced them. I had to show.
I mixed the daily special in an empty bowl, slowly, each stirring increasing my sudden popularity. When I could not make it last any longer (the kids started to be impatient), I stopped. I was finally done and the preparation, ready to be eaten. When I lift the spoon to my mouth, already dreading what was coming next, all my friends were looking at me, motionless, a smile of challenge and curiosity on their childish faces. The sole smell of this bite was unbearable but it was too late to back up. My heart beat the drum. I looked at them, determined, and went on. 

My first surprise came from the incredible taste of cigaret of this awful mix. I picked the wrong day: somebody from the staff, we learnt that later, dropped a cigaret in the flan's batter. Then came the disgust of the sweet and salty unassorted tastes put together: the watery coffee cream of the flan, the sweet peas and crusty carrots got along with the sour pieces of meat coated in their nauseating sauce, already tasting that way usually. A climax of monstrosity. Or so I thought.

I could not believe it. I did it. Of course, I made a funny face as soon as the spoon entered my mouth but I did it. The other were amazed. Marie, a girl (and not even a tomboy!), having a 'piuk-party'? Incredible. Was this event as much about food as it was about honor ? I doubt so. This day, I gained the respect of my friends, my classmates and even the older, who -I did not realize- gazed at me while I was inoculating the substance. From that moment, I had an assured spot in one of the best tables of the cafeteria. An unexpected reward from the oldest for my brave behavior. From that moment, I also stopped to rush to food: what happened at the cafeteria was definitely more risky than not eating at all.

The 'Piuk-Party'

Twelve. The ring bells. Like a horde of elephants, starving children rush out of the classrooms, reaching finally a democratic state of equality in this primitive race towards food and I am part of it.

After going down the stairs, jumping the steps two by two, our human mass overcome the schoolyard.

Since there is not enough room in the dining hall for all of us, we are assigned a 'wave'. The first wave is allowed to eat at 11:30; the second at 12 and the third at 12:30: the hated one. We are released by groups of 15 but it feels like a drop to drop. Every day, it is likely that this waiting never comes to an end.

In rank under the covered playground, some of us try to cheat, overtaking the younger and being overtaken by the older, like links in the food chain. Several supervisors are there, pretending we are civilized pupils. We all know -including them- it is not true. We all know it is the survival of the fittest.

Thus, every day it is a feeling of surprise and relief that seizes me, when I eventually enter the cafeteria, surrounded by my friends. They too, after the same struggle, managed to pass the door and to join the very selective group of the 'chosen.'

After picking my food (I stopped to be exigent a long time ago, being grateful to sustain myself, action without which I would pitifully die during recess under the wide-opened eyes of my misfortune companions), I choose my table and my seat. Here as well, a hierarchy prevails. A group of 11 years old babies is forced to split to let the big ones take the 8-seats table; they reign on the dining room like masters, spreading themselves everywhere. They are a plague, except that their power is not contagious.

When finally everybody has found a spot, more or less satisfying, the degustation can start. The program is the following: as a starter, I eat the daily diced vegetables salad. The overwhelming mayonnaise makes me consider the dish as a mayonnaise salad with vegetables and not a vegetables salad with mayonnaise. I, child, don't have an elaborated taste so it does not matter, say the adults. I feel the respect or the contempt of the grown-ups in the way they cook for me. But maybe the cheap cost of a meal plays also a role in the poor cooking of the cafeteria. The main course is most of time a meat drown in a thick and greasy sauce and some starchy food. As for the dessert, I have the choice between the coffee-flavored flan (tasteless actually) and some unripe fruits. In short, a perfect assortment for what we call 'piuk-parties', a funny game consisting in mixing all these dishes and eating altogether. Of course, it is designed for the braves only: Jeff, Maxim, Martin and sometimes some girls as well, Justine or Nadège.

I decided that I also wanted to try. I wanted to prove them I was as able to do this as anybody around the table. The day's dishes were peas and carrots, a rubbery piece of pork and some mash. I mixed everything in an empty bowl, slowly, each stirring increasing my sudden popularity. I was finally done, the preparation ready to be eaten. When I lift the spoon to my mouth, already dreading what was coming next, all my friends were looking at me, motionless, a smile of challenge and curiosity on their childish faces. The sole smell of this bite was unbearable but it was too late to back up.

The taste was even worse. You cannot know without experiencing it. My first surprise came from the incredible taste of cigaret of this awful mix. I picked the wrong day: somebody from the staff, we learnt that later, dropped a cigaret in the flan's batter. Then came the disgust of the sweet and salty unassorted tastes put together: the watery coffee cream of the flan, the sweet peas and crusty carrots got along with the sour pieces of meat coated in their nauseating sauce, already tasting that way usually.

 I did it. I could not believe it. Of course, I made a funny face as soon as the spoon entered my mouth. But I did it. The other were amazed. The little Marie, always scared by everything? Incredible. This was not a question of food, this was a question of honor. This day, I gained the respect of my friends, my classmates and even the older, who -I did not realize- gazed at me while I was inoculating the substance. From that moment, I had an assured spot in one of the best tables of the cafeteria. From that moment, I also stopped to rush to food. This was definitely more risky than not eating at all.

What your are looking for is never quite far

When you go further in A cook's tour, new dimensions of Bourdain's experience appear to the reader. The first conclusion to draw is that food is a dangerous leisure (can we even call it leisure again? I have my doubts.) The cook starts the chapter relating his trip to Can tho, Vietnam, as follows : « I just had the closest near-death experience I've ever had. And I'm about to have another one. Then another. » (p. 129).

Stuck in a car crazily driven by a Vietnamese (or a car driven by a crazy Vietnamese, you can choose) Bourdain and his TV acolytes escape narrowly death several times, experiencing the so-wanted local way of living. The secret ? Speed and confidence. Above all, don't look into your rear-view mirror. Cherry on the cake, they also avoid to kill several families, by bunch on 5 on a motorbike along the roadsides. What more could you ask for ? The name of the chapter, “highway of death”, is barely exaggerated.

The lesson is clear for the reader: food is not a completely save adventure. When you commit yourself to it, you are not guaranteed to stay unharmed. While this idea can be taken for what it is, it might also be a suitable metaphor for passion. Once you put a finger into the gears of cooking, it is hard to step back, not to say impossible. Trust me, Bourdain would confirm it.

Through the pages and the roads, the Chef took the path of thinking, a process during which he learnt both alterity and companionship. Sharing with his TV followers terrible nauseas -either provoked by excess of food or disgust- in almost each new destination; sharing amazement when they discovered the magic of exoticism (Japan, Mexico, England, Vietnam); sharing fear when threatened by armed locals, dubious food or angry cooks, Bourdain lived his travel experience through the lens of the “us,” either in conviviality or misfortune.

But the food adventure is also cultural. The confrontation to alterity, through different food and customs (eating pets or cute little animals was probably the toughest pill to swallow), pushed the cook to put things into perspective, considering food in a completely new way. It is not only about aliments, cooking or sugar quantity. It is about being part of something bigger: culture. To find the perfect meal, then, appears vain. Bourdain says it himself: “the whole concept of the 'perfect meal' is ludicrous. 'Perfect,' like 'happy,' tends to sneak up on you. Once you find it -like Thomas Keller says- it's gone.” The perfect meal is not, after all, bugs in the desert, dogs in Vietnam or Japanese dishes. The perfect meal is eating with the people we love. Wherever and whatever. Bourdain just needed a bit longer -one year abroad still- to realize that.

Eating with Tony or how to learn about life

When you read Antony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour, you cannot but recognize that food is not just food. Throughout his trips to France, Portugal, Russia or Morocco, the chef -humbly followed by an array of cameras- has eaten a range of dishes from the finest (oysters in Arcachon) to the most suspicious (a desert bug), experiencing emotions worthy of a roller coaster. His aim ? To find the perfect meal.

Dragged away in his race, we readers feel nauseous as well, when Bourdain suffers the slaughter of the Portuguese pig. We cannot but be nostalgic, when we are brought to the beaches of the chef's childhood. And when he runs through the colored street market of Ho Chi Minh, we are seized by the same feeling of amazement than him.

However, the book does not only display how Bourdain got to learn about local food specialities. It shows also how he got to learn about traditions and customs, landscapes and people. Above all, how he got to learn about himself. Indeed, each chapter works on its own, delivering in the last lines a message -personal realization, moral lesson, political awareness- that the whole experience of food literally engendered.

As he returned with his brother on the coasts of Western France, a place cherished since childhood, all is changed. Like a symbol of time passing, the absence of the house of their old neighbor, Monsieur Saint-Jour, torn and built upon, seized the brothers. Whereas Bourdain tried desperately to set the scene of his old memories (ride through the dune, firecrackers, saucisson à l'ail), “something was missing” (p. 35). As we walk along the narrator through the beaches of Brittany, we see more and more accurately the hole left empty since the death of his father in Bourdain's heart. The moment of the realization is particularly poignant : “I'd come to see my father. And he wasn't there.” (p. 46)

However, the chapter is also scattered with flashes of wit, and humor rubs shoulders with culinary explanations. Let's savor again the metaphor of oysters' reproduction (p.41): “Picture the swimming pool at Plato's Retreat back in the 1970s. That fat guy at the other end of the pool with the gold chains and the back hair ? He's getting you pregnant. Or maybe it's the Guccione look-alike by the diving board. No way of knowing.” Despite his underlying sadness, no bitterness in Bourdain's pot.

Indeed, the richness of the style, alternatively juggling with culinary remarks, sociologic or political observations, memories and jokes, gives the book its playfulness. But A Cook's Tour is not only a light-hearted reading. Whether through philosophical inquiries (p. 122, Bourdain is considering “for the first in a while, the possibility of happiness”) or bucolic descriptions of the landscapes of Portugal (p. 20) and Vietnam (p. 56), the book gained a depth that makes us realize that this adventure is not only a matter of food. It is an experience of life.  

Does childhood lies in a cup of strawberry ice cream ?

In the article The Madeleine effect, Julian Baggini narrates his experience: eating during a whole day food of his childhood. While the attempt of enjoying food he used to love is a failure, the author goes further by explaining how the slight evolution of ourselves through the years conditions our perception of ancient loved tastes and scents, which never feel the same again. The distinction Baggini makes between memory and recollection enlightens this issue.

"Memory is nothing more than a kind of cognitive stamp-collecting. To remember is to recall, as reliably as possible, the facts of the matter. Recollection, on the other hand, is about retrieving the emotional essence of what happened."

Thus, the memory usually associated with food, as underlines Baggini, should rather be called recollection, as the process of finding back a feeling felt a long time ago through the tasting of identical food. It is not food that tastes the same (the author explained his demands got higher and higher as he experienced new and finer food); it is the feeling provoked by this particular food (pleasure, anxiety, security, comfort and so on) that was identical to past experiences of eating. Nothing surprising then in his disappointment: an educated tongue cannot appreciate bland sauce or too-sweet candies. However, a mind can and that's the magic of food and senses.

To learn more about the brain-processes involved in memory and senses, you can read also this article.