A Cook's Tour (8 page)

     But we were cruising past the boarded-up villas, shuttered restaurants, and businesses we’d so often passed in our youth. This was a bold and heroic venture, wasn’t it? A noble attempt to reconnect with our past, to bond, however foolhardy it was to be trying this in January. The trip took about two hours, maybe a bit more, given the frequent pit stops to unhelmet and allow our aching brainpans some relief. We finally arrived at a sandy turnoff, drove slowly down a scrub pine-lined road, parked, dismounted by a dune fence, and began the half-mile walk to the beach. There was nothing but wind, the sound of our heavy hiking boots in the sand, the distant thudding of surf.

     ‘I recognize that one, I think,’ said Chris, pointing out a graffiti-covered blockhouse in the distance, midway between beach and pine forest, just visible in the rolling dunes.

     ‘Picnic site?’ I suggested.

     ‘Plan!’

     We trudged over dunes, berms, hillocks, slow going in the sand, then finally clambered up a thick, sloping concrete wall and sat atop the thing, exactly where we’d played as kids. I laid out a blanket and our little picnic lunch and we chewed silently, our fingers stiff in the cold wind coming off the sea. The
saucisson
tasted the same, the cheese was good, and the wine proved serviceable.

     I produced a package of firecrackers, and soon two men in their forties were playing army, as they’d done three decades or more ago: dropping explosives down rusted vents, jamming them into discarded bleach bottles, the dull
bang
of the explosions whipped immediately away by the wind, to disappear into the sand. We chased each other around the blockhouse for a while, and when we got tired of blowing stuff up – or, more accurately, when the firecrackers ran out – we nosed around inside, exploring the stairwells and doorways where we’d played Combat and Rat Patrol those many summers ago.

     We ambled awkwardly down to the beach, stepped over driftwood and debris that once, as children, had promised untold possibilities for construction projects and play but now appeared sad and dreary. My brother and I stood by the water’s edge looking out at a violent surf, neither of us saying anything for a long while.

     ‘Dad would have loved this,’ I said.

     ‘What?’ asked Chris, snapping back from his own thoughts.

     ‘The whole idea of this. That we came back. That we came back here again – just the two of us. He would have liked it. He would have liked hearing about it.’

     ‘Yeah,’ said my little brother, no longer littler, taller than me now. The mature one.

     ‘Fuck . . . I miss the guy.’

     ‘Me too,’ said Chris.

I’d been looking to hook into the main vein on this stretch of my around-the-world adventure. I’d thought everything would be instant magic. That the food would taste better because of all my memories. That I’d be happier. That I would change, or somehow be as I once was. But you can never be ten years old again – or even truly feel like ten years old. Not for an hour, not for a

minute. This trip, so far, had been bittersweet at best.

     I hadn’t, I realized, returned to France, to this beach, my old town, for the oysters. It wasn’t the fish soup, or the
saucisson
, or the
pain raisin
. It wasn’t to see a house in which strangers now lived, or to climb a dune, or to find a perfect meal. I’d come to find my father. And he wasn’t there.

Reasons Why You Don’t Want to Be on Television: Number One in a Series

‘While you’re in the area, let’s see where foie gras is made,’ said the creative masterminds of Televisionland. ‘We’re making a food show, remember? All this trip down memory lane is nice and all – but where’s the food? C’mon! You like foie gras! You said so!’

     ‘Sure,’ I said. Why not? Sounds educational. Sounds interesting. I do like foie gras – love it, even. The swollen fresh livers of goose or duck, lightly cooked
en terrine
in Sauternes, or seared in a pan with a few caramelized apples or quince, maybe a little balsamic reduction, a nice fat slice off a torchon with some toasted brioche. It’s one of the best things on earth.

     We were right near Gascony, the epicenter of foie gras territory, so sure . . . let’s do it! Let’s make riveting, informative television, and scarf up some free foie while we’re at it. How could we go wrong?

     The previous night, I’d sat for the cameras and choked down an absolutely gruesome, clumsily prepared, three-day-old dino-sized portion of
tête de veau
– a terrifying prospect in the best of circumstances. Usually (the way I make it anyway), it’s a slice of rolled-up boneless calf’s face, peeled right off the skull, tied up – with a stuffing of sweetbreads – and served boiled in a little broth with a few nicely shaped root vegetables and a slice of tongue. It’s an acquired taste, or, more accurately, an acquired texture: the translucent fat, the blue calf’s skin, and the bits of cheek and thymus gland take some getting past before you can actually enjoy the flavor. The squiggly, glistening, rubbery-looking gleet is – or should be – pretty tender and flavorful. Accompanied by a dab of
sauce ravigote
, or
gribiche
, the dish can be a triumphant celebration of old-school French country food, a conquering of one’s fears and prejudices. It’s one of my favorite things to cook. The few (mostly French) customers who order it at Les Halles, when I run it as a special, adore it. ‘Ahhh!
Tête de veau!
’ they’ll exclaim. ‘I haven’t had this in years!’ I make it well. And I have always gotten a very good reaction from those I inflict it on. I eat my own, now and again, and I like it.

     This stuff was different. First of all, I had ignored all my own advice. Sucked into some romantic dream state of willful ignorance, I’d overlooked the fact that for three days I’d been passing by that specials board with
Tête de
Veau proudly written in block letters in white chalk. Meaning that it was, without question – particularly considering this was off-season Arcachon – the same unsold
tête
on day three as they’d been offering on day one. Business was hardly so good, and they’d certainly not been so swamped with orders for this (even in France) esoteric specialty, that they’d have been making a fresh batch every day. How many veal heads were they getting in the whole town per week? Or per month? Even worse, I’d broken another personal rule, ordering a not-too-popular, potentially nasty meat and offal special in a restaurant that proudly specialized in seafood – a very slow restaurant specializing in seafood.

     My brother, who is usually pretty daring in his tastes these days when it comes to food, had ordered the sole. I’d ignored his good example. During the meal, he’d looked at me as if I were gnawing the flesh off a dead man’s fingers and washing it down with urine. By any parameters, it had been disgusting; undercooked, tough, seemingly devoid of cheek, tasting of some dark refrigerator and, worst of all, absolutely slathered with a thick, vile-tasting
sauce gribiche
– a kind of mayonnaise/tartar sauce variation made from cooked egg yolks. I’d swallowed as much as I could for the benefit of the cameras, trying to look cheerful about it, and, far too late, simply said, ‘Fuck it!’ then tried sneaking away half my food into a napkin concealed below the table (as I had not wanted to offend the chef).

     So the next morning, at eight o’ clock, feeling none too fine from what had easily been the worst head I’d ever had, I found myself standing in a cold barn, watching my genial host, foie gras farmer and producer Monsieur Cabenass, jam a pipe from a long, long funnel down the throat of a less-than-thrilled-looking duck and begin grinding what looked like a food mill until a fistful of cornmeal disappeared down the creature’s gullet. All this before breakfast.

     The funnel seemed to reach the very bottom of the duck’s stomach. Monsieur Cabenass would give the ducks a stroke, nudge them not too forcefully between his legs, tilt their heads back, and then give them the business. Seeing such a thing with an undigested wad of veal head still roiling in your stomach tends to inspire the gag reflex. Global Alan, the shooter who’d been standing next to Monsieur Cabenass, certainly seemed to think so: He suddenly turned an awful hue of green and went running for the door, disappearing for the rest of the morning.

     Though not feeling too good myself, I endured a learned discourse and demonstration of the entire process of raising and feeding ducks and geese for foie gras. It was not as cruel as I’d imagined. The animal’s feet are not nailed to a board, as some have said. They are not permanently rigged up to a feeding tube, endlessly pumped with food like some cartoon cat while they struggle and choke in vain. They are, in fact, fed twice a day – and each time a considerably lesser amount comparative to body weight than, say, a Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast. Monsieur Cabenass did not strike me as a cruel or unfeeling man, he appeared to have genuine affection for his flock, and, more often than not, the ducks would actually come to him when it was funnel time. He’d simply reach out an arm and they’d come, no more reluctantly than a child having his nose wiped by his mother.

     He held up one particularly plump duck and let me run my hand over its swollen belly, its warm, protruding liver. He was not yet ‘harvesting,’ though he showed me some photos – a display akin to a highway safety film, and about as appetizing. Ordinarily, I like blood and guts, but rarely do I like them first thing in the morning. And never with the sound of a violently heaving and coughing cameraman in the distance. By the time we retired next door to the little shop where the Cabenass clan sell their products, I was not feeling well at all.

     For my tasting pleasure, Madame Cabenass had assembled a spread of conserve de foie gras, mousse de foie gras,
rillettes de canard
, and confit, along with some sliced croutons of baguette and a bottle of Sauternes. The Cabenass product was top-drawer – it regularly takes the prize at competitions and tastings – but I like my foie gras fresh: not canned, not preserved, not in mousse, and not ‘
en souvide
.’ In fairness, it had been a while since harvesting, and the fresh stuff was long sold. Any other culinary adventurer would no doubt have been thrilled. And while I do like Sauternes with my foie, not at nine o’clock in the morning. Foie gras should be enjoyed at one’s leisure, not choked down in front of a camera in the cold, cruel morning after a nauseating
tête de veau
experience the night before.

     There was a lot of food there. Once again, fearful of giving offense to my very kind hosts, I scarfed everything in front of me, smiling and nodding appreciatively, conversing (with the help of my not noticeably disturbed brother) in my tortured French. The drive back to the Norman Bates Passion Pit in Arcachon was the longest journey in memory. Global Alan, in the car ahead, had his head hanging out the window at a crazy angle, periodically drooling as we passed through quaint country villages, by Crusade-era churches and lovely old farmhouses. Alberto, the assistant producer, at the wheel of the lead car, was soon feeling bad, as well. My brother drove our car, feeling fine, taking the turns way too hard for my taste – my stomach beginning to flip and gurgle like some incipient Krakatoa. I held on for dear life, hoping to make it back to the privacy of my hotel bathroom before erupting. I just made it.

     Five hours of rib-cracking agony later, I was lying, near delirious, in my ugly hotel room, trash bucket to my right, alternately sweating and shivering under a pink poly-blend blanket, the television remote control out of reach on the floor. I’d just been considering the possibility – however slight – that I might someday feel better, when suddenly, the TV show I’d not really been watching ended and the highlights of what was next flickered across my screen. The true horror of France revealed itself in all its terrible quirkiness. This has to be a joke, I thought. It can’t be! It’s a punch line, for Chrissakes! No! But it was happening. A ninety-minute biography – with clips – of the glorious career of that great French hero, the recipient of France’s highest honors, Jerry Lewis. The great man’s entire oeuvre coming
tout de suite
to my television screen, promising to bombard my already-toxin-riddled brain with a lifetime of mugging, simpering, whining shtick.

     It was too much. I tried, in my desperately weakened condition, to reach the remote control, felt the blood drain from my head and the bile rise in my throat, and had to fall back into the pillows, inspiring a whole new bout of dry heaves. I couldn’t turn the damn TV off, couldn’t change the station. Already, scenes from
The Disorderly Orderly
were searing their way into my softened brain, causing me whole new dimensions of pain and discomfort. I picked up the phone and called Matthew, the one member of our crew who was as yet unafflicted, and begged for him to come over and change the station.

     ‘Is it
The Day the Clown Cried
?’ he asked. ‘That’s a vastly underrated classic, I’m told. Never seen by American audiences. Jerry plays a prisoner in a concentration camp. That Italian guy won an Oscar for the same idea! What was it?
Life Is Beautiful
? Jerry was
way
ahead of his time.’

     ‘Please, you gotta help me,’ I gasped. ‘I’m dying here. I can’t take it. You don’t do something fast, I’m a dead man. They’re gonna have to fly Bobby Flay in to shoot the Cambodia stuff. You wanna see Bobby Flay in a sarong?’