Chez Leon

Madame's Nightshirt

Mrs. Peperium

By the time the repatriated Becks had been in America for a year we had many things for which to be thankful.  We were safely settled in a hospitable New England seaport.  We had friends.  The schools were good. The comforts of living were almost too good. We still found life exciting.  Thanks to the genius of our Cordon Bleu, we had proven that gastronomy could be as much of an adventure in America as it had been in France. The little towns of Senlis and Marblehead were not totally different after all.

There was little temptation to celebrate this first anniversary, however, for it fell in the early days of June 1940, when our well-loved France, bruised and bewildered, lay on the brink of disaster. For the Becks, and for all Americans who knew France well enough to love her, it was a somber and fearful moment. It left us with throbbing temples and with forlorn, desperate hopes, first in Reynaud, then in Weygand, and finally in Pétain. The news stunned and upset Clémentine, while raising her Gallic ire at the iron-heeled boches and the betrayers of her country. The impact of the headlines announcing the Fall of France was, briefly, too much for her.  She asked us to excuse her and hurried to a favorite park bench facing the Atlantic, where she brooded most of the day. When she finally reappeared in the kitchen she was red eyed and silent, but she was muttering things under her breath, a reassuring sign that her spirit was far from broken.

We didn't pay much attention to gastronomy during those tragic days. Clémentine found herself opening tins of corned beef hash perfunctorily and without protest. Her thoughts were far away, in Beaune, where her family awaited the thirsty invaders.  Considering her aged parents and the fact that her brother was stationed in the Maginot Line, Clémentine's worries were so much more vital than those of the Becks that we were almost ashamed to be concerned of the fate of our old farmhouse in the Oise. But when the newspapers mentioned our little town repeatedly during those fateful days, we couldn't help but think of the steep-roofed house at the edge of town where we had spent so many tranquil years. We thought of our collection of books and prints and pewter and of the old furniture we had acquired after haunting antique shops and the marche aux puces.  We thought of our Chagall watercolor and our old Spanish parchments and felt a momentary sadness - but not for long. Possessions seemed trivial indeed at such a time.  We thought of the old courtyard of our farmhouse, paved with grass-grown cobblestones, and wonder if any German army wagons were already using it as a parking place. At the far end of the courtyard was the barn, dominated by an octagonal pigeonnier, where we kept the Hotchkiss touring car.  Who had it now? Had some French acquaintance been wise enough to appropriate it and to hurry southward in it ahead of the exodus from Paris? We hoped so. Crouching close to the barn were the rabbit hutches and the private apartments of Alfred, the duck and Gringoire, the great grey goose.  What chance had they of surviving a Nazi invasion?

We waited long, uncertain weeks before the first letters trickled in from France. Clémentine's family was safe, if indignant.  Her brother , together with two million other brothers, fathers, and sons of French families, had been taken prisoner. As for the maison Beck, a letter from our notaire disclosed that is was undamaged, save for a slight peppering by shell fragments.  The courtyard, however, had not fared so well. The notary hinted that Monsieur Beck might be a little distressed to observe the condition of the pigeonnier, which had suffered a direct hit.  In one paragraph he then sketched some of the more tragic damage done to the town,  The church had been hit, and the commercial hotel by the station had been destroyed for the third time in seventy years. A part of the shopping street, embracing the pâtisserie, the mercerie of Mademoiselle Drouin, and the quincaillerie of studious little Monsieur Escaffre, had been made a jambles. A high-explosive bomb had been dropped squarely in the Place du 14 juillet, leveling its quiet fountain and all the buildings facing it. "The restaurant of your friend Monsieur Gebaud was obliterated, and he is now in the hospital," the letter continued.  "It was necessary to amputate his right arm." 

With a jolt this casual sentence brought the war very near to the Becks. For Leon Gebaud had been a true friend, one of the few Frenchmen I could tutoyer with entire ease. We were invariably his customers on Clémentine's Thursday night off and always had apéritif with him in the kitchen while he helped the chef put the finishing touches on the plat du jour. To dine Chez Leon was to enjoy the best restaurants and to come away with a renewed appreciation of the art of the innkeeper. For twenty years Leon had presided over the destinies of the rural café-restaurant, and in that time he had established himself among the townspeople as a chef, a genial host, and a true philosopher.  He was a handsome man, with clear blue eyes, a flowing blonde moustache, and a rather wistful smile. The formalities of being a restaurateur made him endure a high white collar, but he counteracted this discomfort by wearing black felt pantoufles for all occasions instead of shoes. He had a fine scorn for politicians, for the noveaux riches, and especially for the Germans, whom he considered thick-skulled automatons, devoid of any trace of humor or imagination.  Leon was a cycliste in his youth, and when we knew him he still took his recreation by pedaling to the forest and gathering the wildflowers.

His café-restaurant had thousands of counterparts all over France. The center of the largest room was given over to two antique billiard tables. The walls were lined with large areas of mirror, beneath which stretched red plush banquettes, worn rather threadbare in spots and handicapped here and there by a broken spring.  In front of the upholstered benches were rectangular marble-topped tables, scrubbed clean for the afternoon card players.  At apéritif time Leon was certain of a patronage of many of the town's foremost citizens.  Monsieur Fidelin, the bewhiskered mayor, was sure to be there for his Picon citron and two rounds of belote before dinner.  Monsieur Huguet, the pharmacien, never missed an afternoon game of backgammon with sprightly old Colonel Levassuer.  As the hour approached seven, the marble tops were covered with red and white tablecloths, and Leon's dinner menus, mimeographed in pale violet ink, appeared on each table, accompanied by sizable carafes of vin rouge.  At the corner of the building was a smaller dining room with six tables, reserved for ladies whose sensibilities were offended by the billiard players.  During the long winter months Leon's hospitable cafe was the pleasantest spot in the old town, largely because of the tact, politeness, and unfailing good cheer displayed by the patron himself. With the arrival of warm weather his regular guests -billiardists, belote players, and gourmets alike - shifted to tables in the garden at the rear of the café. The trees in the tranquil spot had been trained to form an almost rainproof shelter.  Clean white pebbles covered the ground.  Along one side of the garden a grass-grown alley ran almost down to the river, providing the perfect terrain for leisurely games of boules. 

That is all there was to Chez Leon -except for the cooking and the conversation. There was no radio, no electric piano, juke box, or pinball machine.  It was simplicity itself. A French child can play for hours with nothing but a hoop, and this typical café suggests that a French adult is hardly more exacting about his recreation. I submit that the café-restaurant is one of the most civilized of man's institutions and that a good café proprietor is a distinguished member of society, especially when he is also a superlative chef, as Leon was. his duties as host did not allow him to do much of the cooking, but he trained his own chef, planned the menus, and went to Les Halles at daybreak 5 times a week to do his own marketing. His knowledge of la cuisine was, in our eyes, limitless.  Once we had gained his friendship, Leon's kitchen and many of its secrets was opened to us.  Some of the choicest recipes in Clémentine's notebooks were contributed by this generous, kindly, civilized man, who, if he is alive, is maimed for life.

We thought often of Leon during those calamitous days in the summer of 1940 and we continue to think of him, wondering whether he is carrying on with one arm, picturing the expression of quiet loathing with which he observes the Nazi occupation troops, trying to imagine the sulphurous adjectives he is applying to Pierre Laval. We think, too, of his love of good food.  Leon, who was prodigally extravagant with butter and eggs, what somber light now shines in his eyes when he claims his ration of one egg per month!  How long since he has made his fabulously rich sauce bernaise, his gratin de queues d'ecrevisses, his incomparable volaille truffee demi-deuil!  Has he been able to hoard enough butter and white wine and to find a few slices of salmon to make his favorite dish, le salmon poêlé au Vouvray? In that martyred, humiliated, and plundered land is the chance remote indeed that any Frenchman can assemble such treasures at this moment.  For this reason we used to feel guilty every time Clémentine prepared this dish for our New England table. But gradually Leon's favorite salmon has taken on added significance.  Each time it appears we drink a toast in clear, white wine to a sensitive, civilized, and courageous friend, a true Frenchman who reviles the collaborationists, and who, along with the vast majority of his countrymen, looks to the Allies as France's one hope for liberation.  

The recipe for Leon's salmon dish is extremely simple, but it is different, and it prevents the dryness one often encounters in broiled or sauteed salmon.  The Becks and Clémentine join in the hope that you will try it during the hot summer months and that perhaps you will feel inclined to drink a toast to Leon Gebaud and all the true, silent, suffering, but -never forget this-indomitable Frenchmen he typifies.

Le Salmon Poêlé Au Vouvray

Saute slices of fresh salmon in generous quantities of fresh butter until they are about halfway cooked and lightly browned. Add salt.  Then add two or three glasses of dry Vouvray or a good dry Californian white wine, according to the quantity of salmon. Boil over brisk fire until the liquid is greatly reduced, but leaving enough for a rich sauce.  Pepper the fish lightly, add chopped parsley, and serve with steamed potatoes.  - Samuel Chamberlain, Clémentine in the Kitchen 

Do not skimp on the butter.  Use about 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter and 1 to 1 1/2 cups of wine per pound of fish.

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Comments

[Fear and Loathing in Georgetown]

Sigh. It took me forever to read this because I had to look up all those crazy foreign words.