Food
As all dinner party bores are aware (and never pause to inform us), there are far too many cookery shows on British TV. To compound the offence, they fulminate, most of these so-called programmes are mere game shows! Vapid entertainment for the great unfed and unwashed! One has only to look at the brash titles to see that these are not going to be gentle disquisitions on the traditional components of cassoulet: Ready, Steady, Cook!; Who'll Do the Pudding?; Here's One I Made Earlier; Can't Cook, Won't Cook . . . And then when you watch them (curiously, the bores have never failed to sample the said horrors), these circuses reduce cookery to tasteless competitions in loud studios! Appalling! The bore invariably concludes his tirade - winey indignation now spraying across the table - with the observation that this would never happen in France. His cardinal assumption is that the French revere their food too much to make it into sport.
On the contrary: in the early 19th century, those Frenchmen who were the most worshipful gourmets were also the most eager to set up cookery contests. The rules were admittedly different from those of Bazal Productions. There were no flambeing chefs mugging for the cameras (and no cameras). But there was the same assumption that competitions could actually enhance the science of cookery; and that a bit of kitchen rivalry need not be tasteless.
Look at Grimod de la Reyniere (1758-1837). This witty barrister and socialite took culinary competitions desperately seriously. His life's mission was gastronomy. "It is a great deal easier," he wrote, "to find a sensitive lady than a tender leg of mutton." To make reliable mutton easier to find, he set up a "jury" of tasters to assess the foodstuffs of Paris. Grimod's hand-picked quorum would meet - for five hours at a time - at his home in the Champs-Elysees, tasting a series of dishes one by one. The merits of the dish would be considered from every conceivable angle. Was this ragout rich enough? Too rich? Was the meat melting and the sauce glossy? And this apricot pastry - was it light enough? Crisp enough? Could it compete with the sublime patisserie tasted last week? Outside, nervous pastry chefs would await their fate.
After a strenuous evening of fine eating, the jury would solemnly pick the winners and the losers. Chefs who got lucky would purchase a certificate of legitimation from Grimod, and were guaranteed increased sales. The unlucky ones often went out of business. And so the art of gastronomy progressed, as only the flakiest croissant and tenderest mutton survived.
The socialist Charles Fourier (1772-1837) took the idea of cookery contests even further. He visualised a peaceful future - "Harmony" - free of bloodshed and discord. Instead of wars, there would be colossal gastronomic skirmishes, in which huge armies would fight to create the finest dishes in the world. There would be battles, for instance, to determine the ultimate creme caramel.
The Pink and the Blue armies would meet each other in a giant cook-off. On the first day, the Pink army has the edge, producing a custard of wobbly splendour. Telegrams are sent across the globe predicting a Pink victory! But the next morning, to everyone's amazement, the Blue army fights back, enriching its caramel with an extra egg yolk and a few vanilla seeds. The council of war announces that the Blues have won and 300,000 champagne bottles are simultaneously popped! Then on to the next battle, in which thousands of patissiers compete for the perfect galette. Funnily enough, it all makes Ready, Steady, Cook! seem rather restrained.
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