Food, Inside And Out
I opened a bag of fresh spring salad, tossed a heap on the plate, and turned my back. Returning with vinegar in hand, I narrowly missed dousing this poor little guy, already insulted by having spent a night in the fridge. He’d been in the food, and was now on the food, and in a certain sense he was food, an inside-out food like all of his kind. But although salade à l’escargot might tempt some, I set him free in a rain-drenched bit of garden.
Sometimes the secret insides of the food are what it’s all about. If an egg were only the white I doubt that we’d eat it, but give us a running yolk and the ante ups considerably. Of course, every egg we eat is a chicken that we won’t be serving; in addition to being delicious in its own right the egg’s also a pre-food, as it were.
But while milk is a pre-food in the same way, I think we can all agree that a perfectly ripe Mont d’Or has a lot more to offer. Unprepossessing on the outside, a bit smelly and tattered-looking, it opens into an impeccably creamy splendor.
And speaking of creamy splendor, sometimes it’s the outside of the food that calls to us the loudest. When a guest arrived the other night and offered us this beautifully wrapped mystery in a towel, as eager as we were for dessert I could scarcely bear to open it up.
The lovely gateau Savoyard inside made up for the destruction of the clever packaging, but I did get a lesson in towel-tying so that I can replicate the pleasure myself the next time someone asks me to bring dessert.
Who said that beauty is only skin deep?
Tags: Food, French Cooking
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March 31, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Can you post a short video on towel tying? It looks so elegant.
April 2, 2009 at 6:42 am
the picture of the snail in your salade made me laugh. When I was a little girl, living in the outskirts of Paris, my sister and I used to love to go out during the rain and collect snails. Since there was no television back in the 60’s, at least not at my parents home, this was our entertainment. To this day I love everything french but I CANNOT eat escargot! Your photo brought many happy memories for me. Thanks.
April 2, 2009 at 9:56 am
Can you post a recipe for the Gateau Savoyard. This cake looks delish.
April 2, 2009 at 11:27 am
I am having serious cheese envy here – that is a drool inducing photo!
April 2, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Linda – I don’t have my guest’s actual recipe, but from the way she described it to me it sounds just like this one
http://www.cuisineaz.com/recettes/gateau-savoyard-11995.aspx
April 3, 2009 at 11:22 am
Those eggs look so delicious!!