1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (24 page)

To taste an authentic and properly ripened Époisses de Bourgogne is to cross over to the other side. But getting there may take some work, as this cow’s-milk cheese is not for the faint of palate. Washed with
marc de Bourgogne
, the Burgundian spirit of distilled grape remnants, its rind takes on an ocher-orange hue and a distinctive barnyard smell so strong that the cheese has been rumored—incorrectly—to have been barred from public transportation in France.

Dating back to the Cistercian monks in the sixteenth century, Époisses nearly became extinct when local men left their farms and dairies to fight the two world wars. It wasn’t until the mid-1950s that a couple of dedicated cheese makers, Robert and Simone Berthaut, almost singlehandedly revitalized its production. Their company still makes Époisses de Bourgogne that has a complex pungency and a sweet-saltiness to it. Alas, it exports only pasteurized versions of its cheeses to the States, where raw-milk cheese must be aged a minimum of sixty days; the flavor of pasteurized cheeses generally pales beside the flavor of raw-milk varieties.

The short of it is that you really have to be there, in Burgundy, France, where the Époisses is always unpasteurized and where the real deal bears the handy Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée stamp, assuring that point of origin, processing, and ingredients meet requirements set by nothing less than French law. Like many ripening cheeses, it is best served at room temperature, when its thick texture has softened and become elegantly spreadable. The intense flavor of Époisses de Bourgogne dictates that it be served at the end of a meal, never at its start.

Retail and mail order:
In New York
, Murray’s Cheese, tel 888-692-4339,
murrayscheese.com
.
Further information:
French Cheeses
by Kazuko Masui and Tomoko Yamada (1996);
Cheese Primer
by Steven Jenkins (1996).
Tip:
Look for a Berthaut cheese that fills up its entire box, an indication of supreme ripeness.

Butter is a key element of this dish.

A classic French bistro meal with
steak frites
as the main course (see
listing
) allows for only one choice as a starter:
escargots à la bourguignonne.
These plump snails are nestled in their shells and bathed in an aromatic sauce of garlic,
shallots, parsley, and lots of hot butter. Eaten scalding hot between sips of red wine and nibbles of little crusts of bread soaked in their tantalizing juices, six of these slow-moving wonders make a fine appetizer, although a dozen is more than twice as good.

There are many other ways to prepare snails, and many riffs on this classic, a delicacy since ancient Roman times; but none shows them off to such great advantage as escargots à la bourguignonne. One allowable deviation: ditching the shells, from which the snails have to be removed and cleaned (tediously) and then replaced (laboriously).

In fact, there is so much handwork involved in this presentation that many restaurant owners, mindful of labor costs, eliminate the dish from their menus entirely. Function would suggest that, once out of the shells, snails are more conveniently nestled in the indentations of the special small casseroles made for the purpose. Still, there is a certain amount of fun in the challenge of grasping the hot and buttery shells in the appropriate clamps and wresting the snails from the winding interior with the typical two-tined fork.

For the record, escargots à la bourguignonne are not to be confused with
escargots de Bourgogne.
The first refers to snails served in their highly perfumed butter; the second defines snails raised in Burgundy, where they feed on grape leaves to become what are considered France’s best. Any of France’s snails, however, are better than the canned variety imported from China that are often fishy and bitter—so whether fresh or canned, try to discover the source.

Where:
In Paris
, L’Ami Louis, tel 33/1-48-87-77-48;
in New York
, Bar Boulud, tel 212-595-0303,
barboulud.com/nyc
.
Further information and recipes:
The Food of France
by Waverley Root (1992);
saveur.com
(search snails in garlic herb butter).

In both victory and defeat, the French have a penchant for naming dishes after military battles. Consider veal Marengo, mayonnaise, and lobster Thermidor, each marking a campaign in the Napoleonic wars. One of the most luxuriously spectacular—and an endangered species among culinary classics—is pheasant Souvaroff, named for the Russian general who turned back the French army in a battle the French were fighting with the Italians near Milan in 1799.

It may be hard to understand how so dire an outcome (for the French) provoked so succulent a main course, but we’ll leave that to the historians. Much better to spend time mastering this fantastic dish yourself, or to find a serious
French chef who is happy to recall his haute-cuisine training.

The essentials are a fine, fresh pheasant, black truffles, duck or goose foie gras, good strong game or beef stock, Madeira wine, and plenty of patience. The buttered pheasant is browned in the oven, then filled with slivers of truffles and foie gras and placed in an ovenproof casserole, preferably of copper or enameled cast iron. More truffles and foie gras are added to the casserole, along with brown stock and Madeira. The lid is then placed on and sealed with a stiff flour-and-water paste. As a variation, the casserole with all ingredients in it is sealed with a covering of puff pastry. All is baked in a very hot oven for about 20 minutes, then should be presented at the table, where the wondrous experience begins with the aroma. For as the seal is cracked open and the lid removed, the air becomes heady with the perfume of slightly sweet wine, earthy truffles, ripe foie gras, and the buttery roasted bird.

As you might imagine, the flavor justifies the effort. The experience of biting into the tender game meat mellowed with the velvety flavors of liver, truffles, and winey sauce—offset, one would hope, by perfectly steamed potatoes or a nutty wild rice pilaf—makes this a dish that anyone serious about food should experience at least once in a lifetime. Maybe twice.

Where:
In Paris
, Lasserre, tel 33/1-43-59-02-13,
restaurant-lasserre.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Classic French Cooking
by Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey (1970);
Modern French Culinary Art
by Henri-Paul Pellaprat (1962);
ifood.tv
(search pheasant souvaroff).

Try serving a chilled slice with figs on toast.

Unctuously seductive and tantalizingly decadent, foie gras has been one of mankind’s incurable weaknesses since ancient Roman days. One of the world’s priciest delicacies, the “fatty liver” is produced by the controversial practice of force-feeding corn to ducks and geese; their livers become engorged with butter-sweet fat, taking on the sublime texture and ripe overtones that are the hallmarks of foie gras.

Dedicated connoisseurs avoid the mixtures dubbed pâté, opting for slices of whole, unadulterated livers that have been slowly melted in their own juices with only a dash of salt. As flavorful and supple as warm foie gras can be, whether sautéed alone or used in smaller proportions as an enhancement to other ingredients, only its chilled state can offer the full foie gras experience: the slow-melting, ice-cream-like texture and the rich aroma that is released as the fat gentles onto the palate. The best foie
gras is creamy in color, with a tinge of pink toward the center. Edged in a golden rim of its own pure renderings, the delicacy requires only a slice of toast or, better yet, a slab of baguette toasted over a wood fire. The latter is the way L’Ami Louis, in Paris, serves the best foie gras in the world (see
listing
).

At Morimoto, New York’s lavish Japanese fusion restaurant, Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto adds foie gras to the steamed egg custard,
chawan mushi
, to ethereally silky effect.

Though fine foie gras is produced in several countries—primarily in France’s Alsace and Périgord regions; in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Israel; and, increasingly, in the U.S.—its legal fate currently hangs in the balance. It is now illegal to create or serve foie gras in California.

Where:
In Paris
, L’Ami Louis, tel 33/1-48-87-77-48.
Mail order:
D’Artagnan, tel 800-327-8246,
dartagnan.com
.
Further information and recipe:
saveur.com
(search terrine de foie gras).

Think calf’s liver and you probably summon up visions of satiny slices, thick or thin, grilled or sautéed and enhanced with crisp bacon. Some prefer them Venetian-style, smothered in onions, or in the French manner known as
beurre noisette
, with parsley, lemon, and caper butter.

As enticing as the liver is when cooked in slices, it ascends to even greater gastronomic heights when it is braised whole and sliced at the table, the meat giving off fragant juices and glowing rose-pink. However, as the organ is not universally adored, restaurateurs are reluctant to prepare whole livers, lest too much go to waste. But once upon a time in the small town of Wheeling, Illinois, in his great restaurant Le Français, chef-proprietor Jean Banchet served whole liver baked
en croûte
, the flaky crust lined with a veneer of foie gras—making this much-loved specialty liver
avec
liver.

That’s hardly the only way the French serve whole livers, and any one of them is well worth a try. The
à la bourgeoise
style is simply the whole liver larded with bacon strips for moisture and simmered with spices, parsley, and root vegetables, after which all is flambéed with brandy.
Foie de veau piqué des pousterles
is spiked with bacon and braised in goose fat along with chopped Bayonne ham, crushed garlic, onion rings, parsley, bread crumbs, Armagnac, and dry white wine. For
foie de veau Médéric
, the liver is wrapped in a caul of fat and braised with veal bones and root vegetables, resulting in an especially sublime sauce that Americans would consider a gravy.

An order of whole calf’s liver needs to be placed ahead of time with the butcher, and should satisfy an average of four to six happy eaters, depending on what goes before and along with. Mashed potatoes, perhaps with pureed celery root, seem the right accompaniment to any of these succulent pot-roasted livers.

Further information and recipes:
Larousse Traditional French Cooking
by Curnonsky (1987);
The German Cookbook
by Mimi Sheraton (2014).
See also:
Fegato alla Veneziana
;
Lamb’s Liver
.