The Decadent Cookbook (12 page)

4
TSP
BLACK
PEPPERCORNS,
ROUGHLY
CRUSHED

4
TBSP
SALT

2
TBSP
HONEY

2
TBSP
BRANDY

Wash and dry the salmon. Mix the pepper, salt, honey and brandy. Lay half the dill on a long dish, then half the salmon, skin side down. Rub in half the cure. Add the remaining dill. Rub the rest of the cure into the flesh of the other half of the salmon. Lay it over the first half, skin side up, cover with foil and put some weights on top. Stick the whole thing in the fridge for 48 hours, and turn every 12 hours.

When it’s ready, dress with a sweet mustard and dill mayonnaise (2 egg yolks, 300 ml of olive oil, lemon juice, 4 tbsp French mustard, 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp dill), made in the usual way.

For real cheats, there’s also the gravlax which comes ready-entombed in vacuum-packs at supermarkets. Resurrect the corpse as delicately as possible and decorate extravagantly.

For this Victorian recipe you should ideally use black sole instead of white. The ingredients are as follows:

1
LARGE
POTATO
PER
PERSON

1
PINT
OF
B
ÉCHAMEL
SAUCE

2
FILLETS
OF
SOLE
PER
PERSON

H
ALF
A
LOBSTER
CUT
INTO
½
INCH
PIECES

8
COOKED
PRAWNS
PER
PERSON.
K
EEP
THEM
HOT

¼
LB
BUTTON
MUSHROOMS

S
LICES
OF
TRUFFLE

B
UTTER
AND
MILK

A
LITTLE
DOUBLE
CREAM

¼
BOTTLE
OF
WHITE
WINE

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6, 400° F, and bake the potatoes in their jackets. Slice the potatoes lengthways and carefully remove their insides, leaving the skins in their original shape. Keep the skins warm, but do not let them dry out. Reserve the insides.

Whip into the Béchamel sauce a tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese and ¼ lb of softened butter. Keep the sauce warm.

Roll the soles and poach them in white wine for 10 minutes. Add the lobster to poach for the last five minutes. Keep hot.

Slice the mushrooms finely and sauté them in butter. Keep hot.

Pour the sauce into the potato skins until they are about one third full. Drain the fillets and stand them in the sauce. Add the lobster, prawns and mushrooms. Cover the fillets with any sauce which is left. If there is none, use the cream. Arrange on a flat ovenproof serving dish and put in the oven for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, mash the potato with milk and butter and season with salt and pepper. When the potato coffins come out of the oven arrange the mashed potato in piles around them. Put 3 slices of truffle on top of the coffins and serve immediately.

It occurs to me that there really ought to be a place in this meal for the worm - that little creature so beloved of the decadent poets. If your guests don’t like the idea of tucking into a plate of worms, try reminding them that not only is this creature an excellent source of protein, but that here is their opportunity to eat the worm before the worm eats them. They should think of it as a pre-emptive act of revenge.

The French anthropologist Gontran de Poncins, who lived with Netsilik Eskimos in 1938-9, describes a caribou hunt in his book
Kabloona
where his hosts, after skinning their prey, start eating the yellow-eyed parasitic worms that live in the flesh.
‘Kailek squeezed the worms out with his thumb and popped them into his mouth. I, who was determined to try everything once, took one up, shut my eyes, and put it in my mouth. It was sweetish, inside its surprisingly fuzzy, raspberry-like skin, and I spat out the skin and had another, while Kailek sat with a heap of them before him on the snow.’

If you can’t get a good maggoty piece of caribou, serve Italian
vermicelli
(‘little worms’) in a suitably gruesome sauce, such as squid in its own ink.

1
LB
FRESH
SQUID
WITH
INK-SACS
INTACT

OLIVE
OIL

GARLIC

PARSLEY

WHITE
WINE

GINGER
AND
CHILLI
TO
TASTE
(
OR
NOT
AT
ALL
)

Clean the squid as follows: pull the head out of the body, and chop off and reserve the tentacles above the eyes. (Try not to meet their melancholy gaze as you do it. They have a way of haunting your dreams.) Then carefully empty out the dribbly yellow and cream innards and the transparent bone from the pouch-shaped body; among these you’ll find an exquisite little silver sac containing the ink. Put this in a strainer. Wash and skin the body pouch and slice into rings or squares. Fry the tentacles and body in olive oil and garlic, then add a glass of white wine and a handful of parsley. Holding the strainer over the pan, crush the ink sacs with a spoon, then wash through with wine or cooking liquids. Don’t crush the sacs between your fingers unless you want to look like an apprentice printer and smell of fish for the next two days. The ink is extraordinarily black, thick and greasy.

Cook the squid for ten minutes, then mix with the boiled vermicelli and serve.

This is a sweet specially prepared for the dead in Greece. It is probably a modern variant on an Ancient Greek dish mentioned by Aristophanes called Polyspermia.

500
G
(1
LB
)
WHOLE
WHEAT

T
HREE
PINCHES
OF
SALT

120
G
(4
OZ
)
SMALL
CURRANTS

120
G
(4
OZ
)
RAISINS

120
G
(4
OZ
)
COARSELY
CHOPPED
WALNUTS

150
G
(5
OZ
)
SHELLED
AND
FLAKED
ALMONDS

1
POMEGRANATE,
SHELLED
AND
SEEDED

1
TSP
GROUND
CINNAMON

1
TSP
GROUND
CORIANDER

1
TSP
GROUND
CUMIN

T
OPPING
:

500
G
(1
LB
)
PLAIN
FLOUR

500
G
(1
LB
)
CASTER
SUGAR

10
SUGARED
ALMONDS

H
ANDFUL
OF
RAISINS

Remove any impurities from the wheat. Dispose of the impurities in the sea. Rinse the wheat three times and pour the water on a tree or plant. Soak wheat overnight. Strain, cover with water, add three pinches of salt and boil until tender. Strain and spread the wheat out on a clean tablecloth to dry overnight.

Light a candle and bring to mind the dead for whom this dish is being prepared.

Gently mix the dry wheat with the other ingredients. Spread out on flat trays. Roast the flour dry in a frying pan turning continuously with a spatula until golden brown. Allow to cool. Spread a thin layer of flour on top of the wheat and press down lightly. Sprinkle a little sugar on top and press down again with a piece of paper. Decorate with sugared almonds, raisins, pomegranate seeds and/or ground cinnamon.

This is a more bizarre dessert which dates from the Middle Ages.

10
HARD
PEARS

J
UICE
OF
3
LEMONS

C
INNAMON

½
CUP
OF
LENTILS

1
SMALL
STALK
OF
CELERY

½
TEASPOON
OF
SALT

¼
CUP
OF
FINELY
CHOPPED
DATES

½
TEASPOON
OF
DRIED
SWEET
BASIL

1
CUP
OF
BEEF
BROTH

1
CUP
OF
RASPBERRIES

1
TABLESPOON
OF
HONEY

Preheat oven to 350º.

Cut the pears in half lengthways. Carefully remove the stalk and core. Coat the pears in lemon juice and sprinkle lightly with cinnamon. Bake in the oven for about five to ten minutes. This should turn the pears from hard to firm. Do not let them go soft. Put to one side to cool.

Wash the lentils and put into a casserole with the celery, finely chopped, salt, finely chopped dates, basil and beef broth. Bring to the boil and cook over a very low heat for about fifteen to twenty minutes. Add boiling water if necessary to prevent sticking. Put raspberries, honey and ¼ of a cup and 1 tablespoon of water into a pot. Bring quickly to the boil. Remove immediately and allow to cool.

Scoop one tablespoon of lentils into each of the pear coffins and top with a tablespoon of raspberry.