Eating French
On the weekend, I took my friend C to an advance screening of Marie Antoinette. A big feature of the film was food - not just the cakes, which worked as a visual metaphor throughout the story, but also the ritual of food among the upper classes.
I was particularly amused to see the repeated use of old fashioned champagne glasses - the bowl-shaped ones I associate with Steed and Mrs Peel of the Avengers - as there is a story that this was based on one of Marie Antoinette’s breasts! (the story specifies which one, but I don’t recall)
Before the movie, we went to lunch, and managed to find ourselves a suitable French cafe complete with perfect patisserie and a rude, sulky waiter.
C had coq au vin, a famously French dish. It looked dark and enticing. I couldn’t go past the Salade Nicoise.
I first discovered this dish thank to Huey’s Cooking Adventures - it’s usually a warm salad of potatoes, beans, olives and boiled eggs, with tuna. Tinned tuna is actually the standard, but Huey made it with recently charred tuna steaks, and so did I, the first time I reproduced the dish.
The Salade Nicoise I had at the cafe before Marie Antoinette was surprisingly cold, but very tasty. The fish was cold poached salmon, which was just delicate and wonderful. We are so lucky here in Tasmania with our salmon. I will be sad when there is none left in the ocean.
Where was I? French food! We saved room for coffee and pastry. I had a perfect little lemon tart with a sliver of lime across the top, and C had banana brioche. Then, very satisfied, we rolled on to the movie.
Oh, so very civilised.
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February 7th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Sounds like a FABULOUS day! I love salad nicoise, although I’ve never had it with salmon… Sounds like something to try.