Two Masters of Light: Claude Lorrain and J.M.W. Turner

JMW Turner; Slave-Ship; detail
JMW Turner; Slave-Ship; detail

An enormous deep-red sunset over a stormy sea, an indication of an approaching typhoon.A detail from JMW Turner’s “Slave-Ship”.

Painting is about light. Everything revolves around light.

Everything derives its existence one way or another from light. In this post I revisit some of the works of two masters of light, one from the baroque period, and another from the romantic leading to the modern.

Claude Lorrain; Self-portrait
Claude Lorrain; Self-portrait

One is the French Claude Lorrain (1600 – 1682).

The other is the English J.M.W. Turner ( 1775 – 1851). Both Turner and Lorrain are primarily landscape (and seascape) painters.

My mother introduced me ot the work of Turner.

I then discovered Lorrain in Room 15 of the National Gallery in London.

JMW Turner; Self-portrait 1799
JMW Turner; Self-portrait 1799

Turner was inspired by Lorrain’s landscapes and treatment of light. But Turner has his own style, in spite of the fact that he imitated Lorrain in his early period.

Lorrain is extremely tidy, the picture is well organised, the light is gentle.

Turner on the other hand is almost chaotic, the light is bursting out at the viewer, the lines are blurry.

Lorrain’s baroque light gave birth to the violent romantic and ultimately modern light of Turner.

Claude Lorrain; Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah 1648
Claude Lorrain; Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah (The Mill) 1648; National Gallery, London

I start looking at pictures with one of the two Lorrain paintings in Room 15 of the National Gallery in London: The Mill, or Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah. It is a landscape in late summer afternoon. It is hanging in the same room with the Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba. “Claude was once an apprentice pastry chef. What he was really good at was the vista: enormous, complicated distances measured in landmarks, perspectives, light saturation and atmospheric tone. His paintings endlessly delay your journey from foreground to horizon. The wholeness of his compositions, the roundedness of the space he creates, the way he makes your eye alight here and there without any feeling of being led – these things are extremely pleasurable.” (2).

This is mild introduction to Lorrain’s depiction of light.

Claude Lorrain; Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba 1648
Claude Lorrain; Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba 1648; National Gallery London

Not so with the seaport. Here the morning sun is bright and glorious. Like all of Claude’s Embarkations, the Seaport is a coastal view, depicted in early morning light. Including the sun within a painting was Claude’s greatest early innovation. Exactly half-way up the canvas in this stateliest of his seaport compositions, it is the basis of its pictorial unity, all the colours and tones adjusted in relation to it – Claude’s palm and finger prints can be seen in many places in the sky where he smoothed transitions from one passage to the next. (5)

Seaport - detail
Seaport – detail

“By the end of the 18th century, when Turner was in his 20s, Claude’s work was held in high esteem in Britain: at least 30 of his paintings were held in collections, and his work was also a major influence on private parks and gardens. If we can’t get enough Turner now, they couldn’t get enough Claude then.” (2)

JMW Turner; Dido building Carthage; National Gallery London
JMW Turner; Dido building Carthage 1815; National Gallery London

“When (Turner) died he bequeathed to the nation a large number of his paintings, including ‘Dido building Carthage’ and ‘Sun Rising through Vapour’. These two paintings came with the condition that they should be displayed alongside Claude’s ‘Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca’ and ‘Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba’. By linking these paintings together Turner wanted to ensure that his association with  Claude (Lorrain) would endure beyond his lifetime.” (6)

Dido - detail
Dido – detail

“If you look at this painting you’ll see more than one perspective: there’s the regular horizon line, however the perspective of the building to the right of the canvas does not meet up with this. Turner was experimenting with various viewpoints, asking us to take multiple journeys through the canvas to discover the landscape from many positions. It’s odd that we look up on the buildings in the foreground, yet almost feel that we can look down on those in the centre distance. What first appears to be a classically ordered composition then turns into a sort of jigsaw puzzle, an extraordinary spatial game in which there are several pockets of space for us to explore. His use of colour is also intriguing; vast washes of luminous yellows and intense greens have a transcendent and immaterial quality. These deep pools of colour do not create structure or fix the space – they seem to hover on the canvas and create fleeting effects of light. With these approaches to painting Turner layed the foundations of Impressionism and sowed the seed of what would eventually become abstract art.” (7)

JMW Turner; The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire 1817
JMW Turner; The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire 1817; Tate Britain, London

In the decline of the Carthaginian Empire, Turner painted the setting sun. “Claude Lorrain was Turner’s favourite old master painter. This (The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire) is one of his greatest essays in Claude’s style. It is part of a pair of paintings showing the rise and fall of a great empire; here, Carthage’s decline is symbolised by the setting sun. Turner saw the rise and fall of once-great empires as a historical inevitability, confirmed by the fall of Napoleon, but threatening to overtake the victorious British. Today, the other half of the pair Dido building Carthage; or the Rise of the Carthaginian Empire hangs, at Turner’s request, alongside a painting by Claude in the National Gallery.” (4)

JMW Turner; The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire 1817 - detail
JMW Turner; The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire 1817 – detail

It is 1817 and already the emergence of the new light is visible. The light that fuses the elements, the blurs the contours, that unifies the canvas.

JMW Turner Sunrise with Sea Monsters 1945
JMW Turner Sunrise with Sea Monsters 1845

Jumping from 1817 to 1845, the “Sunrise with Sea Monsters”is an abstract painting. The object of the painting is barely visible. The whole painting is about light. The “object” is for Turner just an excuse to paint the light.

“… in 1843 Ruskin published the first volume of his book Modern Painters – placing Turner at their head. While critics accused Turner of extravagance and exaggeration, outdoing each other with comparisons of his pictures to lobster salad, soapsuds and whitewash, beetroot or mustard, Ruskin rooted his analysis (at least at first) in Turner’s truth to nature. He became the standard-bearer of a new generation of Turner admirers, now usually professional, middle class or newly rich, who embraced his work for its modernity. ” (1)

JMW Turner; Landscape with Distant River and Bay 1840-1850
JMW Turner; Landscape with Distant River and Bay 1840-1850; Musee du Louvre, Paris

“Of all the British artists to revive European landscape painting, Turner went furthest, pushing the dissolution of forms in light to the edge of abstraction. This painting belongs to a group of unfinished works composed around 1845…” (8)

JMW Turner; The Junction of the Severn and the Wye; 1806; Tate Britain, London
JMW Turner; The Junction of the Severn and the Wye; 1806; Tate Britain, London

“Liber Studorium” was a sample book of Turner’s landscapes. The “Confluence of the Severn and the Wye” was one plate of this anthology, inspired by Claude Lorrain, and it supplied the basis for the 1845 composition in the Louvre. (8). Here we have a mnifestation of the circularity of Time. The aging Turner returns to his youth, to the themes that inspired him, and reworks them, embeds them in the new Turner of the old age, but of the New Art, abstraction.

Claude Lorrain; The Dissembarkation of Kleopatra at Tarsus; 1648; Musee du Louvre, PAris
Claude Lorrain; The Dissembarkation of Cleopatra at Tarsus; 1648; Musee du Louvre, PAris

As I arrive at the closure of this post, I want to look again at one of Claude’s magnificent early morning port scenes.

“A sun – drenched sea port in a perfect synthesis of the Bolognese classical ideal and the luminosity of the Italianizing Dutch school.” (8)

Dissembarcation - detail
Dissembarcation – detail

And then return to Turner’s ventures into abstraction.

Landscape with Water circa 1840-5 Joseph Mallord William Turner
JMW Turner; Landscape with Water circa 1840-5; Tate Britain

“Indeed, come 1845’s Landscape with WaterTivoli and Turner is verging on abstraction. Figures, buildings and other narrative details are eliminated, the sun’s almighty white reflection off the Tiber dissolving the entire scene. Late in life, though still attracted by Claude’s settings, Turner had long since left behind Claude’s style – his intensities of light, pulsations of energy and dissolutions of form celebrate the numinous rather than the physical.” (3)

Sources

1. JMW Turner, Tate Gallery

2. Turner and Claude. The Guardian

3. Turner Inspired. The Telegraph.

4. The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire

5. The National Gallery. Companion Guide. Erika Langmuir.

6. The Turner Bequest.

7. Artwork Of The Week – ‘Dido Building Carthage‘ By J.M.W. Turner

8. The Louvre Collections. Paris 1999.

Fernand Braudel, French Historian

Pour moi, l’histoire est la somme de toutes les histoires possibles – une collection de métiers et points de vue, d’hier, d’aujourd’hui, de demain. La seule erreur, à mon avis, serait de choisir l’une de ces histoires à l’exclusion des autres. Ce fût, ce serait l’erreur historisante.

Fernand Braudel

Fernand Braudel's birth certificate
Fernand Braudel’s birth certificate

Introduction

I was introduced to Fernand Braudel by Georgia, a very good friend who now lives in Brussels, Belgium. Georgia got her Ph.D. in Paris on history, and every time we were talking about her studies she would mention Braudel as the star illuminating and guiding her path.

Fernand Braudel
Fernand Braudel

I must confess I became very curious, and thus I started buying and reading his books. Today, some twenty years later, I am writing this summary to present Braudel’s basic ideas. I do not claim completeness in this presentation, but hope to have touched upon some of  the major points of Braudel’s approach.

Plaque on Fenrand Braudel's home in Paris
Plaque on Fenrand Braudel’s home in Paris

The Annales School

In   1929, a new journal called Annales d’historie economique et sociale appeared in France, featuring the work of a new generation of historians: Lucian Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, and Ernst Labrousse. Until the turn of the century, traditional history was built around the acts and facts of “great men”, political and military personalities who became the stuff of legends: Alexander and Caesar, Gengis Khan, Louis XIV and Napoleon.The movement was in search for “a larger and a more human history,” by its rejection of the predominant conceptions of writing history, namely:

  • a focus on political-military history
  • concentrated on the analysis of short periods
  • a narrative style of events
  • what they called a “stamp collecting” mentality in collecting facts and events

The  Annales wanted to integrate insights and methodologies from anthropology, geography, sociology, economics and psychology. It was interested in longer timespans, the social history of everyday life, and “mentalites” (modes of consciousness). In essence, it was an analytical history which looked at economic and social history in a long-term perspective, departing from a traditional event-based historiography. These historians rebelled against traditional historians’ obsession with wars and states, the “great” men of history, and looking at development as linear. Annales school historians examined phenomena and their underlying causes in depth with a particular attention to long stretches of time.

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HR Trevor Pope summarizes the philosophy of the Annales as follows:

“So, if I were to try to capture the philosophy of the Annales school, I would emphasize three elements in it. First, there is the attempt to grasp the totality, and the vital cohesion, of any historical period or society, the conviction that history is what it is through the human life which animates it, the almost Platonic conception of man as the microcosm of the world. Second, there is the conviction that history is at least partly determined by forces which are external to man and yet not entirely neuter or independent of him, nor, for that matter, of each other: forces which are partly physical, visible, unchanging, or at least viscous and slow to change, like geography and climate, partly intangible, only intellectually perceptible, and more volatile, such as social formations or intellectual traditions. Third, there is the determination, while never losing sight of this totality of human activity, this interdependence of its motivating and limiting forces, to reduce the area of incomprehension by rigorous statistical analysis of whatever can be analysed, by the measurement of whatever can be measured: in short, the subordination, to that ultimate human aim, of all the most refined techniques of the mathematician, the econometrician, the statistician.” (7)

Jaques Le Goff has stated it all in one sentence: “New history is history-through-problems”.

identite

Braudel’s approach and views

Peter Burke writes in his review in the London Review of Books:

‘Braudel’s Mediterranean is the outstanding achievement of the second generation of the so-called Annales School. Annales, which remains one of the world’s leading historical journals, was founded in 1929 by two professors at the University of Strasbourg, Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch. At that point Febvre and Bloch were anti-Establishment figures, rebels against the continued dominance of political history in France and believers in a ‘wider and more human history’, as they called it, a history which would be concerned with all human activities and draw concepts and methods from all the social sciences, from geography to psychology. It was this ‘new kind of history’ which Annales was founded to spread.In 1958 Braudel wrote a paper on the three time spans of history: the “longue duree” (long term), “conjuncture” (conjuncture), and event, or better “courte durée” (short term). He argued that the three spans of time “fit into each other neatly”.’ (8)

stgenev

Events concern the individual actions that Braudel calls “traditional history”: kings, battles, treaties, and the like.(4)

The conjuncture (from the French conjoncturte, not from the English sense of the term) is Braudel’s term for two intermediate levels of historical duration; Braudel calls the study of conjunctures “social history, the history of groups and groupings”. Braudel divided conjunctures into two kinds: intermediate conjunctures which include wage and price cycles, rates of industrialization. and wars; and long term conjunctures, which refer to secular changes like “long-term demographic movements. the changing dimensions of states and empires (the geographical conjuncture as it might be called), the presence or absence of social mobi- lity in a given society. [and] the intensity of industrial growth”. (4)

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The long term represents Braudel’s most significant innovation in temporal categorization. This level describes “man in his relationship to the environment. a history in which all change is slow, a history of constant repetition, ever-recurring cycles”.  In Braudel’s two major historical analyses, the long term forms an almost unchanging, centuries-long background that furnishes constraints and opportunities for the dynamic operation of change at the levels of conjuncture and event. It is an arena dominated by “structures,” which for Braudel are “defined then first of all by duration and second by their effects on human action” (4)

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In an interview with Peter Burke made in 1977 on what the problem was that Braudel wanted to solve with this work, he answered “My great problem, the only problem I had to resolve, was that time moves at different speeds.” (1)

Koopman compares Braudel’s multi-dimensional time to Foucault’s conceptualization of temporality. Foucault added genealogy to archaeology in his historiographical repertoire. The result was a conception of history that emphasized temporal multiplicity above nay single temporally unifying category. (2)

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“Nothing, in our opinion,” writes Braudel, “comes closer to the heart of social reality than this lively, intimate, constantly recurring opposition between the instant and the long-term…In the year 1558, or in the year of grace 1958, [or even, we might add, 2008] getting a grasp on what the world is about means defining the hierarchy of forces, currents and individual movements, and refashioning the pattern of their totality…. Each ‘current event’ brings together movements of different origin and rhythm: today’s time dates from yesterday, the day before, and long ago”(3)

med

Braudel’s notion of time, as opposed to mere chronology, is one of an inescapable duration.

Olivia Harris in her article “Braudel: historical time and the horror of discontinuity” poses the question of Braudel’s aversion to ruptures in historical time. Put in a different way “is there a place for revolutions, abrupt and catastrophic changes in Braudel’s historiography?”. I cannot answer the question, but it is quite interesting. Hacking observes:

“There are two extremes in French historiography. The Annales school went in for long-term continuities or slow transitions—“the great silent motionless bases that traditional history has covered with a thick layer of events” (to quote from the first page of Foucault’s 1969 Archeology of Knowledge). Foucault takes the opposite tack, inherited from Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser. He posits sharp discontinuities in the history of knowledge.” (5)

lorraine

The demarcation between history and the social sciences

Finally, turning to France, it is—again—difficult to avoid Fernand Braudel, but we will seek in vain for a clear definition of the object and method of history from him. That is so because, in his view, all the social sciences cover the same ground, which is ‘the actions of human beings in the past, present and future’. Braudel expresses regret that this terrain had, in the past, been parcelled out among the different social sciences, as a consequence of which, each of these disciplines had felt the need to defend its boundaries if necessary by annexing the neighbouring territory: ‘Every social science is imperialist, even if they deny it: they are in the habit of presenting their insights as a global vision of humanity’, observed Braudel.20 To restore the unity of the social sciences and put an end to pointless border disputes, it was in his view necessary to reintegrate all the social sciences. Braudel argued that evidence for the possibility of this can be found in the common language used by all the social sciences, at the heart of which are the concepts of structure and model. The idea that history can be distinguished from the social sciences because historians focus on events and social scientists on structures (as Elton argued) was, therefore, according to Braudel, absolutely wrong. The same could be said of the questioning of the use of models by historians. The main difference between history and the (other) social sciences is not that history addresses particular aspects of phenomena, while the (other) social sciences are said only to be concerned with general aspects. (6)

civilizations

Sources

1. Burke, Peter. New Perspectives on Historical Writing. fith edition. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992

2. Colin Koopman, Genealogy as Critique, Indiana University Press, 2013

3. D Tomich, The order of Historical Time

4. Michael E Smith, Braudel’s temporal rhytms and chronology theory in archaelogoy

5. Hacking I, Historical Ontology, Harvard University Press, 2002

6. The Oxford History  of historical writing, Chapter 1

7. HR Trevor Roper, Fernand Braudel, the Annales and the Mediterranean

(8) Peter Burke, Braudel’s Long Term, London Review of Books

1001 Ways to Die – (10) Ginette Neveu, French Violinist (1919-1949)

Edith Piaf wrote of Neveu in her autobiography, The Wheel of Fortune: “I would have traveled thousands of miles to hear the great Ginette Neveu….”

Ginette Neveu was a French violinist.

The front page with the news of the crash - No survivors
The front page with the news of the crash – No survivors

On 27 October 1949, she boarded an Air France flight en route to a series of concert engagements in the USA.

The flight departed from Paris Orly in the evening of the 27th October at 2006 hrs with final destination New York and a refueling stop at the Santa Maria island of the Azores.

(On a personal note, my mother flew from Paris to New York on a TWA Lockheed Constellation in 1949. They stopped for refueling at Shannon, Ireland and Gander, Newfoundland.)

Lockheed Constellation
Lockheed Constellation

The Air France Lockheed Constellation aircraft with identification F-BAZN had 37 passengers and 11 crew members on board. It was delivered new to Air France on the 28th January 1948. The pilot of the flight, Jean de la Noue, 37 years old, had 6,700 hours flying time and had flown the Atlantic 88 times.

At 0151 hrs on 28th October the airplane reported her position as 150 nautical miles from Santa Maria, giving estimated time of arrival at 0255 hrs, ten minutes later than the original time of 0245 hrs. At 0251 hrs the aircraft sent a signal from an altitude of 3000 ft, with the airport on site, and visual flight rules (VFR) in effect, and asked for landing instructions. Shortly after this last communication the airplane crashed on the peak Varra, of Redondo mountain on the island of Sao Miguel, 100 miles northwest of its intended landing location.

All on board died.

Ginette Neveu (left) and Marcel Cerdan (right), shortly before boarding the fatal flight at Orly
Ginette Neveu (left) and Marcel Cerdan (right), shortly before boarding the fatal flight at Orly

The violonist was travelling with her brother, pianist Jean Paul Neveu, who appears in the middle of the photograph above. The photo was taken minutes before the passengers boarded the fatal flight. Ginette was showing to the boxer Marcel Cerdan (right) another passeger, her Stradivarius violin. Cerdan had become a world champion by knocking Tony Zale out in the 12th round in Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, New Jersey on September 21, 1948. Although married with three children, he had an affair with the famous singer Édith Piaf. The affair lasted from summer 1948 until his death in autumn 1949. They were very devoted to each other and Piaf wrote one of her most famous songs, Hymne à l’amour, for Cerdan. Cerdan changed his travel plans last minute, as he was to cross the Atlantic by ship. Allegedly he did this after a call from Edith Piaf who was already in New York.

It was the first crash of Air France on the Paris- New York route which started on 1 July 1946 and had successfully completed 1,572 flights without an accident.

Map of the Azores
Map of the Azores

The investigation that followed found that the cause of the accident was controlled flight into terrain due to inadequate navigation by the pilot whilst operating under VFR condition. It was found that the pilot had sent false position reports and that he had failed to identify the airport.

On 10th June 1949, Neveu recorded the Brahms violin concerto with the Hague Residentie Orchestra, under the direction of Antal Dorati.

The Brahms violin concerto is one of the great violin concerti and premiered in Leipzig on the 1st January 1889.

At age 15, Ginette Neveu achieved worldwide celebrity status when she won the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition over 180 contestants, including the future virtuoso David Oistrakh, who finished second, and Henri Temianka, who finished third.

Poème, Op. 25, is a work for violin and orchestra written by Ernest Chausson in 1896. It is a staple of the violinist’s repertoire, has very often been recorded and performed, and is generally considered Chausson’s best-known and most-loved composition. The clip that follows is a 1946 recording. There is also another one of 1949.

And now the Oistrach recording of the Poeme.

Her performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto is considered the best ever. Here is the 3rd movement.

Ginette Neveu gave her last concert on 20 October 1949. Eight days later  she would die.

She was only 30 years old. Some people think that had she lived, she would have become the greatest violin player of all times.

Mushrooms and Truffles: A “Fluxus Eleatis” disourse

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: The word gastronomy has been revived from the Greek; it sounds sweetly in French ears, and although imperfectly understood, simply to pronounce it is enough to bring a joyful smile to every face.  We have begun to distinguish gourmandism from greed and gluttony; it has come to be regarded an admissible inclination, a social quality welcome to the host, profitable to the guest, and beneficial to the art: and gourmands are now classed with all other enthusiasts who share a common predilection.

Mrs. T: Mushrooms are primarily texture. Truffles are primarily flavour. Mrs. T: We had grilled mushrooms, in the Dimatis Tavern, Aghios Dimitrios, West of Mount Olympus in Greece. The mushrooms were collected earlier on the day we had lunch, grilled and sprinkled with coarse sea salt, crushed garlic, parlsey, olive oil and lemon juice. Perfection in simplicity, the apotheosis of texture.

Mr. FFF:  Mrs. T will reveal herself today, as a person, of unknown ethnicity, born in Romania, a few days after the Revolution of 1989 in Timisoara. Her parents died in a car crash the day after she was born. I found her by accident – most important things in life happen by accident – and we have been together ever since. She has become my gourmand alter ego. Mrs. T: I met Mr. FFF in Targoviste. It was 24th December 1989. I was 3 days old. Abandoned in a trash can.

MM: Why was Mrs. T found in Targoviste, a town 500 kilometers east of Timisoara, on the day the Causescus were arrested and taken into custody?
Mr. FFF: After the grilled mushrooms west of the mount of Greek Gods, I beg to travel East, and taste crispy deep fried mushrooms with wasabi flavor. I thank Arlene B. Hsu for the recipe, I fell in love with the dish. Arlene says it can be found in variations as street food in Taiwan. This alone is a good reason to visit the island country. Succulent juicy but firm mushroom flesh, coated in crispy dough, oozing wasabi heat and intensity, gives you a reason to live, in spite of the fiscal mess in Europe.
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán: Cookig is a metaphor for culture. Eating means killing and swallowing a being which has been alive, whether animal or plant. If we directly devour the dead animal or the uprooted lettuce, one would say that we were savages. However, if we marinade the beast in order to later cook it with the aid of aromatic Provençal herbs and a glass of rancio wine, then we have effected an exquisite cultural operation, equally based on brutality and death. Cooking is a metaphor for culture and its hypocritical content.
Fricando +

Mr. FFF: The road has been opened centuries ago and traversed billions of times since then. From the grill to the frying pan, and then to the stew pot. Fricando (beef stew) in Restaurante Ramon Freixa, Barcelona, Cataluna. Wonderful flesh, superbly cooked slowly until it becomes soft and delicious, with the tasty mountain mushrooms “moixernons”. It was served with garlic cloves (like candy) and the green stuff that was absolutely amazing: bitter, crunchy, full of flavour!  This dish is like a volcano of flavours!

Ferran Adria:  the creative inspiration I have drawn from Japan is a revelation, a drink from the fountain of youth.

Akelare: Wild mushrooms and egg pasta (Μανιτάρια με παστα)

Mr. FFF: Wild mushrooms and egg pasta in Pedro Subijana’s restaurant, Akelare, near San Sebastian.

Pepe Carvalho: She asked me to be taken “somewhere where we can  just  eat anything”,  just anything being, precisely, what I never wanted to eat.

Mrs. T: Who was this she?

Pepe Carvalho: Teresa Marsé, a spoilt member of the bourgeoisie dedicated to shopping.

MM: Pepe Carvalho tiene una relación  tormentosa con Charo, su novia. Charo es puta; puta feminista para más señas… ante la promiscuidad de Carvalho ella  se enfada, aunque no ocurre al contrario ,el detective comprende y acepta el trabajo de su novia…

Amanita muscaria

Amanita muscaria: I do not know what to say, may be it is enough to say I am beautiful.

Mr. FFF: Between dishes it is always good to cleanse the palate with fizzy water.

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: A saute of truffles is a dish of which the mistress of the house always does the honours herself; in short, the truffle is the jewel of cookery. I set out to find the reason for this preference, for it seemed to me that several other substances had an equal claim to the honour; and I found that reason is the widespread belief that truffles are conductive to erotic pleasure; what is more, I became convinced that nearly all our tastes, predilections, and admirations are born of the same cause, so closely are held in thrall by that most capricious and tyrannical of the senses.

Mr. FFF: Mugaritz. Loin of duck, served with iodized compliments; crumblings and shavings of summer truffle in the Mugaritz restaurant, near San Sebastian.

Julia Kristeva: Analysis strictly speaking exacts payment of the price set by the subject for revealing that his or her complaints, symptoms or fantasies are discourses of love directed  to an impossible other – always unsatisfactory, transitory, incapable of meeting my wants or desires.

MM: I did not set a timeframe, but I expected to see a mushroom article – an exhaustive one.

Amanita phalloides: I am deadly poisonous! I contain both phallotoxins and amanitins. It is the amanitins that are responsible for the poisonings in humans. Amanitins are cyclic octapeptides that stop protein synthesis in the cells they encounter. All human organs are effected, but damage to the liver is most severe and liver failure is primarily responsible for the death of my victims. Symptoms usually appear 8-12 hours after ingestion. Death occurs in 7-10 days in 10-15% of patients.

Julia Kristeva:  My commitment to analysis … is ultimately shaken by the discovery that the other is fleeing me, that I will never possess him or even touch him as my desires imagined him, ideally satisfying.

Mrs. T :  Artichoke cream with black truffle, in Restaurant Cilantro, Arles, Provence, France.

Pepe Carvalho: Sex and gastronomy are the two most serious things there are.

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: Hence it may be taken for certain that the truffle is a food as wholesome as it is agreeable, and that, eaten in moderation, it goes down as easily as a letter into a postbox.

Mrs T: When we went  to Arzak’s restaurant, we had the wonderful truffle egg. But Elena does not want us to publish any of our photos, and we respect this wish. I therefore share a photo from Arzak’s recipe book published by “El Pais”, Baked potatoes stuffed with truffles. Wonderful in its simplicity.

Joni L. McClain: In March of 1985, four illegal aliens who had been without food for several days consumed fried wild mushrooms after picking them in a field in Southern California. They each ate between one a nd six mushrooms and, approximately one to two days after consuming the mushrooms, all four men developed gastrointestinal symptoms including nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and watery diarrhea. They went to a local mission for the homeless where they were unable to eat. Their symptoms continued and they were taken to two local hospitals. On admission, all four men appeared dehydrated and three were hypotensive (blood pres- sure less than 100/50). One man stated that he had developed “white stools .”  Three of the men were initially assessed as having gastroenteritis or acute hepatitis or both. The fourth man had been admitted to a sepa rate hospital with the diagnosis of possible acute mushroom poisoning when he was able to ident ify the mushrooms he had consumed f rom a picture of Ama nita phalloides. The hospital where the other three victims were being treated was contacted and the diagnosis and treatment were modifed accordingly…Three of the men died within three days of admission (five days after eating the mushrooms ), and the fourth died eight days following admiss ion (eleven days after eating the mushrooms) . At autopsy, each of the men d emonstrated findings typical of hepatic failure ..The kidneys were pale, swollen, and  in one case displayed multiple cortical infarct ions. The heart in each case demonstrated hemorrhage ranging f rom patchy petechiae to confluent subendocardial left ventricular intramuscular hemorrhage. Two of the men demonstrated hemorrhagic gastritis , one had focal rectal ulcers, and the fourth had no gastrointestinal abnoralities. Mrs. T:  Veal Sweetbreads with artichokes, black truffles and mashed potatoes, in , Restaurant Cilantro, Arles, Provence, France.

Pepe Carvalho: One must drink to remember, and eat to forget.

Terence McKenna: … the transformation from humans’ early ancestors Homo erectus to the species Homo sapiens mainly had to do with the addition of the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis in its diet – an event which according to his theory took place in about 100,000 BC (this is when he believed that the species diverged from the Homo genus)…In higher doses, the mushroom acts as a sexual stimulator, which would make it even more beneficial evolutionarily, as it would result in more offspring. At even higher doses, the mushroom would have acted to “dissolve boundaries”, which would have promoted community-bonding and group sexual activities-that would result in a mixing of genes and therefore greater genetic diversity. Generally McKenna believed that the periodic ingestion of the mushroom would have acted to dissolve the ego in humans before it ever got the chance to grow in destructive proportions.

Porcini e fegato di vitello

Mrs. T:  A divine combination, porcini mushrooms with tender ultra sweet calf’s liver, from “dal Pescatore”, in the Park of River Oglio in Northern Italy.

Mr. FFF: Carles Abellan. Deconstructed three-part tortilla (omelette).

MM:  You are a mushroom and truffles man.

Mr. FFF: truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean mushroom; spore dispersal is accomplished through fungivores, animals that eat fungi. Almost all truffles are ectomycorrhizal and are therefore usually found in close association with trees.

Robert Burton: Cookery is become an art, a noble science: cooks are gentlemen.

La Famiglia Urbani

Olga Urbani: Truffles grow wild, underground, usually at the base of an oak tree. They used to use pigs, but they ate the truffles.Very rich American people they only see truffles on the table of a very elegant restaurant. They don’t see this. Now you know why they are expensive, right?

Florence Fabricant:The prized, richly fragrant black truffles of France have been called black diamonds. But for some swanky dishes this season, zircons may be more like it. Another, cheaper kind of black truffle, the tuber himalayensis from China, has been flooding the market. This influx has created a problem because unscrupulous dealers in France have been mixing the two and selling them all as French truffles, tuber melanosporum, to restaurants. Dealers in the United States have been doing the same. Although the two types look the same, the Chinese truffles, when cut, are likely to be blacker, with less veining. They tend to have a chemical odor and very little flavor.

Animelle co i funghi

Mr. T: Sweatbreads with mushrooms. Animelle co i funghi del Monte Algido, in Osteria di San Cesario, San Cesario, near Rome, Italy.

Daniel Boulud: Right after Christmas I started getting some truffles that I thought were overripe at first. They were very dark and had very little veining. They smelled of benzine and tasted like cardboard. Then I began hearing about the Chinese truffles.

Mrs. T:  Venison tournedo with foie on top, potatoes, chenterelles and black truffle, in La Provence Restaurant, Vilnius, Lithuania.  . The meat was medium rare, as it should, and it was delicious! The combination with the foie was also a good one, it worked!

Roland Griffiths:As a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time. I had a healthy scepticism going into this. [But] under defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what’s called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person. It is an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people. When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously-occurring mystical experiences that, at 14-month follow-up, were considered by volunteers to be among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives. One mechanism underlying these effects appears to be that psilocybin occasioned an experience having features similar to spontaneously-occurring classical mystical or religious experiences. A limit to the generality of the study is that all of the participants reported at least intermittent participation in religious or spiritual activities before the study. It is plausible that such interests increased the likelihood that the psilocybin experience would be interpreted as having substantial spiritual significance and personal meaning. A systematic replication of the study comparing groups having different levels of spiritual/religious dispositions or interests could be informative.

Mr. FFF: Psilocybin mushrooms, also known as “magic mushrooms”, were used in ancient times, and were depicted in rock paintings. Many native peoples have used mushrooms for religious purposes, rituals and healing. In modern day society they are often used to evoke a “high”, which is sometimes described as spiritual experience and is often euphoric in nature. Sometimes however, the disorientation of psilocybin and psilocin’s psychedelic effects may bring on anxiety such as panic attacks, depression and paranoid delusions. However, recent studies done at the Imperial College of London and also at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine conclude that when used properly, psilocybin acts as an anti-depressant.

“I had a rough day. Lets have a smoke and some mushrooms…”

Roland Griffiths:When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously-occurring mystical experiences that, over a year later, were considered by volunteers to be among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives and to have produced positive changes in attitudes, mood, altruism, behavior, and life satisfaction. In addition to possible therapeutic applications, the ability to prospectively produce mystical-type experiences should permit rigorous scientific investigations about their causes and consequences, and may provide novel information about the biological bases of moral and religious behavior.

Funghi Porcini

Participants

Amanita muscaria

Amanita phalloides: also known as the Death Cap, is the most deadly and poisonous mushroom on Earth.

Ferran Adria, Catalan chef and co-owner of the El Buli restaurant in Roses, Cataluna

Daniel Boulud, chef and owner of Restaurant Daniel in Manhattan, New York

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, French gourmand and author

Robert Burton, English Scholar and Vicar

Pepe Carvalho, Catalan private investigator

Florence Fabricant: American, New York Times journalist

Mr. FFF, wanderer

Roland Griffiths, of the department of neuroscience and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School, USA

Julia Kristeva, Bulgarian-French psychoanalyst

Joni L. McClain,  American M.D.

Terence McKenna, American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer

MM, partner

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Catalan writer and journalist

Spencer, private detective

Mrs. T, unknown ethnicity, the gourmand alter ego of Mr. FFF

Olga Urbani, Italian truffle merchant

La Graine et le Mulet (Couscous with Mullet): Food and Family Politics

Couscous with Mullet, or “The Secret of the Grain” is a movie of Tunisian born director Abdellatif Kechiche. I love this movie and this is why I am writing this article.

Let me start by introducing the characters of the movie

Slimane is a 60 year old dock worker who has been fired and is divorced from his wife Souad. He lives at the hotel of his partner, Latifa.

Souad is the ex-wife of Slimane and mother of their children. Most importantly, she is the cook of the magnificent “Couscous with Mulet”, the dish that permeates the film like a music score.

Latifa is the hotel owner and partner of Slimane, and mother of Rym. She has not come to terms with the fact that Slimane’s ex-wife and children do not accept her as a member of the family.

Rym is Latifa’s daughter and is the key person of the movie after Slimane.

The plot goes like this.

Slimane has a dream to open a couscous restaurant, serving his ex-wife’s recipe of couscous with mullet (kephalos in Greek). He buys an old tugboat and transforms it into a floating restaurant.

Rym supports Slimane in making his dream come true. She goes with him to the Bank, to the Local Authority, trying to get all the permits, the loans, and when the opening night comes, she fights (and succeeds) to convince her mother to go to the restaurant.

There is however drama in the opening night, far more serious than Latifa’s hesitation.

The couscous that Souad has cooked disappears. It is in the boot of Slimane’s son car, but never made it to the restaurant. It is still in the boot, and far away. The crowd gathered in the restaurant become edgy. They are hungry, they want their food. And at this point, Rym dances one of the most exhilarating belly dances I have ever seen. Take a look at this video clip.

While Rym is dancing her heart away, Latifa is preparing another pot of couscous to replace the one that disappeared.

What I saw in the movie

This is a movie about food and the politics of the family. It is only to be expected that food is intricately related to the politics of the family, as it is one of the fundamental elements in our lifes. Yet it is seldom that it emerges as such in cinema or other arts.

Lets start with the ex-wife and Slimane’s children. They all have a regular Sunday lunch, and Souad cooks her famous couscous with mullet. We are talking about a broken family that tries to hang together by the skin of its teeth. Disintegration and breakage is not only between father and mother. One of the sons, married to a Russian immigrant, with a baby recently born, is having an affair with another woman in a rather obvious and provocative way. In a very tense scene towards the end of the movie, the Russian wife openly accuses Souad as the supporter of her son in his amorous adventures outside his marriage.  This accusation is thrown in the face of Slimane, who appears to be the originator of the path to infidelity and break of the family. Isn’t he the one who now lives with another woman, isn’t he the one who is outside the family? Isn’t it natural for the son to copy the father’s behavior?

Over the Sunday couscous, the family would appear to be united again, even at the cost of pretending to be so. The same couscous is however the kernel of Slimane’s new life as a restaurant owner. And Slimane is not the cook, Souad is. The couscous is the material that even temporarily unites the family, it is the – potentially – only solid ground on which the family can step on. The dish exists and will continue to exist because it brings with it the memories of the motherland, and therefore the motherland itself.  The movie takes place in a small town in the south of France, with a large community of immigrants from North Africa. All the leading characters are either North African or Russian (the son’s wife).

There is another layer in the movie: who is the leading character? Is Slimane the protagonist? I am not so sure. He opens the restaurant, but the cook of the signature dish is his ex-wife, Souad. And when the crisis of the missing couscous breaks out, it is not Slimane who resolves it, but Rym and Latifa. Slimane appears to be willing but weak. The force of nature named Rym is the real protagonist of the movie, and a very charming one. She loves, she demands, she argues, she wants what she considers to be hers. And she desperately tries to support Slimane. She desperately wants a father, and a man for her mother.

I could go on, but want to stop here. I hope that I have given enough motives to those who have not seen the movie to go and see it. As for the ones who have already seen it, this is an invitation to rethink the movie, and/or see it again. Every good movie deserves to be seen at least twice.

The Awards

César 2008

As you may have already spotted on the poster, the film won 4 Cesar awards (the French equivalent to the Oscar)

  • Best Director – Meilleur réalisateur – Abdellatif Kechiche pour La graine et le mulet
  • Best film – Meilleur film – La graine et le mulet, réalisé par Abdellatif Kechiche, produit par Claude Berri
  • Most promising actress – Meilleur espoir féminin Hafsia Herzi dans La graine et le mulet
  • Most original scenario – Meilleur scénario original- Abdellatif Kechiche pour La graine et le mule

64 Mostra Internazionale d’ Arte Cinematografica di Venezia

In the 64th Film Festival of Venice, the film won two awards.

  • Silver Lion – Leone d’ Argento – Gran Premio della Giuria – Cous Cous
  • Award – Premio Marcello Mastroiani for a new actor/actress – ad un attore o attrice emergente  – Hafsia Herzi

Alain Resnais' and Marguerite Duras' "Hiroshima Mon Amour"

‘I remember Hiroshima’
‘You remember nothing’

“You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing.”

” I saw everything. Everything.”

It has been quite a while that I wanted to write about Alain Resnais’ movie “Hiroshima Mon Amour”.

Alain Resnais

I get to do it today, 66 years after the bomb drop that marked the history of the world.

On the surface, it is a love affair with the city of Hiroshima and her people providing the background.

A French actress doing a film in Hiroshima meets a Japanese architect and they have sex. As time goes by, “He” asks “Her” to stay in Hiroshima forever. There are elements of “falling in love” “She” denies. In the process, “She” brings forward a painful memory that has marked her life. Her love affair with a German soldier during the war. He was killed the day before the liberation of France, and she has been marked by this relationship, both literally and metaphorically.

She appears to be mourning forever. Is she able to love?

How can she love when she does not admit that she is full of memories of her first love?

She has never told anyone about the German soldier, only the Japanese man.

The traditional reading of the film ascerts that the woman had forgotten and/or repressed the memory of her German lover until she met the Japanese man, who made her remember him. I beg to differ. In my view the woman is full of memories of her German lover, and until she met the Japanese man in Hiroshima she was not admitting it. Repressing a memory does not equate forgetting.

The sense of breakthrough that comes in Hiroshima is that the woman is able to reminisce and talk about the German, and all the horror that followed his death.The issue has never been forgetting. The issue was the continuous mourning and draining of psychological energy, was the open gaping wound in her existence, that made her until Hiroshima unble to admit and talk about what had happened to her.

Only by talking about it she has been able to start playing with the idea of loving again, which is metaphorically the same as staying in Hiroshima and not going back home to her husband.

But this is not an easy game. The inner conflict is strong. She wants to stay, she wants to love, she wants to frame her memory of the German soldier in the reality of her Japanese lover, but she cannot do it.

The time frame of the movie is varied.

In current time, it covers 24 hours.

In past time, it covers more 20 years.

This variance also applies ot the location.

The current location of the movie is Hiroshima, in Japan.

The past location is Nevers in France.

At the end of the movie, the woman gives the man the name “Hi-ro-shi-ma” and the man names the woman “Ne-vers”.

Julia Kristeva has written an essay “The Malady of Grief: Duras”, published in her collection “Black Sun”.

According to Kristeva, Duras’ story is about the meeting of two disasters:

“Nevers here, Hiroshima there. However intense it may be in its unnameable silence, love is henceforth in suspence, pulverized, atomized. To love from her point of view, is to love a dead person.The body of her new lover merges with the corpse of her first love, which she had covered with her own body, a day and a night, and whose blood she savored…. But the very dynamic Japanese engineer is also marked by death because he necessarily bears the moral scars of the atomic death of which his countrymen were the first victims.”

Marguerite Duras

Dumas comments in her scenario for the movie: “All one can do is to speak of the impossibility of speaking of Hiroshima. The knowledge of Hiroshima is something that must be set down, a priori, as being an exemplary delusionof the mind”.



The irresistible power of … UPDATED 8pm – (Το μ…νι σερνει και το καραβι και τον αρχηγο του ΔΝΤ) ΕΝΗΜΕΡΩΣΗ 8 μμ

Εμεις οι Ελληνες εχομε βαθειες παρακαταθηκες.

Ειμεθα και ναυτικος λαος.

Εργο του Παναγιωτη Τσεσμελη, μαθητη Γυμνασιου Σαλαμινας

Και ως εκ τουτου εχομεν επιγνωσιν των δυναμεων εκεινων που δυνανται να τιθασευουν τα πλωτα αυτα σχηματα που τοσα και τοσα πλουτη και δοξα εφεραν και φερνουν στην πατριδα μας ανα τους αιωνες.

Max Beckmann Ulysses

Αυτη η δυναμη που σερνει το καραβι εσυρε το μεσημερι του Σαββατου και τον πανισχυρο Στρως Καν, τον επικεφαλης του λαοφιλους ΔΝΤ. Με τροπο ομως σκοτεινο.

Ευρισκομενος εις την σουιτα του ξενοδοχειου Σοφιτελ, αρτι εξελθων του λουτρου, εν αδαμιαια περιβολη, επετεθη – συμφωνα με το ρεπορταζ – σε καμαριερα που ειχε μπει για να καθαρισει.

Ουαι!!!!!!!!

Η καμαριερα δεν επιθυμουσε το ιδιο που επιθυμουσε ο πανισχυρος ανηρ.

Ουτε χαμογελουσε. Αντισταθηκε και επαλεψε. Και επαλεψε ξανα.

Μολις ξεφυγε απο τους εναγκαλισμους του Αρχηγου, η καμαριερα κατηγγειλε τον Στρως Καν στη Διευθυνση του ξενοδοχειου για αποπειρα βιασμου.

Ο Στρως Καν που αμεσως μετα αποπειραθηκε να φυγει στο Παρισι, συνεληφθη επι του αεροσκαφους της Αιρ Φρανς και ανακρινεται απο την Αστυνομια της Νεας Υορκης. Συντομα θα του απαγγελθουν κατηγοριες και θα ασκηθει ποινικη διωξη.

ΜΕΣΟΛΑΒΗΣΑΝ 12 ΩΡΕΣ

Επανερχομαι στο θεμα μας κατοπιν ωριμου σκεψεως και επιχειρω αναλυσιν ερμηνειαν και αναδειξιν ηθικων αυτουργων.

Φαινεται οτι εξερχομενος του λουτρου ο Αρχηγος του ΔΝΤ υπεφερε απο υπερβολικην στυσιν. Εμπεσων επι της καμαριςρας επιχειρησε την ανακουφισιν ή “πνιξιμο” της θηριωδους στυσεως, ητις υπερεβαινε και τα αγγουρια Ιεραπετρας (αυτα με τα πολλα λιπασματα).

Τυφλωμενος απο την φυσικην του αναγκη, ο Αρχηγος ξεχασε οτι εχει ηδη επελθει η Γαλλικη Επαναστασις, και οι καταπιεσμενοι και πτωχοι πλην τιμιοι ανθρωποι μπορουν να αντιστεκονται στις επιθυμιες των ισχυρων, οταν αυτες δεν εχουν σχεση με τις επαγγελματικες και κοινωνικες συμβασεις.

Ειναι προφανες οτι ο Αρχηγος σκεφτοτανε συνεχως και την επερχομενη υπερατλανιτκη πτηση, και τον ταραζε η ιδεα οτι θα πεταξει πανω απο τον ατλαντικο με την ματζαφλαρα στην τσιτα.

Εδω ομως φαινεται και η ελλειπης αυτογνωσια του Αρχηγου,. Εφοσον παρατηρουνται τετοια φαινομενα εις την φυσιολογιαν του, θα επρεπε να εχει εξασφαλισει την συντροφια εσκορτ κυριας, που ειναι διπλα σου για μια στιγμη αναγκης κι ετσι δεν κινδυνευεις να θελεις μετα απο την βλακεια της καβλας σου να αυτοκτονησεις.

Φωτο Αρχειου - Η σημερινη (15 Μαιου) συναντηση δεν εγινε

Ας ελθωμεν ομως και εις το θεμα των ηθικων αυτουργων. Η σκεψη αυτη μου ηρθε καθως διερωτομουνα πως θα αντιδρασουν αυριο οι αγορες. Πως θα εξελιχθει πλεον η “διασωση” της φιλτατης πατριδος. Κατεληξα στο συμπερασμα οτι πολυ πιθανα πισω απο ολα αυτα ευρισκονται οι μυστικες υπηρεσιες μεγαλης ευρωπαικης χωρας που δεν επιθυμει την διασωσιν της ελλαδος και των αλλων φαληρισαντων, αλλα δεν μπορουσε να αντισταθει στον Γαλλο Αρχηγο του ΔΝΤ που το ειχε παρει εργολαβια να “σωσει” την Ελλαδα μεχρι να εκλεγει Προεδρος της Γαλλικης Δημοκρατιας.

L'Atelier de Jean-Luc Rabanel, Arles, Provence, France

Today I want to share with delay my impressions from my visit to this restaurant tucked in one of the back streets of the colorful town of Arles in South France. “Country Epicure” informs us:

“Jean-Luc Rabanel was the first chef of an organic restaurant to receive a Michelin star. This was atLa Chassagnette in the Camargue, 20 km south of Arles. But he left in the fall of 2005 and in the spring of 2006  opened his own small place in the old part of Arles. He got his star back in March of 2007. ”

Back in 2007, the prestigious french restaurant guide “Gault Millau” awarded Rabanel with the “top chef” award. The key reason was the creativity of the chef and the quality of the produce he used.

Rabanel has two Michelin stars today and is one of the rising stars in the world of organic produce gastronomy. Although it has been 18 months since I visited the restaurant, I decided to publish this review after my visit to Mugaritz in the Basque Country. The reason will be presented at the end of this review.

Down to the business now, the restaurant is more like a brasserie, there is nothing more sophisticated there, and the service is rather minimal. There is only one tasting menu and a matching set of wines. Take it or leave it.

The first dish was Ricotta ravioli with garlic emulsion. I confess that the grated cheese infused cookie that came with the ravioli was the best part of this dish.

Fish on a bed of vegetables. I do not remember what fish that was, my notes just say fish.

Black truffle cappuccino with coco almonds and parmesan cookies

Celery root with almonds, fish roe, sage and ice cream.

Pumpkin in mushroom broth and vegetables.

Ham with artichokes and sweet onion cream, served with polenta crisps.

Fish tails with garlic and ginger.

Lamb with vegetables

After all the dishes I was rather full, and asked the waiter to bring me some cheese instead of desert. The chef obliged and I tasted one of the best cheeses ever!!!!! Ossau Iraty, a sheeps milk cheese from the Pyrenées. For more information go the relevant website.

Overall, the experience of eating at Rabanel is mediocre. It is indicative the the strongest gastronomic memory of the place is the cheese. Not a dish!

Although the dishes have potential, they do not hit the mark. They also do not have a clear focus. By assembling all these materials on the dish you do not necessarily create, you just assemble. This could be the key problem with Rabanel. He has a nice garden, collects nice stuff from it and then dumps them on a plate. This is hardly gastronomic!!! And I do not mean the “haute” gastronomy, I mean the gastronomy of every day life.

May be the chef had a bad evening.

Brandada de Bacalao – Salt Cod Mash (Brandade)

Updated 26 December 2023

Today’s dish is easy, cheap (cost efficient) and tasty! In addition, it has a name that in some languages refers to sensual oscillations…

Lets start with the geography of the dish. It is a Mediterranean dish, in the large sense, as we find it also in Portugal and the Basque Country. We find it in Catalunya, Provence, Rousillon, Languedoc, Liguria, Valencia.

It is based on salt cod (bacalao), garlic and olive oil. The variations include bread, potatoes, cream. What I present today is my own version, which uses potatoes, parsley, dill, garlic, and bread crumbs. It is an all season all weather dish, and goes very well with white wine. Who said that cucina povera is not wonderful?

It is best to use salted cod for the dish. Desalinate the cod and then remove the skin. Simmer in milk for 5 minutes in medium heat. Then gently break the flesh in a food processor. Gently, otherwise, you will get a mousse instead of threads.

Chop garlic, parsley and dill and boil potatoes until they become soft. Remove from the heat, drain, and then gently mash them in the food processor. Bring all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

 Spread the mix on a baking tray that has been thoroughly oiled, cover with breadcrumds and bake in 200 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it rest for 30 minutes before serving.

Prepare a mix of vegetables (fried or baked) for serving with the brandade. I have prepared a mix of red peppers, eggplants and zucchini with tomato sauce.

Cut the brandade in squares and serve over the vegetables sprinkling with chopped parsely.

Enjoy responsibly with chilled asirtiko, and let the good times roll!!!

Pissaladiere with smoked herring

Pissaladiere is a pizza-like dish of the South of France. Its name comes from the word pissalat (“salted fish”). It has a lot of onions, and no tomatoes or cheese.

I read about this in the Rowley Leigh cookery column of the Financial Times, where he presented a recipe with sardines instead of the traditional anchovies. I took it and gave it a twist, so that it has smoked herring, which I like very much.

The dough is very simple: 300 gr flour, 2 tablespoons of yeast, warm water, 1 tablespoon of salt, one large egg.  Mix until you get a firm enough dough that you can spread over a deep baking tray.  Leigh recommends also 150 grams of butter. I did not put it in, as it would make it very heavy for my summer taste.

Slice the onions, 6 large ones is the minimum, and put them in a large saucepan with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Let them stew for at least half an hour, and let it chill for another half.

Once the dough is evenly spread in the baking tray, spread the onions on top of it.

Now is the time to add all the toppings on top of the onion base.

The first to go is sliced chilli peppers and black olives. The next is thinly sliced basilico, dill, and parsley. Finally, I add the herring in stripes and add the final ingredient, fresh oregano.

The key here is not to add any cheese or tomato.

Bake in the oven (230 Centigrade) for 20 minutes and serve with a full-bodied white (like a Sicilian Chardonnay).

The dish is wonderful! IT has a kick from the peppers, it is sweet because of the onions, it has the savory bitterness of the olives, supplemented by the aromatic greens added on top, and the queen of the dish, the herring comes out of the bouquet of flavors on top.