Your 12 October food & drink takeaways
A memorable literary meal revisited, childhood food memories stirred by an animated chef and a pioneer of regional cuisine whose memory lives on in France.
Just some of the food & drink delights that 12 October brings to the table.
Click on the links for extra helpings.
A curated taster menu of every day’s food & drink associations
Food in writing
The TV adaptation of English author Evelyn Waugh's classic novel Brideshead Revisited premiered on ITV on this day in 1981.
Waugh himself was credited by The Guardian for creating 'one of the 10 most memorable meals in literature' – a feast ordered in Paris by a Russian veteran fleeing from the Bolsheviks in his story The Manager of The Kremlin.
But as The Evelyn Waugh Society points out on its website:
"An equally memorable meal appears in Brideshead Revisited and is described in greater detail. This was also eaten in Paris where Charles Ryder connives to have Rex Mottram host him at Ryder’s favorite restaurant (Paillard’s). Charles places the order while awaiting Rex’s arrival:
I remember the meal well–soup of ‘oseille’, a sole quite simply cooked in a white-wine sauce, a ‘caneton a la press’, a lemon soufflé. At the last minute, fearing that the whole thing was too simple for Rex, I added ‘caviar aux blinis.’
Food on screen
Oscar-winning animation film Ratatouille opened in UK cinemas on this day in 2007.
Not only was it remarkable for featuring a chef extraordinaire, Remy (a rat who couldn't stomach eating garbage) but also for his preparing an emotion-evoking version of the vegetable dish ratatouille {header photo} in winning over a poison-penned restaurant critic, Anton Ego, moving him to write:
"Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: ‘Anyone can cook.’ But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau’s, who is, in this critic’s opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau’s soon, hungry for more."
Food birthdays
1872
Curnonsky (Maurice Edmond Sailland)
‘The Prince of Gastronomy’, the most celebrated writer on gastronomy in France in the 20thcentury.
With Swiss writer Marcel Rouff he authored the multi-volume work La France gastronomique, guide des merveilles culinaires et des bonnes auberges françaises (Gastronomic France: Guide to the culinary marvels and the good inns of France).
"Curnonsky, the veteran of more than four thousand banquets, was never happier than when seated before a dinner prepared by a French housewife, claiming that nothing equals the honest cooking in the home of a Breton fisherman, a Pyrenees farmer, or a vineyard tender in his native Anjou. “'Her dinner is always delicious: a. good hot soup, two main dishes, a bit of cheese or fruit, a good wine of the country, and a hot cup of black coffee. Nothing can be better!”
1923
American co-founder of ‘Weight Watchers’
