Julia Child famously went to France with her new husband Paul and ordered sole meuniere for lunch. The perfectly cooked fish, and probably the wine that went with it, supposedly lit the passion for food that changed her life. (I haven't seen the movie yet, so forgive me if I am oversimplifying here.)
Was there a meal in your past that did something similar for you, albeit with much more modest consequences?
There was for me. I was 24 years old and living in England on foreign assignment for our American employer, a situation that requires one to leave the country after six months and re-enter on a new visa. For our "turn-around weekend", we chose Paris. I had never been to Paris before, and though totally engrossed by all things food I was generally inexperienced and too intimidated by linguistic limitations to attempt making reservations at any famed eateries. And so it was that one night, just walking about, we came across ten or twenty people lined up outside a humble little white-tablecloth neighborhood restaurant from whence great aromas were wafting. Riveted by my nose and with no conflicting plans, we joined the queue with no idea what we were in for.
I ordered my meal by pointing at the plates of others.
The salad: a large clear glass bowl came to the table holding enough greens for two. I had never been served this way before. The greens were icy cold, crisp and well mixed in a time when American restaurants, at least on the west coast, didn't mix lettuces. The leaves were large, some left whole--again, in my world, brand new. The dressing was the classic French olive oil/vinegar/mustard emulsion--I had never had mustard in a dressing before, nor an emulsion. It was the best salad I'd ever eaten.
The main course: rare roast beef. A thick slab for each of us, heavily seasoned on the outside and perfectly tender and flavorful within. I have no idea what cut it was, but the only rare roast beef in my life had been prime rib and this didn't seem to be that, nor was it filet, and whatever it was I loved it. A separate gratin pan of potatoes was served on the side. This gratin had not been cooked earlier in the day and reheated, but rather had just been removed from the oven and seemingly rushed to our table, the cream still bubbling under the brown crust that had formed in the oven. Flavored with nothing more than salt and a kiss of garlic, it was again for me another first as gratins had not yet entered my life, let alone anything so rich and wonderful as this. And there was no vegetable. Much as I love vegetables, I did not miss having one with this meal but it was shockingly provocative, nonetheless, to someone so sold on the merits of the Food Pyramid as represented in the standard American three-plop presentation, to have my meal pared down this way.
Dessert: cherries. Big, crisp, cold, reddish purple cherries. No pie, no cake, no goopy creams, no pastry, no adornment of any kind, just a simple bowl of perfect fresh cherries. Another revelation this, that one could order fresh fruit in a restaurant, that fresh fruit in fact could be so elegant as to be served in a restaurant and be given the same respect as the work of any pattisserie.
With all this, a bottle of good red wine though I have no idea what it was, my wine epiphany not having arrived yet.
So there you have it: a great simple meal, so simple that now all these years later it seems almost quirkily homey, but it was nonetheless one so honest and perfect of ingredient and execution, one so full of new ideas and I don't know how else to put this, but permissions, it was life-changing. And more to the point, it showed me how painfully little I understood about world food and how much there was yet to learn. As soon as I got back to England, I enrolled in a Cordon Bleu class.
If there was a meal like this in your life, please share your story!
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