There’s a piece of folk wisdom that says you should never trust anyone who dislikes dogs. I think you should never trust anyone who dislikes dessert. And I’m not talking about a parsimonious slice of melon with a couple of loitering strawberries. I’m talking decadent, sinful, lavish, ambrosial – French desserts. Until you’ve tasted the creamy sugary crunch of a peerless crème brûlée, the deep chocolatey caress of mousse au chocolat, the fresh buttery piquancy of a perfect tarte tatin or the citrusy boozy fluffiness of crêpes suzette, your tastebuds have been sleeping.
French cuisine has long held a reputation for excellence, no matter the course, although in recent years there are those who argue it’s in decline, claiming it’s overrated, overpriced and trading on nostalgia rather than reality (dear old Julia Child would turn in her grave). It’s a debate for another day but let me just say I disagree. Traditionally French cuisine has, more than any other, evolved from a foundation of inflexible principles from the time it originated in medieval times down through the centuries. An article on the website of the eminent Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts explains that the guiding philosophy of French cooking is based on a combination of “formal techniques, emphasis on fresh ingredients, simple flavours, pride in presentation and rich and colourful history”. For a French chef, there are certain fundamental techniques that must be mastered before any individual interpretations or gastronomical experiments can even be considered. So perhaps the reason for the alleged waning in popularity of French cuisine is not the cuisine itself but the practitioners.
Debates about sub-standard boeuf bourguignons aside, when it comes to desserts (and by that I include pastries) I doubt there’s much argument that the French still hold the crown. They can lay claim not only to the world’s best desserts, but to the word itself, which comes from the French desservir, meaning to unserve, or clear the table after the main course.
I’ve wondered, however, if there’s more to it than techniques, principles and philosophy. It’s a little like trying to figure out why out of two books, equally well written, one grabs you to the extent the characters live on in your mind long afterwards, but the other makes as little impression on you as your morning shower. It’s gone as soon as you turn off the tap. I’ve concluded it’s to do with the French themselves and their capacity for passion. Renowned as the most romantic lovers, celebrated for their beautiful language, acclaimed for their sense of style, famous for their fashion sense, all these attributes are evident in their cuisine. Perfection on the plate is born of embracing the unrestrained, the rich, the beautiful and investing every creation with passion.
To deviate slightly and to indulge in a little “best moments of” travel nostalgia, the greatest French glazed fruit tart (tarte au fruits fraix) I ever tasted came from Crécy-la-Chappelle, a small town about 40km outside Paris, reached by negotiating several metro routes, the RER and a local train. A pretty, quiet place of mellow stone, luxuriant leafiness, bridges and secluded alleyways, it could have been a setting for a Marcel Pagnol movie. There was even an oak tree shaded town square, where the locals played boules. Adding to its charm were the many canals or ringed moats (called brassets) which flowed through the town and gave it the feel of Venice on a smaller scale. No matter where we walked the sparkle of water was always part of the view.
Deciding we needed something to take back to our Paris apartment for dessert that night, me and my husband popped into a tiny pâtisserie near the town square. Arrayed in the display cabinet was a veritable feast for all the senses but the lustrous colours of a glazed fruit tart, just big enough for two, immediately grabbed our attention. The beaming proprietress (another Marcel Pagnol character), on hearing we were catching the train back to Paris (and no doubt deducing from my rusty French we were touristes) meticulously gift wrapped the tart in a white box, adorned it with ribbons and added a little carrying handle. It was an object of beauty, as stylish as any priceless bauble from Chanel or Cartier. With comic protectiveness, we shepherded it back through the myriad train transfers, the underground warren of métro stops, countless sets of stairs and hazardous street crossings to our third- floor walk-up apartment, where we fell on it gluttonously before giving a thought to dinner.
Dinner, it turned out, was de trop. Besides we wanted the taste of the tart to linger as long as possible. Words almost fail me. It was everything a tart should be, delicate pastry (pâte sablée), silky custard (crème pâtissière) succulent summer fruits glossy with an apricot glaze that tasted of a sun warmed orchard. But it wasn’t just the quality of the tart, it was the tender care, the uniquely French passion, with which the pâtisserie proprietress presented and packaged it for us.
Notwithstanding my longstanding study of the subject, there is one French dessert I hadn’t tried until recently and this proved a worthy contender to the glazed fruit tart, even slightly edging it out of first position, at least on first tasting. Further tastings are called for to make a truly informed judgement.
Countering the theory that French cuisine is on the decline, a new French bistro called (not very imaginatively) Bistro Français opened recently in a fashionable quarter of Adelaide. It’s been receiving rave reviews from many quarters, not the least of which is this glowing one from Delicious which describes the menu as “a tour de force of French classics”. In a repudiation of revisionist gastronomy and anything remotely hipster, the chef is reproducing dishes like soupe à l’onion, boeuf bourguignon, confit de canard, crême brûlée and the like – dishes that done to perfection don’t need any reconfiguring (Auguste Escoffier would be delighted.) The fact that culinary traditionalism has proved so popular, and moreover in a modish location where new and quirky eating places sprout and wither with monotonous regularity, is a credit to the restaurateur (and the chef).
Having rhapsodised at length about French classic desserts, you might have expected that I’d choose the Crême Brûlée or the Soufflé au Fruit de la Passion (both of which I’d had before and are excellent), but I decided to try something different. This was a dish called Sphère au Chocolat, described as a dark chocolate sphere with white chocolate mousse, coffee ice-cream, hazelnut praline and warm caramel sauce. This may well be a French classic that has so far eluded me, or a new French classic but to me it was a revelation. Calorific concerns, it goes without saying, should be banished from the mind when contemplating such a dish. It’s excessive, flamboyant and unashamedly bad for you. To coin a very vulgar and inadequate analogy, it resembled the choc-top ice-creams they sell in cinemas. But if this was sold in cinemas, the seats and the cinema goers would get very sticky.
But back to the taste experience. Presented on a white plate it looked, as one of my fellow diners said, like a miniature ten-pin bowling ball. On digging in, I found the chocolate shell yielded to a firm tap with the spoon to reveal a magic cave of mousse, ice-cream and praline, over which one poured the warm caramel sauce provided in a separate jug. Each component balanced perfectly in texture, flavour and temperature with the others. Taken together the whole proved an example of perfect gastronomic synchronicity. Or, in other words, each spoonful was an explosion in the mouth so delectable I almost couldn’t bring myself to swallow. I don’t know where they get their chocolate, but that alone was superb – dark, smooth and intensely chocolatey. As was the mousse, as was the ice-cream, as was the praline, as was the caramel. The sphere was more than food. It was a sensual experience.
Tempted as I am to attempt a replication of this dessert at home, I’m not game. A quick glance at a recipe I found on the web reveals the sphere alone requires twenty separate steps and that doesn’t include the mousse, ice-cream, praline or sauce. These days my enthusiasm for cooking anything that can’t be mixed and baked in one receptacle is waning as fast as my senses of sight and hearing, so when the craving for sphère au chocolat next strikes, I’ll have to revisit the Bistro Français. I wonder if they frown on patrons ordering only dessert.
