French Fried Page 8

  16

  Trabouling and Puffer Fishing

  Carolyn

  Victoire gave us the shortest possible history of Lyon: It had been a Roman city, Lugdunum; then a Christian city, ruled by the church in the Middle Ages; and after that a city of trade, finance, and manufacture in the Renaissance when Old Lyon came into its own. “The Renaissance Association has been restoring the buildings and preserving them since 1947,” said Victoire. “Many have been turned into public housing, and some were privately purchased and restored with the help of the city. Catherine has a place here, although why she would want to live among lower-class neighbors is a puzzle.”

  “Because she’s descended from Florentine bankers, who came here when they couldn’t compete with the Medicis in Florence,” said Sylvie, while her dog made forays of friendship toward passing canines.

  “Yes, of course,” said Victoire. “Much of the architecture is Italianate. Shall we enter a traboule?”

  Actually, I hoped to see more than one and wondered if the tour would be as short as the history lesson. I could have provided that much history myself. We ducked into a narrow archway and began. The traboules were delightful, a world unto themselves, sometimes narrow and dark before we’d burst into a courtyard with balconies soaring above our heads and pots of flowers draping over the metalwork, reminding me of the falling flowerpot in Paris that almost hit me and did hit a fellow tourist, although he deserved it.

  There were gorgeous circular stairways curving up from floor to floor with twisted marble sides that reminded me of Gaudi buildings in Barcelona or wrought-iron railings on stairs and balconies reminiscent of those in the French Quarter of New Orleans. In some courtyards we’d see arches holding up ornate windowed tiers rising toward the light. And a lovely rose tower with large windows climbing around and upward to the top floor. Some traboules had long inner flights of stone stairs that lead past residences on either side to a street at a higher level. In one place I saw a rugged well, over which a shell-carved ceiling supported the upper reaches of the building. These interior walkways were shabby or lovely or eerie, but all fascinating, and Victoire walked at a fast clip and told us nothing about any of them.

  Sniffing into every ancient corner, Winston Churchill tugged so often on his leash that I often had to call out so I wouldn’t be left behind. Sylvie, of course, was taking pictures of everything from door knockers—Winnie tended to bark at the ones with lions’ heads—to stairs, to the three of us, although Victoire was reluctant to be photographed for the same reason I had been yesterday: windblown hair. I began to resent the fact that Sylvie got to take all the pictures, while I, encumbered with her rambunctious dog, got to take none. I’d have to buy a book or postcards if I wanted remembrances of the traboules.

  I also wondered how Sylvie, who had ignored the advice on wearing low-heeled shoes, managed to keep up. The pavement and cobblestones were rough, and Sylvie was wearing very high heels. Victoire remarked in an undertone that Sylvie would develop those “unsightly lumps” on her feet before she turned forty. I, on the other hand, was more worried about dangers in the present. I thought it a wonder that Sylvie didn’t break her ankle, but she didn’t even watch her footing, whereas I had to watch my step, the dog, and the scenery as I was dragged along.

  Eventually we emerged in front of a church that I’d love to have visited, but Victoire assured me, rather sarcastically, that Gabrielle could be counted on to show me every church of note in the city. Perhaps Victoire was one of the nonreligious French. I’ve heard there are many. And after all, the French Revolution had been antichurch and destroyed all sorts of wonderful things.

  “Now if you two wish to look for a Japanese restaurant, I’ll just take a cab home,” said Victoire.

  Remembering that I needed to track down sources of puffer fish, I said that jet lag was catching up with me, because of which I wouldn’t mind returning to the hotel.

  “What, no one wants to have lunch?” cried Sylvie. Winston Churchill looked disappointed, too. No doubt he’d expected another under-the-table feast with me as caterer.

  So I still have the same suspects, I thought as I took the elevator to my room, the Guillots and the Laurents. I kicked off my shoes and located the Lyon phone book, but then I felt hungry and glanced at my watch—after one. I called room service for a salad, reminding myself that last night’s dinner must have been high cal. Surely a chicken so tasty was full of fat and cholesterol.

  Then I began to scan the business listings. I had no problem finding the restaurant section, but telling Japanese restaurants from non-Japanese was difficult because the restaurant names were in French. I was trying the Internet for French translations of Japanese foods, like fugu, when my salad arrived.

  After lunch, I connected with what I took to be two Chinese restaurants, three Vietnamese restaurants, and one Korean establishment. At the Vietnamese restaurants they spoke French and Vietnamese. At the Korean restaurant the owner spoke English and gave me a lecture on Japanese depredations in Korea. I gathered that some now-deceased relative of his had been kidnapped as a sex slave. At any rate, he served no Japanese dishes and thought people who ate fugu were—I didn’t actually catch what such people were, but it sounded bad.

  He offered me a reservation, but I didn’t want that; I wanted to find out where our enemy had bought the fugu, and the Korean proprietor couldn’t name any wholesaler that carried such a dangerous item. I think at one of the Chinese restaurants I got a lecture on the rape of Nanking by the evil Japanese Empire, and the man to whom I was speaking claimed never to have heard of fugu and warned me that Japanese food was bad for the digestion.

  Then finally I had a stroke of inspiration. I would call the Japanese consulate. There had to be one here in Lyon, which was a large, business-oriented city. For that number, I called the desk, got the helpful Simone, and mentioned that we were looking for a Japanese restaurant.

  “There are none,” she replied, astonished. “Even the Japanese tourists and businessmen eat Lyonnais food here in Lyon.”

  “But what if a Japanese businessman yearns for the food of his native country? He would call his consulate for help, wouldn’t he?”

  Reluctantly Simone got me that number, and I called, waiting twenty minutes for an English speaker to come on the line. “My husband and I want to eat Japanese food,” I explained. He knew of clubs for Japanese nationals in Lyon, but we could not join one because they were private.

  Why didn’t that surprise me? I remember reading that, when the Olympics were held in Japan, many restaurants closed so they wouldn’t have to deal with Westerners. “Then perhaps you can tell me where we can buy fugu, that delicious fish that only the Japanese can prepare.”

  He agreed that only Japanese could prepare fugu, and I could not. Therefore, I shouldn’t even think of buying it. “But my husband and I—” He interrupted me to say that fugu was not available in Lyon and hung up.

  So how had the pâté poisoner got hold of fugu? The only answer was that Dr. Petit had failed to identify what had killed Robert. I called Inspector Roux to pass on the news, and he admitted sadly he was making little headway in finding out how or why the professor had died, but he assured me that the case was still open and he would contact me if he had news. I, in turn, gave him the name of the hotel in Avignon where we would be staying.

  Not my most promising afternoon of investigation. I snuggled down on the bed to think about the attempts on our lives and fell asleep until my husband called to tell me that he had made it safely through the day, and that we were going to dinner with Catherine de Firenze and several faculty members I had not yet met, people who would pick me up at the hotel instead of expecting me to make my way by cab to another restaurant.

  “Do any of these people seem to dislike you?” I asked Jason.

  “Actually, I’m finding the Southern French very pleasant,” Jason replied.

  “Yes, yes,” I agreed, “but does it seem that any of those we’re eating di
nner with tonight might be harboring a grudge. For instance, have you had any arguments about toxins?”

  “Carolyn, scientists don’t kill each other over matters scientific,” said Jason in the long-suffering tone I really hate to hear, especially from my husband.

  17

  A Peugeot Full of Gourmets

  Jason

  I took the elevator to fetch Carolyn while Bertrand and Nicole Fournier rushed off to study the hotel menu. They were both short, thin people, although they had talked of nothing but food since we stopped to pick up Nicole. I have to admit that I was glad they were coming along. The others attending the dinner were Catherine de Firenze and her Norman graduate student, Martin le Blanc, a very tall, muscular young man with a head of bushy red hair. With two such towering dinner companions, I found it something of a relief to recruit a couple shorter than I.

  Of course, Carolyn would be delighted to meet the Fourniers, Bertrand with his encyclopedic knowledge of French wines, and Nicole, a gourmet cook who had, according to Bertrand, studied in Paris just so that she could give dinner parties that were the envy of Lyon. Too bad they hadn’t invited us to their house. I shuddered to think what tonight’s culinary adventure would cost me. Both Fourniers had competed to tell me what to order from the menu, all dishes that sounded expensive.

  “You must not eat in the restaurant of this hotel, Madam Blue,” cried Nicole, as soon as Carolyn and I stepped off the elevator. “I have looked at their menu, and it is—how would you say?—mundane.”

  “With a wine list that has only several entries I could recommend,” added Bertrand. “We are the Fourniers, lovers of fine food and wine, as you are, Madam Blue.” They both embraced my wife and, holding her face in their small hands, kissed her on both cheeks; Carolyn took this greeting with aplomb, although she raised an eyebrow in my direction when she was released.

  “We know that Americans like to use baptismal names, so do not stand on ceremony. Call us Bertrand and Nicole,” Bertrand insisted.

  “I assume you cook,” said Nicole. “We must exchange recipes. I would have been happy to cook for you, but Bertrand says it is too close to the conference for elaborate dinners. Still, you will love the restaurant. The handling of sauces there is an art in itself. So beautiful, so colorful, so innovative.”

  Bertrand went into raptures over the sauces as he helped us into the car, an ancient Peugeot with seats covered in white hair from some animal that did not accompany us, thank God. Nicole insisted on sitting in the backseat with Carolyn so that she could hear about Carolyn’s newspaper column, but Carolyn gave that subject short shrift, saying only that she wrote about food, food history, and restaurants. She then asked Nicole the color of her car. Of course I realized that Carolyn was still searching for the black car that assaulted me. It wasn’t this one, which, whatever color it had once been, was now mottled, but never black.

  “I do not have a car!” cried Nicole. “We live in an area with wonderful shops. Each day I walk to the markets to pick out the freshest vegetables and fruits, the best fish or meat, and the finest bread from a lovely patisserie only a block from my door. People who shop from cars are tempted to buy too much. Only food purchased on the day it is to be eaten is worth cooking. Don’t you agree, Carolyn?”

  “Of course,” said Carolyn, who had never been grocery shopping two days in a row. “And tell me, Nicole, do you cook Japanese?”

  Bertrand chuckled merrily in anticipation of his own joke. “Japanese are not sold in our markets. Nor would it be legal to cook and eat them. Surely, Carolyn, you do not eat Japanese in America, even considering that they, many years ago, were so dishonorable as to bomb your ships without first declaring war.”

  I could hear my wife sigh. “I was thinking of Japanese fish,” she replied politely. “They are so rare and tasty.”

  “But a Japanese fish would have to be frozen and flown here,” protested Nicole. “We eat the fish of our region. The fish of Dombes, for instance. It is so interesting how these fishes are caught.”

  “Yes,” Bertrand agreed enthusiastically. “From shallow, freshwater lakes in huge nets spread by tractors and then pulled in by fishermen, who wade into the water and haul in the carp and pike for immediate consumption or shipment. At the restaurant I shall point to you some fine fishes from Dombes.”

  “Yes, I read that some of those breeding ponds were established in the twelfth century,” said Carolyn. I think she gave up at that point on the Fourniers as murderers. Their car was the wrong color, and the idea of eating Japanese fish was obviously appalling to them.

  At the restaurant, which had no sign outside, only an ornate and possibly aged door and heavily draped windows so that we could not see inside, we had to knock to be admitted by a man who greeted both Fourniers with a torrent of French and embraces, which extended to hand-kissing in my wife’s case. He didn’t greet me at all, evidently taking me for some hanger-on with no culinary credentials. The restaurant itself was small with elaborately set tables and yellow brocaded walls and chairs, but we were led to the bar because the rest of our party had not yet arrived.

  “I know that Americans love cocktails before dinner,” Bertrand said and helped both ladies onto high stools facing an inlaid wooden bar with an elaborately etched mirror behind it. Carolyn whispered that the décor was Art Deco, while Bertrand ordered a round of Hypermetropes. I had no idea what was coming, but of course the Fourniers were anxious to tell us in detail about this mixture of green Chartreuse and Vertical Vodka, both made by the monks of the Chartreuse, and served very cold, so cold that my test sip made my teeth ache. I sensibly failed to mention this problem to Carolyn, who would whip out a toothache remedy she carries in her purse. She’d evidently once forced it on a Catalan homicide inspector in Barcelona.

  “How interesting,” said my wife after her first sip. “I knew it wasn’t crème de menthe.”

  “Heaven forbid,” cried Nicole, and she launched into the history and distillation of the two ingredients.

  Chartreuse liqueur is made in a monastery founded by Saints Bruno and Hugo in the eleventh century. The recipe for an herbal elixir was given to the monks in 1605, but they were busy mining and smelting, so didn’t get to perfecting it until 1764, when it was considered a medicinal stimulant and distributed free to local peasants. Later the monastery distilled a liqueur, 55 percent alcohol, from it. Only three Carthusian brothers ever know the recipe, which contains 130 different plants.

  Through avalanches, revolutions, wars, and expulsions, the secret has been kept, but the brothers are now back in their French monastery, gathering and drying the herbs, soaking them in alcohol, and mixing in honey and other things, then aging the product for eight years in wooden casks before you can buy Chartreuse in green or yellow (yellow developed for the ladies) or mix up a Hypermetrope (the cocktail, not the eye disease) of green Chartreuse and Vertical Vodka (also made by the monks), shaken together, ice cold from the freezer. The cocktail is very inebriating.

  Carolyn Blue,

  “Have Fork, Will Travel,”

  Amarillo Ledger

  18

  Scenic Sauces

  Carolyn

  After a few sips of my Hypermetrope, I grew to like it. I think it was all the alcohol that made it so palatable. I was feeling quite merry by the time Catherine and her student arrived. But good grief. He was huge. And Norman, according to Nicole, which explained the red hair.

  When we were introduced, I said, somewhat the worse for having drained my cocktail, “You must be a descendent of William Rufus.” Silence followed that remark. “The son of William the Conqueror, the second Norman king of England.”

  “Are you inferring something about my sexual orientation, madam?”

  Oh dear, I’d forgotten those rumors about William Rufus, who had never married and—well, I hadn’t meant that. “Certainly not, Monsieur Le Blanc. William Rufus was redheaded and very large, a man much given to the practices of chivalry, even if there were rumors about hi
m, not that there’s anything wrong with being a homosexual.” I really needed to get off that subject.

  “You may remember when the youngest son, Henry Beauclerc, was holed up with his knights on Mont-Saint-Michel, while his brothers William Rufus and Robert, Duke of Normandy, besieged him. Henry sent a messenger asking that he and his men be allowed to ride ashore with all honors, and William, so charmed with the chivalric honor that would accrue to him by granting the request, agreed.”

  “Not only does the lady know her Norman history, but she obviously meant to compliment you, Martin,” said Catherine sharply.

  Martin le Blanc immediately rearranged his expression and shook my hand. Then we all went to our daffodil brocade chairs and had our meals chosen for us by the Fourniers. I had to have Dombes pike, dragged in a net fresh from one of a thousand or more ponds and shipped to me in a tanker that very day. Pike in butter sauce and Gratin Dauphinois, a dish of thinly sliced potatoes baked in a very rich sauce. It was quite nice, although Catherine said she preferred the potatoes with poultry or lamb.

  “But Carolyn has not yet sampled it,” cried Bernard.

  “A terrible mistake on the part of her previous hosts,” said Nicole. “What could Gabrielle have been thinking? Carolyn could have had the Gratinois with her Bresse chicken last night.”

  I assured them that I was happy to accompany my fish with the potatoes, which had an excellent texture. That earned me a lecture on Bintie potatoes, an old Netherlands variety with an oval shape, a yellow skin, no eyes, and the excellent ability to stay meaty after cooking. I made note of all this for future columns.