Don't Save Anything: The Uncollected Writings of James Salter(68)

Cuisine is regarded by the French as their rightful possession. Madame de Maintenon, mistress of Louis XIV, established the Cordon Bleu as a cooking school, to become over the centuries the most famous in the world. Julia Child was among its alumni. Madame de Pompadour, also a king’s mistress, was taught in her youth that food was one of the essential ways to hold a man, and she is renowned for having made good use of both. It was at Paris restaurants like Le Grand Véfour and La Coupole (well, Coupole is technically a brasserie) that the great names of France were to be found. Governments were made at Lipp, it was said, but they fell at La Coupole.

Chinon, Chaumont, a small village near Grasse called Magagnosc, Villeréal, sometimes Paris—these are some of the places we, or I, have lived in France, usually in rented houses, sometimes borrowed ones. Borrowed apartments in Paris are the best, and the best guidebook, old and familiar as it may be, for me is the red Michelin. Others have their points, but the Michelin is solid, thick, and reliable. When it was first published by the Michelin tire company in 1900 to identify gas stations, hotels, and repair shops along the road, it had only twenty pages. Over the years it has become a veritable encyclopedia covering all the towns and cities in France with a hotel or restaurant worthy of any notice—name, address, telephone and fax numbers, category, price, specialties, dates open, and on and on, even whether or not you can bring your dog. Dogs are usually allowed in restaurants in France and are almost always well behaved.

It was in the Guide Michelin that we found a restaurant, La Ripa Alta, in Plaisance, in southwestern France, one summer. It had been given a Michelin star, and the ranking was deserved. We had an excellent meal, and for dessert, figs, marvelously plump and tender, bathed in a smooth, faintly alcoholic liquid. When the owner and chef, Maurice Coscuella, came around to the tables afterward, we asked about the figs, how he had done them. The recipe was his own, he said, would we like it? I gave him a pair of drugstore eyeglasses I was reading the bill with in exchange.

Figs in Whiskey

1 package dried figs, Turkish or Greek seem best

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups Scotch whiskey

Boil the figs for twenty minutes in about a quart of water in which the sugar has been dissolved. Allow to cool until tepid. Drain half the remaining water or a bit more and add the Scotch. Allow to steep a good while in a covered bowl before serving.

The restaurant in Plaisance is not listed in the current Michelin. I cannot imagine Monsieur Coscuella having fallen from one star to oblivion. I prefer to think he retired after years of honest work in the kitchen, but the guide does not give forwarding addresses.

The New York Times Magazine

January 2, 2005





Paris Nights


The 1920s were the great years in Paris, the vintage of the century. The war was over, the franc was cheap, the city was at its zenith. The painters and writers were there, amid names that have lasted: Picasso, Stravinsky, Proust, Gertrude Stein. A. J. Liebling, who became a celebrated New Yorker journalist, was more or less attending the Sorbonne, and although he was too young and unaccomplished to mingle with the gods, he summons up much of the period in Between Meals, his wonderful recollection of that era.

There was a restaurant called Maillabuau on Rue Ste-Anne, unimpressive, even shabby in appearance, known for superb food and staggering prices. Liebling had never so much as crossed the threshold of Maillabuau and certainly never would have had it not been for a visit from his parents and sister. When they turned to him for a suggestion of where to have their first dinner together, Liebling, as if he dined there regularly, proposed Maillabuau. He had read its description in a guidebook. The menu that night was simple: a delicious soup—a garbure—followed by trout grenobloise, poulet Henri IV, and, for dessert, an omelette au kirsch. The food was incomparable, the wines splendid, and the check, Liebling recalled, “one of the most stupendous . . . in history.”

Not long ago, I was walking down Rue Ste-Anne, past Japanese restaurants, nightclubs, and travel agencies. Of Maillabuau there was not a trace. Like the legendary Le Chabanais, the most luxurious brothel in Paris, and the Hotel Louvois, where Liebling used to stay, Maillabuau had disappeared, devoured by modern times.

Of course, I knew this beforehand. I was merely strolling after lunch on Rue Vivienne, a couple of streets away, thinking of the 1920s and times past.

I came to Paris too late, not in my own life, but in the life of the city. I missed its years of glory. In the 1950s, the period of my first acquaintance, I was never in Paris long enough to have more than a vague impression of it, but eventually—I forget how—one night I walked into a restaurant that would become the restaurant in Paris for me. If I were asked to name my favorite restaurant in London, I might unconvincingly mention a place or two. The same for Rome. For Paris, however, there is no question. Not a moment of hesitation. The answer is La Coupole.

Is it because of the food? Not really. The food is good and so is the service. But it isn’t just for these things that one embraces a restaurant. The crucial elements, though they don’t last forever, are style and, for want of a better word, character. And in the case of La Coupole, something more: whatever the hour, but especially at night, there was the expectation of finding there le tout Paris—that is to say, everybody, from top to bottom: actors, intellectuals, journalists, musicians, along with many others whose occupation it would be difficult to judge.

Night. You cross the wide avenue, the Boulevard Montparnasse. There is the wide glass front, the garish neon letters above. People are sitting on the enclosed terrace, lingering over coffee, talking. Passing through the doors you are struck by the full sound: conversation, laughter, knives and forks clattering, bottles being opened, plates stacked. The long aisles running front to back with tables and banquettes on either side, the flood of faces. Each section has a ma?tre, implacable as a croupier, in a dinner jacket. You know them by sight, polite but reserved. This is a profession, a life. If men like this are running the lines for the boat across the Styx, you’re in luck. “You wish a table? For four?” He casts an appraising eye over his domain. “Dix minutes, monsieur.” You can rely on the estimate. He’ll call you in the bar.