French Lessons Read Online Free PDF Page B

elevated position on the table at
the faces around him, one hand raised hopefully to his ear. A thousand francs
were bid. Not enough. He brought out his secret weapon, a sales incentive
Sotheby’s would kill for: God was on the side of the auctioneer.
“Do you want to be saved, you band of sinners? Come on! Pay up!”
Encouraged by thoughts of salvation, bidders pushed the price to fifteen
hundred francs (two hundred dollars), and the hammer came down.
    The
auctioneer’s patter continued, liberally sprinkled with references to the
Almighty and recipe hints, until the last truffle had been sold. With the cash
that had already been donated, the morning’s total was announced and
greeted with applause: The sum of 24,700 francs had been raised. But the
auctioneer, still in the grip of sales fever, hadn’t quite finished. One
of the empty collection baskets caught his eye and tickled his imagination:
“This is worth a fortune,” he said. “It’s been
blessed!” Sure enough, the basket fetched a thousand francs. The magic
figure of 25,000 francs ($3,600) had been passed. One way or another, we had
all earned our lunch.
     
    There is nothing like the
combination of cold weather and good deeds to sharpen the appetite. And the
highlight of the menu being served at the Richerenches village hall was
omelette aux truffes,
an inducement that has never been known to fail
in France. Rarely have I seen a crowd move with such speed and purpose, and by
the time I looked up again after scribbling a few notes, I had the
place
practically to myself.
    The hall was a scene of amiable
chaos as everyone moved among the tables looking for their names on slips of
paper that identified reservations. I found my place and shook every hand
within reach during a blur of introductions. My neighbors were local, jolly,
and thirsty.
    On occasions like this, I have always found that it is a
social advantage to be foreign. Wine is pressed upon you, and not only wine.
Advice of every kind is also offered—whether you ask for it or
not—since it is assumed that your education is probably lacking, and that
you need a little help in matters that only a Frenchman fully understands.
    There is the truffle, for instance, the
Tuber melanosporum,
also
known as “the divine tubercule.” How would I, coming from England,
a country that this delicacy has chosen to avoid, know that the truffle cannot
be cultivated? It grows where it pleases, defying all attempts at artificial
production. That is why crops and prices vary so much from year to year. My
instructor across the table nodded, as though he personally had played a part
in the natural order of things.
    I asked him what he thought about the
genetically modified food that was very much in the news at the time, and he
reared back in his chair. I might have insulted his grandmother or, perhaps
worse, his local soccer team. Tampering with nature, he said. No good can come
of it. It is nothing but a plot to prevent the process of reproduction, so that
farmers have to buy new seeds every year. A
scandale,
promoted by men
in white coats, agricultural bandits who never get their hands dirty. He looked
set to rant for hours, if he didn’t choke on his wine first.
    He
was silenced by the arrival of an omelette, steaming and fragrant and
generously speckled with crunchy black slivers of truffle. It was a vibrant
bright yellow, the yellow that only comes from the yolks of eggs laid by
free-range hens, and the consistency had been exquisitely judged by the chef,
just on the firm side of runny. The technical term for this is
baveuse
(which sounds much more appetizing than its literal
translation—dribbling), and it is a texture that has eluded me for
years.
    My omelettes, no matter how solicitous I am as I hover over
them, are never any more than scrambled eggs with pretensions. They don’t
even travel well, usually falling to pieces during their brief journey to the
plate. I have never been able to achieve the plump,