Omelette de la Mère Poulard

Mère Poulard was always reticent about her ‘secret’ recipe. ‘As for my adding cream,’ she is said to have declared, ‘that suggestion is pure invention. We do, however, have the best butter in France, and we don’t skimp on it. We do not let the butter brown in the pan and, above all, we are careful not to overcook the omelette.’ The perfect omelette, say French cooks, should be ‘baveuse’ (literally, dribbling).

This gave no clue to the tantalizing question of why