I

For several years before France fell, Paris newspapers as different as Le Temps and L’Intransigeant ran irate and direful letters from old-fashioned chefs predicting that sure as shooting something awful would happen to the whole country unless the young people forgot their new fad for sports and grilled steak-with-watercress and went back intelligently to the rich cuisine des sauces of their fathers.

Not only was this shocking appetite driving the chefs themselves to the poorhouse, but it was un-French. It bespoke a crass lack of national spirit, a betrayal of all that was best in the Gallic culture, to order a Chateaubriand (saignant) in a decent restaurant, when one could as easily command a little pigeon simmered artfully with red wine and truffles and this and that and mushrooms maybe ... and many spices ... and one or two kinds of fat... and probably a little basting of marc or brandy at the last.