Dumaine's Coq Au Vin

[cabrales]

James Villas furnishes a wonderful description of his visit to Dumaine's La Cote d'Or in his youth, in Best Food Writing 2002. At the time described, Villas is on a budget and knows little about French gastronomy. He orders the Le Coq au Vin a l'Ancienne, and a half-bottle of Beaujolais.

"[T]he waiter then rolled over a handsome wodden cart on top of which rested a large, shiny copper pot, two covered copper containers, and a plate of what appeared to be heart-shaped pieces of bread. . . . served a first portion topped with the beautiful fried croutons rubbed with garlic, and spooned a few buttered green peas and parsleyed boiled potatoes from the otehr containers into seaprate china bowls. The stew, which also contained tiny onions and mushrooms, was almost black, and . . . . I knew the second I took my first bite of this robustly rich, smooth, incredibly sapid chicken that I'd really never eaten coq au vin. What I was also certain of was that while I ate, the same pudgy man in the white uniform [this is Dumaine] would crack open the kitchen door and glance in my direction. For maybe forty-five minutes, I slowly relished my meal . . ."

Dumaine later explains the dark color of the stew: "'Blood', he almost boomed. 'Chicken blood -- plus pureed livers. It's the only way.'"

Interestingly, this was also Villas' first sampling of Bresse chicken (poularde).

[johnjohn]

Ahh... Coq Au Vin - one of my favorites. I recently came across a recipe that called for adding 1.5 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder towards the end of cooking. Sounds interesting - anybody know if this is common.

johnjohn

[marcus]

Jean Ducloux the chef of the wonderful restaurant Greuze in Tournus is a student of Alexandre Dumaine and continues to prepare many of his dishes according to the original recipes. The coq au vin was not on the carte the one time that I ate there, there was a different Bresse chicken dish featured, but he might be willing to prepare it on special request. He is quite elderly and I don't know how much longer he plans to keep operating the restaurant.

[helenas]

And our own jaybee is a proud owner of Jean Ducloux's book: maybe he can comment on this book here.

[pirate]

For Dumaine and coq au vin see pages 145-6 of Wechsberg's "Dining at the Pavillon". Alas I was too late for Dumaine but loved the food of his sucessor Francois Minot. One reason I'm sceptical of the Michelin award system is that Minot never achieved 3 rosettes.

[cabrales]

The coq au vin was not on the carte the one time that I ate there, there was a different Bresse chicken dish featured, but he might be willing to prepare it on special request.

marcus -- Ducloux seems elderly based on his bio; I might have to bump up Greuze on my "to do" list to be sure to sample his cuisine. Michelin lists Poulet de Bresse Saute "Jean Ducloux" among Greuze's dishes. Was that the dish you sampled, and do you remember a signature dish of "Pate en courte 'Alexandre Dumaine'"? If you have the time, what was the wine list at Greuze like?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yes all my wino friends love the "classic" food at Greuze and say the wine list is divine. I guess I need to go soon.

[cabrales]

Steve P -- Are there write-ups on wine boards of what your wine-knowledgeable friends might have chosen at Greuze? Note the restaurant is accessible by direct train from Lyons, and has good connections through to Paris.

[cabrales]

One source describes Ducloux as having been born in 1920.

[lizziee]

Current posts on Greuze:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...=5935&hl=greuze

[marcus]

Cabrales -- I must admit that I have no recollection of the wine list. I also remember that the pate en croute, although very famous, was not overwhelmingly great to me. However, the Bresse chicken and everything else was outstanding. He also cooks the most definitive version of quenelles de brochet, better than any in Lyon. The portion is large and very rich and ideally you should split it, there are two quenelles. You should make every effort to eat in this restaurant as soon as possible; it is the closest experience to classic haut cuisine that still exists. The town of Tournus has a number of pleasant 3 star hotels and the Romanesque church is very fine and worth visiting.

[cabrales]

In researching Greuze, I learned that the restaurant is B Loiseau's favorite restaurant. Not surprising, given that Loiseau succeeded to the physical location of A Dumaine's restaurant at Saulieu and Ducloux's work with Dumaine.

"Q: Quel est, en dehors de vos établissements, votre restaurant favori ? A: Incontestablement un restaurant qui se trouve à Tournus nommé: 'GREUZE'."

Translated: "Q: Apart from your rsetaurants, what is your favorite restaurant? A: Without a doubt, a restaurant located in Tournus called Greuze."

http://www.gastronomie.com/interview/Inter...viewNov2000.asp

[marcus]

Haute cuisine soulfood

[cabrales]

Happenstance favors the proactive. The maitre d' at Greuze indicated Chef Ducloux could make a coq au vin for me, after I noted my desire to sample A Dumaine's coq au vin. However, the maitre d' observed that a coq au vin dish has not been featured on the menu at Greuze for about fifty years. I don't know if I'll necessarily get the A Dumaine version, but it could be memorable regardless. No worries about sampling other dishes -- I have more than one meal. The maitre d' ended our call with the promising note, "on va vous faire le maximum" ("We will go the max for you"). Edited December 19, 2002 by cabrales (log)

[cabrales]

For Dumaine and coq au vin see pages 145-6 of Wechsberg's "Dining at the Pavillon".

pirate or other members with the book -- I do not have the book you mentioned. Could you please post the crucial parts of the discussion on the Dumaine coq au vin?

[pirate]

Cabrales: I hope I'm not violating any copyrights.

Conversation between Dumaine and Wechsberg, Dumaine speaking

"...In the music of the cuisine, the sauces are melodies. Some chefs use as many as four different sauces in a single dish, but do they blend them into a harmonious symphony? That's where the trick lies. Nothing is ever perfect. I've made my sauce for coq au vin for thirty years and I'm only just now beginning to get the proper balance. This morning, by the way, it came out especially well. Here,try"

Again I tasted, and again I could find no fault

"Thirty years to achieve that" Dumaine said. "yet some young men think they know all the answers after two years of apprenticeship. When my boys move on to other jobs, they know the rudiments of technique and the laws of chemistry. Whether they'll not only work hard but bring to their work that extra spark that distinguishes the good cook from the mediocre one there's no way of telling"

Also from the same book. Mrs. Dumaine speaking about her husband:

"He's always in the kitchen - cooking, experimenting, creating, improving" she went on "He's a wonderful man, monsieur. He lives, thinks, dreams only cuisine. He used to like to hunt - woodcock and partridge - but he's given that up. He's happy nowhere but in his kitchen. It's his home. And it isn't the same when he isn't in it,either. If he stays away longer than forty-eight hours, monsieur, it's disaster. Once a year, in November, we close the place for a couple of weeks, to give our employees a rest. My husband and I go to Nice to visit my sister, and all the time we're there, my husband walks the streets, lonely for his kitchen. He has the obsession of the real artist, monsieur. He sleeps in a small room upstairs facing the highway. He first moved into it because he felt no guest would want it, on account of all the heavy trucks going by. Well, now he has become so accustomed to the noise that when traffic lets up, after midnight, the quiet often wakes him. And then what does he do? He switches on the light and sits up in his chair and reads recipes. He reads recipes the way conductors read scores"

One final quote: On June 24, 1933 Mrs. Dumaine wrote to her husband;

"Beloved Tempest, I wish I were a magician, so that I could pass on to young people something of the fervor of your labors and aspirations, something of your achievements and the objectives toward which you strive incessantly, and thus re-create for their benefit the struggles of your life. Struggles that have given both of us a most wonderful adventure, a life so rich in understanding and so full of the only things we can take with us ...."

[cabrales]

pirate -- Thanks so much for taking the time to input the passage.

[pirate]

Vieille France. I miss it.

[cabrales]

pirate -- What vestiges do you perceive of it?

[pirate]

Cabrales: I made that remark with respect to Dumaine and his times compared to ours. There are many excellent chefs today but we're beset with "corporate culture" taking over so many aspects of life. I'm thinking of Alan Ducasse

and, in particular, the revealing Wall Street Journal interview with him some time ago - typical "corporate culture speak",. Though tempted by his reputation and the reviews, I don't feel I want to a client of his restaurants. I was fortunate to have eaten in the old "Aux Lyonnais" and loved the French bourgeois food- la France

vieille to me. Do you believe that Ducasse and his partner have the honesty and integrity to give us something other than a Disney

version? Sorry, Cabrales, I'm a hopeless idealist. But I'm entertained by your becoming the gadfly of the website.

[Peter Rodgers]

This thred triggered a childhood memory of meals taken at L'Auberge Bressane, then a one star restaurant in Bourg-en-Bresse. This would have been circa 1960. I was about 12 and I would share whatever my parents might be ordering. We dined at L'Auberge Bressane a number of times, but, through all the years, I remember most vividly a "simple" tasting menu composed of the following: (i) steamed white asparagus served with a hollandaise sauce (obviously, it must have been spring); (ii) quenelle de brochet, sauce nantua (so extraordinary I can just about taste it now); poulet de bresse with a tarragon cream sauce (about like Georges Blanc makes it now using his old family recipe); an extensive cheese platter and a chariot of dozens of different desserts. Sigh!!

P.S. It could not have been the same meal, but they also turned out fabulous escargots, drowning in garlicky butter -- I still remember that the appetizer portion was 12 snails.

[marcus]

You can still find an appetizer of a dozen plump snails exactly as you describe at L'Ami Louis in Paris. If you follow that with their wonderful roast chicken, you will have one of the worlds great soul satisfying meals.

[Bux]

I have a disjointed memory of coq au vin and the Hotel de la Cote d'Or in Saulieu. It must be a memory that's close to thirty five years old and although Dumaine's name rings in my ears, because I had read the name so often in conjunction with the restaurant, I am sure Minot was the chef of what was probably a two star restaurant at the time. My love of French food was just gowing at the time and Minot's cuisine was probably above my full appreciation, but what I read about Dumaine and what Minot served both fueled my interest and education in the appreciation of fine food/haute cuisine. It's funny, I also remember heart shaped fried croutons, but maybe not from la Cote O'Or. I think there were puff pastry garnishes with the coq au vin when I was there.

As much as the food, I remember the service. A team of what seemed like six or seven males arrived with the trolley bearing the coppoer pot. They were all dressed in black and white--either black suits or dinner jackets, white shirt and black tie, black pants, white shirt and black apron, or just black pants and white shirt for the youngest and smallest. In my mind they were all in line in size places, although I suspect that is not accurate. Likely they were arranged by age. They ranged from the server and plate holder, through the one who took the cover off the pot, down the line to the youngster whose sole job seemed to be to pick up anything that fell to the floor and finally to the very young lad whose lot in life seemed to be to watch and learn until the day he would move up the line. The restaurant was a remarkable blend of country and formal. I'm not sure if I've ever again felt so privileged to be in a dining room. Perhaps it was such a new experience for me, or perhaps it's just that it was a service that was soon to find itself dying.

As young as we were at the time, we were not in a hurry to leave that special dining room and retire to our own room, and so we ordered digestifs. We were watching our budget and the evening was a splurge for us. Having done my homework, I new that the local after dinner hootch was marc and so I ordered one. Mrs. B just asked for a cognac. A bottle was brought and presented and a very healthy shot was poured into a snifter. I managed only a quick glance at the hand lettered label which bore a year that indicated it was older than my father. To cut to the chase, she said it was very good and upon checking out the next morning, I was relieved to learn it was not all that prohibitively expensive--at least not in comparison to my marc which came from the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, if memory serves.

As for nostalgia, France is not what it was and I am not what I was. I am happy to reminisce and even happier to find reminders of the old food and style, but there are great meals to be had and exciting discoveries still to be found in contemporary France. Things change and it would be boring if they didn't.

[cabrales]

Well, as with certain other of my gastronomic pursuits, the Greuze coq au vin episode does not have a happy ending. Having requested my coq au vin a la facon Alexandre Dumaine very specifically on initially reserving at the restaurant, I had awaited the taking in of this dish with some anticipation. However, imagine my dismay when, upon calling to confirm the night before I was sampled to take in the dish for lunch, I was told my request had not been noted. (I usually confirm restaurant reservations earlier than the evening before, but there were various reasons for my delay.) The person on the phone, who was likely one of the maitre d's, furnished various excuses to divert my attention from the coa au vin:

-- It required many people to sample, towhich I responded I had described paying for the whole bird.

-- He could arrange to have prepared a poulet Bressewith a red wine sauce, pearl onions, bacon bits and mushrooms, which I noted would not, depending on the cooking in particular, approximate a real coq au vin (incl. due to type of chicken used, absence of blood and pureed liver a la Dumaine, unduly short cooking times -- all points I made, of course)

Well, the maitre d' assured me that the restaurant would indeed have a real coq au vin for me the next day during lunch. I strongly doubted that, but was temporarily appeased after assurances that Chef Ducloux had been consulted and had concurred in the conclusion of the maitre d'. Well, of course, when I arrived, the dish presented was the red wine-based dish the maitre d' had described and not the coq au vin. The restaurant had the gall to present it as a coq au vin. I later discussed this with Ducloux, and he agreed that what I received was not a traditional coq au vin. The chicken was average-plus (French standards).

[Louisa Chu]

I later discussed this with Ducloux, and he agreed that what I received was not a traditional coq au vin. The chicken was average-plus (French standards).

cabrales, I'm so sorry.

Did the chef offer any explanation or excuse? I just don't understand why they just didn't make it for you when you reminded them an entire night before. Were they very busy?

Does anyone have the recipe by the way?

And are those heart-shaped toasts not familiar to many people? They're a very traditional presentation with slow cooked in sauce foods - pain de mie slices, crusts removed, heart shaped, toasted golden in the oven and then sometimes rubbed with garlic. I'm told they signify soulful regional foods in the grande maisons.