A word from ... Richard Olney

"Simplicity - no doubt - is a complex thing." Richard Olney

Today is David's special meal day and he told me Provence - specifically the part of Provence in which we stayed back in 2016 - just outside the village of Bormes les Mimosas above the coast below the Massif des Maures - which has St. Tropez at one end and Toulon at the other.

So I went to my four or five books on the cooking of Provence and finally chose a dish (tomorrow's post) from my Provence the Beautiful cookbook, which is written by Richard Olney. I have one of his other books - the classic, Simple French Food. I love my Provence the Beautiful Cookbook and use it a lot, and I did ask for Simple French Food as a present one Christmas, but I confess I have not used it much. I thought I might just mention him in passing as I wrote a post on tonight's proposed meal. So I googled and dug out Simple French Food to read his preface and found that really the man deserved a post to himself. So here it is.

He was born in 1927 in Iowa to professional parents. But he had a more artistic nature and escaped to Paris when young where he mixed with a group of bohemian Americans, including James Baldwin who was his lover for a time. For he was gay, and France was so much easier for a young gay man at the time. He fell in love with France and bought a house in a small village near where we stayed in Bormes les Mimosas.

How could you not fall in love? I imagine his house to have been something like the one we rented and shown at right, although possibly rather more humble and rustic. He lived there all of his life and died there in 1999. The house is still a pilgrimage destination for his admirers, of whom Alice Waters of Chez Panisse is the most famous. He knew and admired Elizabeth David, knew Julia Child and James Beard and Simone Beck was a neighbour.

He loved Provence, its wine, its food and its people and strived to make sure that the traditional food of the countryside did not disappear, although he actually seems to think that it's the men that are keeping it alive not the women:

"It has seemed to me, at least, among the working-class men ... with whom I have been in contact over the years ... that they are much more attached to the time-honoured eating habits of the region than the women. ...

they always ask for a traditional regional dish, something remembered sentimentally and mouth-wateringly from childhood that mothers and grandmothers prepared to perfection - dishes that belonged to every Provençal housewife's repertoire until World War II threw everything out of joint."

And he definitely did not think that the traditions were safe in the hands of the professionals - which I think may be a little unkind.

"Regional cooking is slowly being transplanted from the home to the restaurant with, except in the hands of a few cooks of unusual talent, and accompanying loss of personality."

If you go to France now you will always find local dishes in the restaurants. And whilst some may be disappointing and fancied up, the majority are just delicious and pretty plain. Witness these two dishes which we ate in the small village of Biot near Antibes - a little further back along the coast towards Nice. It looks rustic - not fancy, but I remember it as being one of the best meals we had on that particular holiday.

"to be appetising as well as attractive, food should always look like food."

restaurant dish 2

restaurant dish

"The flavours of Provençal food tend to be direct and uncomplicated, reflecting the sharp clarity of the light and the landscape."

He wrote in a slightly pompous way, but occasionally poetically, as in his description of the more normal 'pinch of nutmeg' as "a memory of nutmeg." As with virtually all writers about Provence and its food, he rhapsodised about the quality of the produce and the markets where it was sold.

"There are the odours of basil and pissaladière; the mongers' cants, melodic and raucous; and the Renoiresque play of light through the plane trees' foliage, an all over sense of gaiety and well-being."

If you haven't actually been to France you might be forgiven for thinking it's all a tourist trap it sort of is, but the locals shop in these markets too, and there is no denying the quality of the produce on sale - well the food anyway. The one above is not in Provence, but it could well be.

The title of Simple French Food is actually a little ironic. Not many of the recipes are that simple. Indeed some of them are extremely daunting. But when you look closer you see that it's just that he is trying to explain every step in the recipe. Simple does not equate in his mind with easy, or fast - I think his definition is nearer to 'pure'.

"His books are full of the most extraordinarily professional instructions. He was pernickety, meticulous. It wouldn’t occur to him to think that cooking a dish in 10 minutes was a good idea." Simon Hopkinson

His aim is to teach and you learn surprising little things, like this, that Simon Hopkinson relates:

"He explains that the most flavoursome part of the clove is the tiny ball on top, clutched between what looks like a tiny clamp. He says to prise it out and crush it between your fingers. And he’s right – no one wants a whole, hard clove floating around in a dish, and that ball, when removed in that way, crumbles into a soft powder. It’s the kind of instruction that takes you by surprise – “I never knew that”, you think – and after that you never forget." Simon Hopkinson

So here are a few more of his 'words' in no particular order. They make you think a little. Some are reassuring, some are pompous and exacting, some are thought provoking. And some even extract a smile or a feeling of 'yes I know'.

"Essentially, the only thing to remember is that the palate should be kept fresh, teased, surprised, excited throughout the meal. The moment there is danger of fatigue, it must be astonished or soothed into greater anticipation until the moment of release and postprandial pleasures."

"For a menu to emerge as a single statement, a coherent entity, it must be made up of single statements, each of which relates to the others creating larger single (or simple - or harmonious) effects within the whole."

"Rules in cooking are not as iron-cast (and, as in any medium of expression, they are often bent or broken by practitioners of talent - but to break rules, one must have rules."

"such is creativity, be it in the kitchen or in the studio; the application of personal expression to an intimate understanding of the rules."

"You must bring freedom, relaxation, knowledge and imagination to the thing and, above all, do not be afraid; a failure is no disgrace and may very often be more instructive than a success ... (The sense of failure is, in any case, always sharper in the mind of the practitioner than in those of the guests)."

"The approach to improvisation must vary with the individual. I have to see everything before me: The refrigerator is emptied out, down to the last drop of jellied roasting juice or dribble of rice and the cupboards and vegetable bins are examined; all possible ingredients are lined up on a table. From a given line-up a number of possibilities will always present themselves, and when one's path has been chosen, the rejects may of course be removed and examined anew for some other course for the meal."

"I would like my readers to share with me the belief that food and wine ... must be an essential aspect of the whole life, in which the sensuous sensual spiritual elements are so intimately interwoven that the incomplete exploitation of any one can only result in the imperfect opening of the great flower, symbol of the ultimate perfection which is understanding, when all things fall into play."

Olney with Alice Waters on the left and Elizabeth David on the right.

And I forgot to mention that he was an artist too and actually had hoped to earn enough money from his cookbooks to be able to dedicate his time to painting. Here is his portrait of James Baldwin. Impressive. Another person who is multi-talented.