Simone Beck and pork braised in whiskey
"The spirit is the alcoholic equivalent of salt – it brings out the flavor of the sea in seafood, the smokiness of smoked food, and the sweetness in a dessert." Lizzie Enfield - The Guardian
I don't like whiskey. "There I've said it" as my son would say. Actually to be honest, I have never actually tasted it. I can't get past the smell which I find repugnant. We have quite a lot of whiskey in our cupboard and it's mostly quite old - leftovers, some of it, from the times when my father visited - and he is long dead. For he was a whiskey drinker. Sailors tend to drink spirits rather than wine or beer I find. Well back then anyway.
But I digress. This is a first recipe post - the book being Simca's Cuisine by Simone Beck, co-author with Julia Child of the Mastering the Art of French Cooking books. It's one of those books arranged by menus and since it's old (1976) it has no illustrations of the dishes just rather charming drawings like the one above at the beginning of each menu.
It's a book I have used a fair amount especially when I first got it. I suppose like Robert Carrier it's slightly old-fashioned these days, but I still go to it when I want to make mayonnaise, as I have never had a failure with her recipe, which has a small trick of heating some lemon juice to add to it halfway through adding the oil. I have also made the odd recipe here and there - an apple tart with almonds I seem to remember is one. But of course, as I don't like whiskey I have not made this particular recipe - Porc braisé au whiskey (chaud et froid) which you can find online. Indeed you can find the whole book because Google Books has scanned it all. Considering how much whiskey I have in the cupboard, I probably should give it a go as it's otherwise quite tempting - braised pork with prunes which is always a good mix.
I couldn't find a picture of the dish either so you, like I shall just have to imagine. There are not vast numbers of recipes out there that use whiskey and perhaps there are more for desserts than main dishes. I did learn however, that whiskey has many different taste profiles and so you need to be a bit careful about which kind of whiskey you use. Or maybe that's just the food and whiskey snobs talking. I did see two rather tempting sweet things from Delia though: Irish whiskey truffles (with Christmas coming up these might be worth trying - there's an intriguing mix of ingredients that includes yoghurt) and Irish coffee pudding (which she describes as "an old-fashioned honeycomb mould which separates into layers as it sets."). I could go for that.
On the savoury side there were not a lot that tempted other than two, which, intriguingly, had an Asian twist. From Yotam Ottolenghi there was Thai marinated pork neck with nam jim sauce and from the BBC, Bourbon glazed pork belly chunks. And speaking of glaze there did seem to be quite a few recipes that used whiskey in glazes for roasts, and for ham. Below are the two Asian dishes - both pork.
I did look up Simone Beck herself and found an interesting excerpt or two by one Luke Barr who wrote a book about Julia Child, MK Fisher, Simone Beck, James Beard and a few others. He writes about the long friendship between Julia Child and Simone Beck - a relationship that became a bit strained towards the end of the preparation of volume two of their magnus opus, because of their basically very different personalities and approaches to the work in hand.
"It was Child who made sure that, in the end, the recipes were replicable in America, that they made sense, and that they worked. Beck, on the other hand, felt it was her responsibility to ensure that the recipes were suitably French, and therefore authentic. She was a marvellous and intuitive cook. Indeed, many of the recipes originated with her. But Child knew that measurements, precise lists of ingredients, and clear explanations of timing were not Beck's forte. She didn't seem to understand just how time-consuming every revision turned out to be.
So, there were inevitable conflicts."
"Given the chance, Beck would be adding and refining and arguing about recipes forever. She was the keeper and protector of French food. She would never be satisfied."
"Beck had been sidelined a bit by Child's success as a TV star; she was the co-author of a book everyone though of as Child's and that had to be hard to take. So it was no wonder she kept poking at and perfecting the recipes - she was holding on to what remained of her authority." Luke Barr
They agreed never to collaborate again, but remained 'dear friends'. And it was whilst on a trip to America that she was encouraged to write this book. I think she may have written a follow-up 'More of' kind of book and also some memoirs but she was well into her 60s when she wrote 'my' one. Her stated aim was to:
"collect some menus of the kind that I serve to my family and friends in France, chosen especially as being suitable for Americans. Through these menus I hope to convey - although so much has changed and is changing every day - how many of us still live and dine in France in a style that still differs in many respects from that of any other country in the world."
France has continued to change and yet you can still find food such as is described in this book. Some of it is somewhat old-fashioned and elaborate - Un couronne rose de l'océan (A rose-coloured ring of fish mousse) for example - just picked at random, but there are lots of more approachable things too - like that apple tart which is called Une Tarte pour Jim (a tart for Jim) or an asparagus soup with tarragon. It's one of those quiet achiever kind of books. No fanfare, no flashy presentation, just good food clearly explained and described.
