Brommard heaved a sigh.
“No, Monsieur Lavenne, I am not growing thinner, though if worry made a man thin, I would be a rake, what between tradesmen who do not send provisions in time and cooks who spoil them when they arrive. I have to supervise everything, and I have only two eyes instead of the two hundred that I require.”
“Well, Monsieur Brommard, we all have our worries, even his Majesty, who, I fear, is in trouble over the death of his favourite hound, Atalanta.”
Brommard made a motion with his hand.
“Oh, ma foi! don’t speak to me about that business. Why, Monsieur Lavenne, I was had up myself and questioned on the matter by Monsieur de Sartines. As though I had poisoned the brute! I said to him, ‘I know nothing of the matter, but since Atalanta was served every day at the King’s table when he was at Versailles, she may have died of Ribot’s cookery’; for Ribot, as you know, is now the chef at Versailles, a gentleman who stole the recipe of my Sauce Noailles and gave it forth under the name of Sauce à la Ribot. Put his name to my sauce! God’s death, Monsieur Lavenne, a man who will steal another man’s sauce is not above poisoning another man’s dog. Not that I accuse Ribot, poor fool; he has not the spirit to poison a louse, and they say his wife beats him with his own rolling-pin. I accuse him of nothing but theft and stupidity, certainly not of poisoning his Majesty’s dog wilfully. Besides, Monsieur Lavenne, the dog was not poisoned, in my opinion.”
“Give us your opinion, Monsieur Brommard.”
“Well, it is this way, Monsieur Lavenne—What does all cookery rest on?”
“I am sure I don’t know, unless it is the shoulders of the chef.”
“No, Monsieur Lavenne, all cookery rests on an egg. The egg is the atlas that supports the world of gastronomy, the chef is the slave of the egg. Think, Monsieur Lavenne, what is the masterpiece of French cookery, the dish that outlives all other dishes, the thing that is found on his Majesty’s table no less than upon the tables of the Bourgeoisie, the thing that is as French as a Frenchman, and which expresses the spirit of our people as no other article of food could express it—the Omelette. Could you make an Omelette without breaking eggs? Aha! tell me that. Then cast your mind’s eye over this extraordinary Monsieur Egg and all his antics and evolutions. Now he permits himself to be boiled plain, and even like that, without frills, naked and in a state of nature, he is excellent, for you will remember that the Marquis de Noailles, when he was dying and almost past food, called for what?—an egg, plainly boiled.
“Now he consents to appear in all ways from poached to perdu—an excellent recipe for which is to be found in my early edition of the works of Taillevent, who, as you know, was master-cook to his Majesty King Charles V.