Read Online The Book of Salt by Monique Truong - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Monique Truong
Ads: Link
France!" was Madame's unflinching rallying cry, one that had never failed to set old Chaboux's Gallic heart pounding. "The Governor-General's household has the duty to maintain itself with dignity and distinction. Everything here should be
as if in France!
" Madame commanded, failing to note that in France she would have only three instead of fifteen to serve her household needs. "As if in France!" ended each sharp command, a punctuation that Madame inserted for our benefit. Even the oldest member of the household staff, the gardener's helper with his stooped back and his moss-grown tongue, could mimic it. Every afternoon when Madame donned her tennis whites and departed for the club, we would let it slip from our lips, an all-purpose complaint, a well-aimed insult, a bitter-filled expletive. Madame's phrase had so many meanings, and we amused ourselves by using them all. Accompanied by our laughter, "As if in France!" barreled through the house, hid itself inside closets, slept behind curtains, until Madame returned, her face flushed from lobbing a little ball to and fro, to
reclaim the words as her own. "As if in France!" lost its power over Madame, though, when the topic at hand was her growing distrust of cows' milk. "In this tropical heat," Madame had been told, "it is not unheard of for the milk to spoil as it is leaving the beast's sweaty udder."
"Imagine living among a people who have tasted only mother's milk," the chauffeur overheard Madame exclaiming as she dictated a letter. "Before we arrived," Madame continued, "what the Indochinese called milk' was only water poured over crushed dried soybeans!" Madame knew that this would set her sister's head shaking, thinking of how fortunate she was to have married a man with no ambition. Madame ended her letter, which was to be typed by her secretary onto the Governor-General's official stationery, with a few parting lines about the managerial difficulties of overseeing a household staff of fifteen. This, explained the chauffeur, was just in case her sister lingered too long on such unenlightened thoughts.
Madame's orders to old Chaboux were clear. The
crème anglaise,
the surrogate snow, a concoction of egg yolks, sugar, and milk, had to be replaced. For her birthday dinner, Madame wanted her eggs in the snow, but she would not have any of Indochina's milk in the snow. "Simply too much of a risk," she said. "I've heard that the Nationalists have been feeding the cows here a weed so noxious that the milk, if consumed in sufficient amounts, would turn a perfectly healthy woman barren." The "woman" that Madame and old Chaboux had in their minds was, of course, French. Madame added this piece of unsolicited horror and bodily affront to Mother France just in case old Chaboux dared to balk at his task. It was all up to him. He was the intrepid explorer dispatched to honor and to preserve the sanctity of Madame and all Mesdames who would receive the embossed dinner invitations. In a country hovering at the edge of the equator, in a kitchen dried of the milk of his beloved bovine, this beleaguered chef had to do the impossible. Old Chaboux had to find new snow.
"
Sabayon
sauce instead of
crème anglaise!
" Anh Minh repeated
the now departed chef's dramatic solution. Every year Minh the Sous Chef's retelling of the ingredients, while guarding their exact proportions as his secret, signaled that the all-night preparation for Madame's dinner had begun. "Over the lowest possible flame, whisk egg yolks with sugar and dry white wine," my brother, standing in a makeshift kitchen lit by stars and a barely present moon, explained the recipe to me one more time, knowing all the while that this would be his final lesson, regretting that in the end it had so little meaning.
Misfortune and despair have always propped the Old Man up like walking sticks, like dutiful sons. Not his own but other people's. The Old Man built a business off of other people's last resorts and broken
as if in France!
" Madame commanded, failing to note that in France she would have only three instead of fifteen to serve her household needs. "As if in France!" ended each sharp command, a punctuation that Madame inserted for our benefit. Even the oldest member of the household staff, the gardener's helper with his stooped back and his moss-grown tongue, could mimic it. Every afternoon when Madame donned her tennis whites and departed for the club, we would let it slip from our lips, an all-purpose complaint, a well-aimed insult, a bitter-filled expletive. Madame's phrase had so many meanings, and we amused ourselves by using them all. Accompanied by our laughter, "As if in France!" barreled through the house, hid itself inside closets, slept behind curtains, until Madame returned, her face flushed from lobbing a little ball to and fro, to
reclaim the words as her own. "As if in France!" lost its power over Madame, though, when the topic at hand was her growing distrust of cows' milk. "In this tropical heat," Madame had been told, "it is not unheard of for the milk to spoil as it is leaving the beast's sweaty udder."
"Imagine living among a people who have tasted only mother's milk," the chauffeur overheard Madame exclaiming as she dictated a letter. "Before we arrived," Madame continued, "what the Indochinese called milk' was only water poured over crushed dried soybeans!" Madame knew that this would set her sister's head shaking, thinking of how fortunate she was to have married a man with no ambition. Madame ended her letter, which was to be typed by her secretary onto the Governor-General's official stationery, with a few parting lines about the managerial difficulties of overseeing a household staff of fifteen. This, explained the chauffeur, was just in case her sister lingered too long on such unenlightened thoughts.
Madame's orders to old Chaboux were clear. The
crème anglaise,
the surrogate snow, a concoction of egg yolks, sugar, and milk, had to be replaced. For her birthday dinner, Madame wanted her eggs in the snow, but she would not have any of Indochina's milk in the snow. "Simply too much of a risk," she said. "I've heard that the Nationalists have been feeding the cows here a weed so noxious that the milk, if consumed in sufficient amounts, would turn a perfectly healthy woman barren." The "woman" that Madame and old Chaboux had in their minds was, of course, French. Madame added this piece of unsolicited horror and bodily affront to Mother France just in case old Chaboux dared to balk at his task. It was all up to him. He was the intrepid explorer dispatched to honor and to preserve the sanctity of Madame and all Mesdames who would receive the embossed dinner invitations. In a country hovering at the edge of the equator, in a kitchen dried of the milk of his beloved bovine, this beleaguered chef had to do the impossible. Old Chaboux had to find new snow.
"
Sabayon
sauce instead of
crème anglaise!
" Anh Minh repeated
the now departed chef's dramatic solution. Every year Minh the Sous Chef's retelling of the ingredients, while guarding their exact proportions as his secret, signaled that the all-night preparation for Madame's dinner had begun. "Over the lowest possible flame, whisk egg yolks with sugar and dry white wine," my brother, standing in a makeshift kitchen lit by stars and a barely present moon, explained the recipe to me one more time, knowing all the while that this would be his final lesson, regretting that in the end it had so little meaning.
Misfortune and despair have always propped the Old Man up like walking sticks, like dutiful sons. Not his own but other people's. The Old Man built a business off of other people's last resorts and broken
Similar Books
