Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Okamoto Kanoko

Larue

At the corner of the intersection on the grand tree-lined avenue Madeleine, where Paris's bustle was said to begin, stood the renowned restaurant Larue.

They neither adorned the shop with illuminations nor placed advertisements in the continental editions of English newspapers; the exterior facade was simply enclosed with painted wood-grain panels, while only the interior was comfortably arranged to await customers with quiet dignity.
If the aroma of quail stew had not wafted from the kitchen through the spring twilight, passersby would likely have mistaken this place for one of those residential offices commonly found in the area and passed it by.

However, as soon as a guest turned the entrance door handle, Larue's decorum indeed awaited them there.
The elderly head waiter flanked by subordinates courteously ushered them inside.
In that moment he assessed whether they were gourmets.
Those deemed 'tongueless' found themselves guided to the left chamber—the colloquial 'bad side'.
There diners might arrange their plates haphazardly without censure, surrounded by others doing likewise.
Should one be recognized as possessing discernment, he would gain entry to the right chamber.
Here vigilance was required—this was appetite's dojo.
No disturbance of meditative focus could be countenanced.
Patrons communed devoutly with primal instincts.
Their very bearing declared:

“A meal is a sacred ritual.”

Even though the quality of customers differed, the construction of the right and left rooms remained identical.
White and gold wainscoting; four mirrored walls that brightened and expanded the room; chairs facing the window-side bench were deeply cushioned in rose-colored velvet.
Quiet yet gauzy electric light.
That was a worldly-wise madame.
However, she was young in years.
She wore a long-hemmed kimono.
She wore a hat as if from a painting.
And she avoided lipstick altogether, keeping her face natural and neat.
The room had roughly this sort of atmosphere.

Generally, in Paris, restaurants specializing in cuisine often had this type of layout. The space wasn’t particularly large either. They carefully tended to only a fixed number of customers as if placing them in a jewel box, striving in all matters not to disturb their dedication to dining. The waiters possessed the composure of orderlies handling obsessive patients. From this perspective, hotel dining rooms were nothing but outdoor banquets. The taste of food ended up scattered by the winds of vanity.

Truly devoted gourmets mostly came alone. He always chose a seat in the corner of the window-side bench. He had had a regular seat reserved for years. If his seat were occupied by other customers, he would glare. For a while, they stood in a row and glared with eyes full of curses. Then they reluctantly took temporary seats. In reality, there were many Parisian gourmets who, without wives or children, dedicated their lifelong love to their tongues. They were fat yet wearied by gourmet food, their skin slackened into unnatural hoops. Even when seeing a beautiful woman, they would direct their instinct toward appetite and think she looked delicious. Due to frequently consuming liver and organ meats, they were prone to developing gallstones. They developed esophageal stricture and could no longer eat. At last, the end had come. At that moment, he would have his favorite white wine poured over his body, order Joseph Restaurant's oyster dish, watch a friend eat it before his eyes, and die satisfied. His ultimate acceptance took this form.

"I ate quite well in my lifetime—"

As the spring sunset that had tinted one cheek of the Madeleine Church completely faded, and roads became speckled with lights alongside groups of men and women emerging in splendor after dining and drinking, a few early gourmet customers had already taken seats in Larue’s right-side room.

They had successfully secured their regular seats and looked satisfied.
They adjusted how deeply their hips sank into the velvet bench and how spaciously their legs sprawled to their liking.
The dining tables were drawn slightly closer.
There, with fingers interlaced, they assumed postures ready to extract every detail of that day's kitchen affairs from their familiar waiters.
But if the detested manager Dupra was present in the restaurant, they couldn't inquire too deeply into particulars.
Waiters familiar to gourmet customers were no longer mere servants of the establishment.
They had practically become spies infiltrating the restaurant on behalf of patrons.
They ended up leaking kitchen secrets - whether today's flounder lacked freshness or cooks had quarreled and overcooked peas - stories ultimately detrimental to the house.
Therefore Manager Dupra monitored how familiar waiters became with gourmet patrons.
The waiters naturally grew sullen.
The intelligence they gleaned that night amounted only to reports of exceptional success with goose preparations.
This information could safely reach managerial ears.
It could be announced openly.
Most customers had ordered it anyway.
In what form would it arrive? With what aroma? What flavor? Patrons first heightened their senses with red wine's astringent bite before waiting in wordless anticipation.
Some diners recognized each other.
They exchanged silent nods without disturbing expectant tranquility through speech.
They merely thought of one another in their hearts.

"Those culinary die-hards!"
The quartet began whispering the melody of "Secretly Enjoy Life".
This tune wouldn't disturb their stomachs' composure.

The goose dish known as Roast à la Marron was a laborious creation.

First came removing the internal organs through the goose’s neck cavity. They boiled eighteen finger-sized sausages in white wine, cooled them, then crumbled them with a spoon. They kneaded together an equal amount of liver fat boiled in Madeira wine with the previously crumbled sausages. To this mixture, they added chestnuts simmered in ample poultry or beef broth. The stuffing prepared in this manner was then packed into the cavity of the goose—emptied of its viscera—its opening tied with thread, skewered with a metal rod, and roasted while being moistened with broth.

When Roast à la Marron appeared, the customers' joy was extraordinary. Suppressing the urge to grab, they made their hands supple by stroking and bending each knuckle of their fingers. Some showed a faint, convulsive-like excitement in parts of their faces.
“Oh, Monsieur!”
Some customers let out involuntary shouts, their eyes widening in surprise at Manager Dupra.
Dupra tilted his head slightly like a celebrated actor responding to an encore, casting upward glances while rubbing his hands together as he returned an affected bow.
The harmony between a slice of goose and the stuffing spilling from it maintained the majestic dignity of Parisian haute cuisine while courting the customers' favor through rich dark brown hues upon the dining table.

There were also young male and female customers.
However, no trace of viscosity could be seen about them.
They seemed sated in love and life, having settled into a state requiring no further motion.
If they were water that had flowed into a deep pool—content to quietly pass a spring evening eating something delicious—such was the nature of their bond.
They appeared as lovers who had entered a fine old age while remaining youthful.

Perhaps because the woman had wanted it, or maybe they had ordered it themselves—at their table, the head waiter deftly prepared the restaurant’s signature dish, Les Crêpes Suzette.

For this confectionery, one first mixed ten eggs and four deciliters of fleurette cream into four deciliters of milk infused with orange zest.
They added 500 grams of wheat flour, 150 grams of powdered sugar, and a pinch of salt into this mixture and stirred thoroughly.
Finally they added half a deciliter of champagne and strained it through muslin cloth.
To this, they added three deciliters of thoroughly stirred cream.
They grilled this to a flat golden brown and prepared it in advance in the kitchen.
When they presented this soft, slightly undercooked crepe-like item before postprandial customers and the alcohol lamp's pan heated it adequately, the chef fried it in orange-infused butter containing champagne and liqueurs—Curaçao, Grand Marnier, Cordon Rouge—poured within.
Sweet as a dream, the fragrance of Southern European spring oranges wafted through the air.
The customers found it exquisitely satisfying to eat the crepes straight from the pan while admiring the chef’s deft movements.

An hour had now passed since the start of the play, and both the right and left rooms had become quite crowded with guests.
The music gradually transitioned into livelier tunes.
The kitchen became a scene of trenches - mouths tied shut as they rapidly reloaded bullets.

Unperturbed by the surrounding frenzy, an old man nearing seventy kept station at a stove and cooking table in the kitchen corner; his meticulous culinary movements flowed with nature’s own indifference to haste. He would occasionally close his eyes to test the flavor. The busy people around paid no heed to the old man’s presence. But should anyone come close to disturbing the old man’s work, they would all hastily step back. The old man was now preparing a type of appetizer.

On the cooking table lay anchovies (salted anchovies) that had been filleted into three pieces and left soaking in olive oil since yesterday.
He half-buried them in a mixture of Dutch potatoes grated as fine as snow, seasoned with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.
He dotted the surrounding area with the red thin flesh of boiled shrimp.
He poured tomato ketchup over it.

This was the appetizer known among culinary experts as Anchois à la Bretonne.
The old man first prepared this, then proceeded with his method to refine it into something better suited to Parisian tastes.
One or two glossy peeled eggs and the flaked meat of eel boiled in white wine were taken up between the old man’s stubby, thick fingers.
And again the old man reconsidered.
Extracting his flavor from the base taste and adding this flavor—within the old man’s mind, flavors were being handled like mathematics.

The old man let out a deep sigh in that interval.
This was not from culinary strain.
He simply couldn't relinquish thoughts of his dead son.
The old man was Edouard Ninyon, former proprietor of Larue.
His only son had perished at the Somme during the Great War's initial campaign.
The old man approached seventy.
He had relinquished the restaurant to his disciple and nephew—the current manager Dupra—retiring to Rennes in Brittany, his ancestral home.

As years accumulated, his yearning to commemorate his son intensified.
Brittany's landscapes offered the old man no solace.
He had resolved that cooking remained preferable.
He had determined it best to devise dishes as if serving them to that son Marcel.
Marcel had never been a gourmet.
While living, he'd devoured both his father's premier creations and common restaurant fare indiscriminately.
The father had grimaced at his son's palate.

But what did that matter?
I still want to make my son taste the first-class dishes crafted through these hands of mine.
Even if he's dead, my deepest wish remains to let him truly know the flavor of my cooking just once.
I'll cook—through cuisine's power, I'll summon my son back before these very eyes.

He harbored anger toward the cosmic laws dividing life and death as his aged hands took up the chef's knife once more.
In Rennes' rural streets emerged a new modest kitchen.

In youth Ninyon had served as head chef to Russian nobility.
The essence of European court cuisine perished there with that era's end.
From that collapse he extracted two dishes now famed at the establishment: a soup called dortsch and "Suvorov's Quail."
Thereafter he headed kitchens at every celebrated restaurant.
He channeled decades of amassed wisdom into drafting French cuisine's constitution.
While retesting each principle he methodically transcribed findings with elderly hands.
Parsley leaves and snipe feet lay pressed between manuscript pages to demarcate sections.

At last, a heap of papers was piled up.
He divided it into two volumes and had it printed.
"The Seven-Day Gastronomic Tales" was his record of every celebrated European dish he had encountered.
"The Joy of the Table" was a compendium describing over a thousand culinary methods he had devised.
At the beginning of each volume, he inserted a photograph of his son and dedicated it.
"To my beloved Marcel"
When he wrote those words, he made certain that the son lying in the grave became undeniably his own.
Both books were limited editions, with *The Seven-Day Gastronomic Tales* in particular being a deluxe version featuring colored woodblock prints that cost around 150 yen.
Ninyon presented these to various European courts.

What the old man had been fine-tuning in a corner of Larue’s bustling kitchen was an appetizer destined for inclusion in his book *The Joy of the Table*.
The mathematical balance of flavors he’d applied to the base Anchois à la Bretonne had finally crystallized.
Boiled eggs were blended with tomato ketchup and thinly layered across the plate’s foundation.
Upon this base he arranged olive oil-marinated anchovies, garnishing them with shrimp meat.

The outcome resembled Parisian couture in its deceptive simplicity—
yet what countless flavor equations had been solved within the old man’s mind to distill it to this essence?
Eel rejected, udo abandoned—thus under the title “Parisian Anchovies” was born a new hors d’oeuvre.

Claiming that Parisian preferences couldn’t be distinctly perceived amidst the rural scenery, the old man temporarily came from his hometown culinary research institute to Larue’s kitchen.

The first plate of "Parisian Anchovies" was tasted by the old man only at its edge; the rest was thrown into the garbage bin.
The old man promptly returned to his hometown countryside on the last train that evening.

“Paris is too overpowering for an old man’s tongue.”

The old chef Ninyon spoke in this manner.

Foyot

On the Seine’s left bank—the so-called riverside—there were few renowned restaurants.
Foyot was merely one of those few that existed there.
This establishment stood in opposition to Larue on the right bank, so contentious among gourmets that it perpetually sparked debate.
If the former could be considered Lower House-preferred cuisine, this had the established reputation of being Upper House-preferred fare.

In fact, this restaurant stood across the road from the main gate of France’s Senate—the Luxembourg Palace.
33 Rue de Soulon.
And it was the restaurant most cherished by Senators.
Among French politicians, beginning with Briand, there were many gourmets.
They said, “Those who possess a palate for cuisine possess a palate for politics.”

Ambience, service, and wine cellars.
By these three criteria—ambience, service, and wine cellars—Parisians judged the quality of restaurants alongside their culinary skill.
Parisian restaurants curated their own unique wines in cellars with minimal temperature fluctuations and used them alongside their cuisine to distinguish their establishments.
Senators generally preferred aged wine.
Naturally, Foyot’s wine cellars reflected this distinctive characteristic.

Luxembourg Park set past and future at play.
An elderly person read a newspaper on a bench.
Children played in the sand around the fountain.
Tree buds and the sun scattered early spring's chromatic radiance without reservation, and time passed in the blink of an eye.
The guard tasked with clearing the area walked while clanging something.
The children, fascinated by the guard's gaudy old-fashioned uniform, followed along after him.

A faintly chilly wind ushers people out to bustling Saint-Michel Street in droves.
This thoroughfare brims with modernity.
Students from nations across the globe cluster around newsstands to purchase and peruse university papers.
A blonde young woman sporting a student cap guides her provincial mother.
Male students awaiting their associate professor's emergence engage in fervent discussion.
The pedestrian tide filling these spaces flows with vigorous strides—swelling and spreading—its international atmosphere undulating against the Sorbonne's refined academic backdrop.
Café terraces lining the street twist their switches, transmuting daytime patrons into nighttime guests under fresh illumination—spring twilight's ennui guides feet naturally into tranquil Rue Racine.
The Odéon's roof ridge looms black against dewy stars.
The road pierces an alley of small shops to emerge onto Tournon Boulevard.
This lies along the descent from the Senate's main gate toward the Seine.
Under the bored Senate gatekeeper's gaze, renowned restaurant Foyot claims its corner on a gentle slope.
To night eyes, the four-story building manifests as yellow-and-black stripes—its small entrance like a bare hand retaining but one ring—bearing Foyot's signboard above with two or three slender illuminations etched effortlessly.

What a texturally delicate quiet permeated this interior—it dampened like unbleached silk and thinly enveloped, melting like powdery snow upon touching skin.

Wall coverings existed; chairs and dining tables naturally stood present. But these things here transcended mere objects. Everything transmuted into intangible harmonies as an invisible aroma ascended. The electric lighting remained a Renaissance-period dream. Did the waiters lack feet? Their movements floated as if treading on air. The silverware discreetly hid its weight.

The room banished all sensory burdens into nothingness's realm, luring concentration solely toward taste—the ascension of holy gastromancers. When these ravenous guests glimpsed their shame-faced reflections in mirror-like soup plates, a waiter brought ox bones sectioned to pomegranate proportions. His demeanor suggested he delivered some arcane flavor essence.

Bone marrow.

With a spoon's precision, he scooped and deposited it onto the plate. Moonstone radiance glistened faintly within the soup's depths.

The side dish—a seasonal offering—was La Bécasse Civile.
The woodcock was simmered for fifteen minutes while still dripping blood.
Twelve fine-colored champignons were thinly sliced and half-sautéed in butter.
After washing, twenty-four small pieces of lightly roasted suet were added to the same pot and stirred again.
A full glass of liqueur was reduced by half; double that amount of cream and two tablespoons of broth were added to the previous pot, stirred until thickened before simmering.
This was the accompaniment.
The woodcock was properly cut and sandwiched between bread; on the bread's surface, thigh meat and wing meat were placed as decoration, then arranged on the plate alongside the accompaniment.

This was the essence of every flavor harbored within the mountain bird. A delicate yet tenacious savor seeped into every crevice of the diner's cells. The accompaniment's mild mushroom flavor rendered it with ethereal grace—a marriage of wilderness austerity and French artifice's calculated opulence.

The stomach now sought to taste even this establishment's classical notes. Its pedigree compelled patrons to trace memories back to the sixteenth century's latter half. Within Luxembourg Palace had resided young Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. These two had been wed while still children themselves. Whispers spread of foolish behaviors having occurred. Maria Theresa, Austria's famed empress and Marie's mother, grew troubled. She dispatched her son Prince Joseph to France as his sister's attendant. The current Foyot building's predecessor became Prince Joseph's surveillance headquarters where his subordinates lodged. Joseph soon returned to Austria, assumed the imperial throne, and took the name Joseph II. Thus did Foyot's forebear come to be called the Hôtel Joseph II. The present designation "Foyot" originates from 1884 when Foyot—head chef to Louis-Philippe—first assumed management of this establishment.

Paris’s renowned restaurants were replete with this sort of historical association.
Owners changed from generation to generation.
They were generally head chefs who had acquired capital.
When these new owners had earned and saved enough money at their establishments to live comfortably in old age, they would promptly transfer them to the next proprietors and retire without regret to their rural hometowns.
Exactly like Larue’s owner Ninyon.
They were saying:
“Life must be enjoyed, or it’s a waste.”

Work when young, enjoy in old age.
Modest savings, modest country estates, modest chateaus, modest happiness—this ideal did not belong solely to restaurant owners.
It was the ideal of ordinary Parisians.
It was also put into practice.
That was why few shops in Paris continued to the second generation.
When asked why they did not earn more before retiring to the countryside—seeing as they could still profit endlessly—they answered thus—
“Isn’t that sufficient—money enough to enjoy life?”
“Any more than that would only hinder enjoyment by making one consider how to manage it.”

Another incident that prompts Foyot's regular patrons to reminisce about this establishment was a thirty-year-old event.
Anarchists once threw a bomb into Hotel Terminus' dining hall.
The Parisians exchanged all sorts of critiques about this affair.
In response, Roland Tailhard—editor-in-chief of a radical newspaper—challenged the Parisians with scathingly sarcastic rhetoric.
The Parisians had long viewed Roland unfavorably.
Soon after, when this same Roland was dining at Foyot, anarchists happened to hurl a bomb there.
Roland found himself unexpectedly wounded by his supposed allies.
Immediately, a Parisian newspaper retaliated by wielding Roland's own phrases against him verbatim.
From the dual fascinations of how precisely this riposte struck home and the revelation that even radicals were gourmets, Foyot's name became renowned throughout Paris.

The spring night grew late.
No matter how many customers came and went, Foyot’s dining room air retained its gossamer texture.
A single group of Americans commandeered the central table, shattering the harmony.
Their nasal cries of “Quick! Quick!” to hurry the waiters already vexed fellow diners.
To accompany the house’s famed duck à l’orange, these patrons ordered chocolate.
By any measure, only Burgundy or plain water could harmonize with such a dish.
Across from the Americans’ table sat an elderly Frenchman.
He had endured thus far, but at the mention of chocolate could stomach no more.
Summoning a waiter with haste, he retreated to a distant table.

Escargot Dishes

Snails were sold even in the city proper.
Their shell apertures had been stuffed with pâté tinged bluish-green and arrayed alongside raw sea urchins and shrimp.
This made Paris appear both exquisitely refined and faintly barbaric.

Under the eaves of Escargot, one of Paris’s renowned restaurants, two large artificial snails—covered in dust—splayed their horns to left and right.
The floor one entered upon was spread with moderately moist sawdust, softly creaking under shoe soles.
Crimson-rose banquettes along the walls, mirrors on all four sides, a spiral staircase—if Escargot had a dancing girl who cast off her gaudy, antiquated shell like a mantle, it would be this small establishment.

A working-class dandy accompanied by two women of pleasure occupied the corner banquette—typically called "Poets' Corner"—drinking white wine while awaiting their dishes.
Their conversation pulsed lightly.

“Tomorrow, I’ll finally get the money and go pick up…”

“Oh? Are you going somewhere?”

“She’s been selling kimonos at Swiss hotels and living off men.”

“Don’t be angry now.”

The previous owner of this establishment, Madame Lecomte, was a woman of peculiar character.
She prided herself on not altering her dishes' prices according to market fluctuations.
But when her horse racing losses piled up, she steadily raised her dishes' prices.
It was precisely out of love for such purely working-class old establishment character that Sarah Bernhardt favored this restaurant.
During Poincaré’s presidency, it was customary for the entire cabinet to take lunch at this restaurant every Tuesday.

The current owner Monsieur Rusbinasse was silently stirring a saucepan by the window near the entrance.
He was there reheating dishes from the kitchen and serving them warm to customers.

Snails are stubborn creatures that won't soften unless thoroughly boiled.
They extracted the flesh from those finally boiled through.
They prepared a pâté by kneading together herbs, garlic, and butter; coated the extracted flesh with it, stuffed it back into the shells, and placed them in a stewpot.
The blending of herbs held its secrets.
It was certain that mint was added to it.

Both the dishes and cups at Escargot were covered in snail patterns. Special plates with compartments to hold the snail shells had also been prepared. Holding the shell, they would extract the flesh with a small fork, but to grip it properly, they also brought out something resembling an ostentatious nail puller.

And what of their flavor? It required some consideration—until at last surfaced an endearing metaphor that spared these small creatures any disdain: Escargot are but wild turban shells from field and fen.

Tour d’Argent Duck Dishes

Duck Number 20,008.
The restaurant's defining practice lay in issuing cards identically numbered to both patrons served since its founding and ducks prepared for them.
Along the elongated dining table's center stood a row of silver-glinting devices resembling printing presses.
At each device stood a chef rigid in starched white attire, stationed at their post.
Both young and old were among them.
Their eyes had uniformly withered to the selfless hue of professionals who make others taste.
They labored for others' senses.
When devoid of customers, behind vacant pupils they likely contemplated things like a playing card queen missing her lower half.
Green-tinged light from near the Seine streamed through the windows.

A customer arrived.
Duck Number 20,008 leaped out from the kitchen, naked.
One apparatus and one chef suddenly came to life.
The duck was peeled with a thin-bladed knife and its meat sliced into uniformly thin pieces.
The brilliance of the chefs' mechanically precise skill was precisely the spectacle to behold.
The remains were squeezed of blood along with Slawn sauce using the apparatus.
Transferred to a saucepan, this blood sauce was combined with the duck's thinly sliced meat and stirred continuously while reducing; the sauce lightly solidified around the meat into a chocolate hue.
The combination of this plate with another of duck thigh meat garnished with salad constituted this establishment's signature dish: "Pressed Duck."
A soft, viscous-textured delicacy.

The restaurant’s storied history is adorned with the astonishment of Parisians first using forks there during the Henry III era.
Until then, elegant Parisians had grasped food with fingers.

The madame of this establishment had until recently been the daughter of the owner of the renowned Café Anglais, but when the proprietor of Anglais died, the restaurant closed down and its famous wine cellar was transferred in its entirety to the daughter’s establishment.

Tour d'Argent's wine cellar had become a museum that gourmets worldwide should visit at least once.
Viewing from those narrow stone steps, demijohns labeled with names like Château Mouton Rothschild - an 1869 Bordeaux wine - and Romanée-Conti - an 1870 Burgundy wine - served to reveal through their very nomenclature the French people's relentless carnal obsession with food and drink.
Customers began crowding in.
In the dining room,
the sound of spoons vigorously stirring duck blood sauce rang out like hail.

As customers left the establishment, the manager reverently presented them with a card inscribed with the duck’s number.

Outside, the Seine’s waters took on the hues of approaching dusk; the after-dinner coffee would come only after Shinbashi’s slanting sunset rays had crossed over.