In the middle twenties … also known as “the good ol' days” … when I was an art student in Paris, there were a great many places there that advertised Real Southern Cooking, Fried Chicken, and Gumbo, and a small retired group of school teachers who gave out with chittlings and spareribs and a pension de famille salad.
But those of us who could afford it, and we could now and then, preferred sole Joinville, duck Périgueux and a sherbet l'Ermitage. We also gobbled up madeleines (Oh, shade of Proust … can you see us, in those days, sipping tea and dipping our madeleines in it—not that we liked tea but because we were all reading Remembrance Of Things Past and some of us were to get past Swan's Way), baba au rhum, and we even warmed ourselves at the thin blue flames of crêpes Suzette at passing patisseries.
As Big Boy said, “It sure gives you plenty of Joe de vivre.”
Big Boy was forty, owned a top hat and evening clothes, was a nephew of a Big Name cigaretter, came from Richmond, Vah, and wanted to become a painter of horses. We were weaning him from corn pones and pot likker, and trying to get him to throw away his cigar holder.
Big Boy used to come from huge parties given by the American Embassy (“Damnyankees,” he called them; one word, of course) and sit around while Rifkinoff, the flower painter, and I sweated out the magazine drawings that fed us, paid the rent, and often left enough over to buy flowers for Ursule, daughter of our landlord, Hilaire de Salignacs.
We were not in love with Ursule (we called her You for short) but we were in bad standing with her papa, who did not like the society people from the Ritz who came to visit us. He did not mind the bums from the Left Bank, and the White Russians who stabbed each other with loaves of long bread at our parties. But the society people (who were just then appearing in a book called The Sun Also Rises by a young buck called Hemingway)—M. de Salignacs couldn't stand them; they let their little dogs loose in his garden. So we sent flowers to You when we could and she spoke to papa of our virtue and our talent.
“They are Americans. No temper, Papa … il faut laver son linge sale en famille”.
“It is not their linen,” said Papa, “it is their friends' little dogs in my garden. I will not have it!”
Anyway, one morning Big Boy came to our studio, only slightly hung over, and You was there posing for Rif, holding a huge basket of flowers. She was wearing the famous straw hat left to her in her grandmother's will. And the earrings that Degas, the famous painter, had given her grandaunt … but that is another story.
“Who,” asked Big Boy, taking off his top hat, “is the beautiful tomato?”
“Nobody,” said Rif, “she can't speak a word of English.”
“Me neither,” said Big Boy, “you-all know I'm from the Deep South.”
“Humor,” said Rif, “will get you no place. We are busy. Pick up yourself and scram.”
But Big Boy did not give up easily. He smiled at You, and sat down and unbuttoned his vest and showed the real black pearl studs in his boiled shirt front. You smiled at him; she liked class, and Big Boy was all class even if his brain matter would have made a moron out of a lobster.
“Could I take the tomato out for a walk?”
“No,” said Rif. “Get the hell out. I am mad to paint while the light lasts. Il ne faut jamais défier un fou!”
“Better get going,” I said. “Rif is in one of his Polish moods. Someone told him President Hoover's mother isn't Polish.”
Rifkinoff had one weakness; he believed that all great men were great because their mothers were Polish; the news that Hoover had no Polish mother shattered him for a whole hour. Later, of course, he said he had known it all the time … this M. Hoover was not great in any way except for the collars he wore.
“Let me cook lunch,” said Big Boy.
It was the one thing Big Boy could do well. His cooking was enough to make a Frenchman weep into his sauce. We never turned him down.
“Of course,” he added, tying on an apron. “Miss You has to stay to lunch.”
There was nothing to do but invite her to stay; she would have, anyway. She thought Big Boy the handsomest fattest male with muscles she had ever seen, il va sans dire…
The dish that Big Boy was famous for in every studio in Paris was General Lee's Saddle Blankets. They were not really blankets … they were chicken pancakes … but Big Boy felt he had to carry on the honor of the Old South by giving it a name the natives of the country would respect. I don't know how much they respected the name. I know they loved the pancakes.
This is how Big Boy committed his magic. To a pound of ground cooked chicken he added a tablespoon of baking powder, enough curry to cover a half dollar (I am sorry but that's the way he measured things), a big pinch of salt, and a small pinch each of cayenne, thyme, mace, and nutmeg, a small grated onion, a half pint of milk, and a quarter pound of sweet butter. He would beat this until his arm ached and his breath came (as he put it) in boy's trousers (short pants).
He would fry this on a very hot griddle, madly singing “When This Long Cruel War is Over,” a marching song of General Jackson's, he always explained. He served it hot with chicken gravy into which a little warm sherry had been beaten. Also if he could get them, those very small French canned peas that taste like nothing grown on this side of the sea.
I could see You was impressed by his dash, his voice; and when she tasted the food, by his skill with pancakes.
She said in French, “But he is a charming fellow.”
“Well,” said Rif, “I suppose one could say that, but not I. I do not trust his background. His people are billies called hills. He is too rich, too fat, and I think has more muscles than brains.”
“I said so,” said You, “Everything; a charmer.”
“What does the little tomato say?” asked Big Boy.
“You cook well,” I translated…
It was a week later; Rif and I were coming back from a small village where we had gone to buy old walnut paneling. We made frames of this paneling, and sold them to artists who weren't so good as we were in making wormholes. At that time the fad was for old frames in which worms had played at love and replenished the earth with other young worms, who had made more wormholes, and so lifted the price of the wood they had lived in. In the end, like all good things, they made too many wormholes and became rare-wood dwellers and they died of varnish when the frames were painted.
But in time these worm-rich timbers gave out, and Rif and I invented the fake wormhole. We shot small buckshot from an old shotgun at the wood. It looked like real wormholes … but sold for less as the shot remained in the frame. Our best product was created with a special shoemaker awl, and this would fool even a worm. Rif proved it one night by getting a worm to crawl into the frame and set up light housekeeping. Rif was very honest, however … he never sold a machine-age wormhole as a real one. But we did do well.
We came back to Paris and sold our frames and sent You a special bunch of flowers that cost so much the dealer thought we were un peu exalté (a little nuts, if your study of French argot is a little stale).
An hour later, who should barge into our studio but Hilaire de Salignacs, our landlord himself. He flung our flowers at us and sat down and wept all over our best chair.
“This is ruin … this is ruin and more!”
“What is the matter?” asked Rif, “the Sureté Nationale is after you for growing pigs in the garden?”
“It is Ursule. She is in love with the large American.”
“You are sure?” I asked.
“Yes. You gentlemen I could trust … you are men who are men of the world … a slap, a tickle, a pose for a painting, but nothing serious, you understand. But this fat one … he is madly in love with her. He would make her with the wedding.”
“That is good,” said Rif, relaxing.
“But you do not understand. She is promised since birth to make wed with my uncle Desgranges' boy, Tristan.”
“Tris will have to go elsewhere.”
“His lawyer, a maître de requestes, soon to be a chef du cabinet, has written to me. There is a dot of fifty thousand francs I promised with the girl. He wants his money.”
“But the girl is engaged elsewhere,” said Rif. “I am a romantic … how can he demand the cash if the girl is elsewhere?”
Our landlord groaned. “He is ready to buy a business—the making of ivory chessmen out of old beef bones. The cash—il s'en faut de beaucoup. Not only will he sue, but the man who owns the old bone chess factory. He too was to move with his ailing wife to a spring in the valley … and now he is suing me … my uncle Desgranges, and his son Tristan. And my wife, she is not speaking to me. I am sad. La bonne loague!”
“This is very bad,” said Rif, “and the fault is ours for letting him in.”
“You understand I love America. And some Americans.”
“Let us find Big Boy.” I said.
We got our hats and went out, M. de Salignacs still carrying the flowers. “They cost so much … it is a shame we should toss them away. We will give them to a passing nun.”
“A fine thought,” said Rif.
‘“Money does not grow on trees as your Henry Rockefeller so well put it. I admire your methods so much. Such Fords!”
“But what about You?” I asked.
The father said, “Women have no principles. It is good manners for them to be above such sort of nonsense.”
“You mean she will give up Big Boy, if we can talk him out of it?”
“Some women,” said Rif sadly, “would rather inspire love than feel it … but not You. I have faith in love.”
“Faith,” said de Salignacs, “has never taught anyone anything about life.”
So we went to look for Big Boy, but couldn't find him. We hunted his usual haunts in Paris; the famous Flea Market where he traded in secondhand stamps, Honey Chile Club where he went to eat buttered corn on the cob, the American Express office which served as his bankers, and the little nest furnished in old Middle-Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (each stick of furniture, he claimed, signed by Louie Mayer) and many clocks, where he hid and practiced his cooking, carried on his affairs of the heart, and kept his stamp albums. He was not to be found.
So we went sadly back to the house and then de Salignacs got the brilliant idea that we should come with him to see his uncle Desgranges (and his boy Tristan) and explain to them what had happened and why they should not expect the dot of fifty thousand francs to put into the beef-bone chessmen factory.
We went to a small eating place called En Brochette. It seemed that Uncle Desgranges was a wine merchant and sold wine there. Uncle Desgranges looked like a character gnawed by mice. His nose and ears were made for a larger man, but as he explained, noses will always be fashionable. “Everybody seems to wear one.”
We agreed he had something there, and asked him what to order.
“That you must leave to me. We will talk trouble later. But to table with an empty mind and stomach is best, non?”
“We shall have,” said the uncle, “kidneys American.”
As no American I have ever met has ever heard of kidneys American, here is how to make them. (I found out because they are very good indeed, good enough for Americans, as the French say.)
Lamb kidneys are best. Clean and cut them in half the long way. Rub with pepper and salt, and fry them in sweet butter. While they fry, boil down a half pint of good champagne (this will do for four big kidneys), add a quarter pint of melted meat aspic, two tablespoons of butter, and bring to a fast boil.
Put your fried kidneys on long white crackers and pour the sauce over it. Oh, the last trick before serving is to spread the crackers with orange jam. It really helps.
The uncle was a lover of the dish. “Ah, you Americans … you eat well. This every day for breakfast.”
“The truth is most Americans have never heard of it.”
“Is this true?”
“Cross my kidneys and hope to die.”
“You see,” said the uncle, “what lies nations grow up with. Here we are fed the story that Americans eat one thing, and you find out it is not true. But it is good … non?”
“It is good, yes. I shall try to pass a law making the dish part of the Code Americana.”
“Vive L'Amérique!”
“Vive la Franzzzzz!” I shouted, swallowing kidney.
“Vive L'Action Française,” said the landlord who was a bigot in his spare time.
After the meal we all had a frayed cigar that someone pulled from his pocket case and we sat back listening to the Salvation Army band in the street singing:
En avant, soldats chrétiens …
En avant à la guerre …
“Now to business,” said the uncle. “I am a lost man.”
“But uncle, you must hear out these Americans.”
“What they have to say may be right but will it get me fifty thousand francs?”
“No,” I said, “it will not.”
The uncle bowed (sitting down … a hard way to bow) and said, “So you see our lawyers must attend us. We shall sue, but shall remain a family. This happens. Or else how would the world have ivory chessmen?”
We shrugged our shoulders and the singers outside sang:
En avant, soldats chrétiens …
We ordered more wine … and just then Big Boy and You came into the place and the waiter bowed to them.
“C'est là, le diable!” said de Salignacs.
Big Boy came over to us, You following, both smiling.
“Well, it's certainly good to see you-all—even damnya … even artists.”
“What,” I asked, “have you and You been up to?”
Before he could answer, You put her hands on the table and I saw they were full of francs.
“Ah,” she said “is this not nice? For days he has been after me to sell Auntie's earrings, and today I gave in. I suffered and held out, but he offered four thousand francs.”
De Salignacs rose to the event like a Frenchman. He kissed his daughter on the cheek. We all kissed her on the cheek.
“This will add to my dot,” she said to Uncle Desgranges.
“You are a lucky fellow, Tristan,” said the uncle. “You will now have enough money to be able to afford a good chess teacher too. It will help the business.”
He lifted his glass of wine and we lifted ours and we wished the happy couple a great success in life and business.
It was hours later when we got home, and when we looked around we found Big Boy was with us. Rifkinoff turned to him.
“What did you want the damn earrings for? Causing us all that trouble.”
Big Boy yawned and smiled. “Well, I really didn't … but you see, she explained to me how she would be under the thumb of her husband after she was married … and if she only had a little money of her own put away, she could feel a little more sure of herself.”
“I don't understand—she gave the money to the uncle.”
“Oh, I gave her fifteen thousand francs for the earrings.”
Rifkinoff kicked over a flower painting, half finished. “There will always be a France.”
Somewhere in the street below the Salvation Army was still singing:
En avant à la guerre,
Avec la croix de Jésus
Marchant auparavant …