One by one the good things of France return. Sample celery stalks packed in Nantes, Amieux the brand, three thick stalks about five inches long to a 28-ounce tin, tender enough to cut with a fork, no strings, the outside spikes trimmed away. It's the heart you get. This celery can be served as a hot vegetable or as a salad with French dressing.
And sardines à la ravigote, so called in France, but here the label reads “spiced.” Small fish are packed in a sauce mostly olive oil, a little tomato. These are sardines caught off the coast of France and considered the best in the world. They come skinned, the flesh temptingly pink. The bones are dissolved, or almost. Because of the delicacy of the fish, canners cannot handle this sardine on a mass-production basis. This explains the difference in price of French sardines over the average run.
Another Amieux product ready for distribution is sliced tuna in olive oil. The fish used is a white variety weighing six to sixteen pounds caught off the French Atlantic coast from July to September, an entirely different species from the red, which is larger, darker, and much less tender.
Amieux brand items are available at the following New York stores: Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue, Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street, Dover Delicatessen, 683 Lexington Avenue. Here are approximate prices: Sardines in pure olive oil, 4 3/8 ounces 69 cents, spiced sardines, 4 1/2 ounces, 69 cents, sardines in tomato sauce, 3 1/4 ounces, 49 cents. Sliced tuna fish in oil, 4 1/2 ounces, 75 cents, celery hearts 30 ounces, ＄1.29.
Wild thyme honey again, this delicate sweetness gathered from the thyme which covers the slopes of Mount Hymettus. Honey from the very shadow of the Acropolis from the city of Athens, the same honey that mythology mentions as the food and drink of the gods. The price ＄2.10 for the over-1-pound tin, sold in New York City by Gatti & Ruggeri, 406 Sixth Avenue, TelBurn, 161 East 53rd Street, and Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue.
The bees draw sherry with the nectar from the blossoms of the orange when they fill their flagons for making the honey that goes to Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street. The jar reads simply Orange Blossom Honey, simple as that—no shouting. But this clear, smooth amber so rich in mellowness, so suave in bouquet, of such gentle force, is like a delicate wine joyfully vintaged.
Five honey cakes from Deventer, Holland, from the House of Bussink, internationally famous for its honey loaf creations, have been imported here by the Stanley Trading Company of New York. Honey cake for breakfast flavored with orange peel, another with lemon. Cut a slice paper-thin, lay this over a slice of white bread, spread with sweet butter, and eat honey cake as they enjoy it in Holland. Coffee at 10:30 and bring on the cake, again thinly cut, for the goodness is concentrated, spread thick with sweet butter. Late afternoon it's tea-and-honey-cake time, this being the hour to cut the cake they call fruited.
Long and narrow the loaf called Kruidkoek National, its top thickly sprinkled with crumbled candied sugar, the cake a light brown, flavored with maple, citron, and spices. The price is around 75 cents for the 15-ounce size.
Fragrant of spice is the Deventer Kruidkoek scenting the air when the package is opened. This one for tea, so thin slicing it should last for weeks, the over-a-pound cake ＄1.25.
Honey cake lemon-flavored, this loaf for breakfast, Sucadekoek is its name, or have the Debuko, with orange and whole cherries, a double for a light fruit cake. Try wrapping it a few days in a cloth brandy-dampened to take on extra moistness, to give extra goodness. This too, ＄1.25 for 1 pound, 3 ounces.
Plain Honigkoek is a firm loaf, nut-brown; honey plus honey, that's all you can taste, even the spices are muted, 89 cents for 8 ounces.
These cakes stay fresh a long time, as honey absorbs moisture from the air. The cakes are made with the purest of ingredients, for as the law of Holland quaintly puts it, “Nothing shall be used but what the Lord allows to grow and what the little bees gather.” Under these conditions the House of J. B. Bussink was founded at Deventer in the year of grace 1593. Later, when the merchantmen of the Dutch East India Company carried the tricolor of Holland into unknown lands and brought back the fragrant spices from the Orient, Bussink skillfully blended these into his cake. The product won such widespread fame that kings and celebrities visited the humble baker to taste what we know today as an international delicacy. Down the centuries the royal Dutch family has been on the regular customer list for this specialty.
The early-day recipe is still used, never a substitute. So it is we have virtually the same cakes now as when the gallant three-deckers sailed the seas for spice. These cakes are in many cites: Dallas, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, Baltimore, Pittsburgh. Before June the cakes are scheduled for the West Coast. In New York City the Bussink honey cakes are handled by Seven Park Avenue Foods, 107 East 34th Street, B. Altman, Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, and Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue.
Lace for sale; beautiful lace, black and shining each sweet thread in its weaving. This lace is made of brittle, poured to a marble slab in delicate pattern, then chocolate-covered. The jagged-edged pieces are packed in layers, thin and lovely, ＄3 the pound, your choice of vanilla or mint flavor, packed in 1 1/2-pound boxes. By mail, postage is extra. Address Marguerite de France, 50 East 58th Street, New York.
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