Huîtres à l'Echalote
Croûte au Pol à la Moelle
Bars de Mer et Coquilles à la Poulette
Perdreaux aux Raisins
Choux de Bruxelles Ménagère
Selle d'Agneau de Pré-Salé Rôtie
Pommes de Terre Lorette
Salade de Laitue aux Fines Herbes
Coeur Flottant Merveilleux aux Fraises
Friandises
Mocha
As soon as the month of October appears on the calendar, the French connoisseur sets his palate for heartier fare. And since this month is the height of the hunting season, you can be certain that his first fall dinner party will feature game. For what indeed has he been waiting for during spring and summer if not to savor the first tender young partridge, or to inhale the aromatic fragrance of a steaming civet of hare, or, as the season advances, to bite into flavorful, rich venison? In fact, he will plan his menu—and the details of each course, and its wine—with as much thought as he gives his most important business matters, spending hours either with the maître d'hôtel or the chef of his favorite restaurant, or with his own cook.
Planning the menu for a fine meal, such as the one above, requires a sound knowledge of foods and the many ways of preparing them. It also requires good judgment and careful attention to details. I have often been asked to give the rules of menu-making, but I as often reply that there are no hard and fast rules in making menus. There are, of course, certain principles, but many people, particularly those with keen and adventurous tastes, even vary these considerably. However, certain principles are fairly obvious, if you will stop to think of them, The trouble too often is that many people, with only a slight knowledge of foods and limited taste, just do not stop to think. And this is as unfortunate in planning menus as in, planning any other important work.
Perhaps the most common fault people commit in planning menus is including all the dishes they personally like without ever considering whether or not the menu progresses gastronomically. All menus, French and otherwise, have a common purpose—to satisfy the physiological state of hunger. The French, through long experience and experimenting, have found that the best way to satisfy, but not satiate, this need is through a balance of foods. And they do this by harmonizing and contrasting their courses. They may begin with a fairly simple food that whets or piques the appetite, and build up to more rich and complex dishes. The climax of the French menu may be the fish, the entree, or the roast. Whichever it is, the courses that follow it are usually not as rich. Many gourmets today feel that once the richest course of the meal has been reached, the succeeding ones should be very few and very light, or even be dismissed altogether and the dessert brought on. That, of course, is an individual preference.
A well-arranged dinner of the more or less formal type still includes several well defined courses: hors d'oeuvre, which is very often some kind of shellfish; soup, whether it is light or heavy depends on the succeeding courses; a fish dish, and whether it is shellfish or fin fish will depend on what was Served for the hors-d'oeuvre; a hot entrée, which may be and often is the richest course in the meal; the roast; salad; dessert; and coffee. Very often a cold dish follows the roast to refresh and rest the palate. In elaborate banquets there will usually be several more courses than these seven that I have mentioned. However, in our streamlined living and eating today the trend is away from the lengthy mentis that were so popular before the first World War.
There are, nonetheless, important principles in menu making that apply to informal and formal meals. And these principles the French try conscientiously to uphold. In the first place, as I have said, there should be a balance of harmony and contrast in the flavor, texture, and appearance of foods. Sameness should be avoided. There is nothing so tiresome, so unimaginative, and so deadening to the palate as the eating of the same fish or meat in two courses. The number of sauces to include in the menu and the richness of them depend naturally on the type of meal you are planning and even on the season of the year. If hollandaise is chosen for one dish, then béarnaise or any of the rich butter sauces should not accompany other dishes. Some people even feel that if a cream sauce is used with the entree or fish, a cream dessert or a dessert with a cream sauce should not be chosen for the final course, 1 would say, however, that two cream preparations may be included as long as the courses in which they appear are sufficiently far apart. Again this is a personal preference.
In the menu I have selected I have tried to show how variation is achieved through a careful selection of foods, their methods of preparation and their sauces. If this menu is to be prepared in your own home, you may want to shorten it, for it is far better to prepare fewer courses to perfection than to serve a long succession of dishes that so overtax the cook that nothing is done really well.
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