Summer's the time when gourmets are apt to be what the French call grincheux, meaning not in very good humor. It's the heat, particularly sultry heat, that docs it. Appetites are dulled and nothing seems to taste right. This conspires to make summer an extra-busy time for chefs because it is up to them to provide the appetite-provoking dishes needed to tempt their guests. Perhaps if it hadn't been for out-of-humor, or grincheux, gourmets these hard working artisans of the kitchen might not have come up with so many wonderful summer spécialisés in different ways of using fresh fruits, the delectable cold soups now so popular in hot weather, and scores of cold entrées and unusual salads.
Actually, July's food treasures are far from limited and many can be put in the class of really elegant foods. Chickens, ducks and guinea hens, hatched in the spring and now poised on the thresh-old of maturity, have a rather special succulent plumpness. And in the later-maturing. larger type of birds like turkeys and geese a fine grained tenderness is found. Oison au romarin, which is a tiny summer goose roasted with fresh rosemary inside, is a treat too few people have had the opportunity to try. Salmon is excellent, as are sea-bass, lobster and numbers of other fish and shellfish. Tomatoes are taking on a firm mealiness that is deep and red, raspberries are big and juicy, and there are few times of the year when melons are any better than they are right now.
The menu I've given should bring back joie de vivre, or maybe I should say joie de manger, to even the most apathetic guest. Discriminating gourmets will find these five courses make an elegant lunch or supper, or an equally fine dinner for a hot night. But if you prefer a lighter meal or one that requires less rime to prepare the caneton Montmorency en gelée can be eliminated.
Few people want very many heavy foods in hot weather, but most doctors frown on the completely cold meal, believing that something hot—at least one dish—is important for good digestion. Well, French gourmets feel the same way about a meal with all cold courses. Not that they worry particularly how good if is for you. With them it is a matter of wanting a truly satisfying meal. For some reason a completely cold dinner usually proves disappointing. There's the feeling chat something vital is lacking. At any rate a menu classique would certainly include at least one hot dish no matter how hot the weather is.
For the hot dish in this particular menu I have selected one that is typically French, a veal dish. The recipe happens to be one my mother used in preparing braised veal. When I was a boy, went to school, I remember that I always hoped they would be used for veau braisé because 1 was so fond of it. There are many different braised veal recipes, however, and any one of them would be a good summer choice for the hot dish, because they are neither too rich nor too hearty in character. Furthermore, braised veal makes excellent cold meat to serve with a salad on another day.
Thinking of ways to tempt lagging summer appetites kept my mind and my hands busy many and many a hot July day. But then I would turn out something that pleased everyone so much that all the work that 1 had put into the dish was forgotten in the satisfaction it gave me. Filets de sole à Porisentale is one of those dishes. Our cold fish entrées were always popular in summer, but most of them were made on a mayonnaise base. I thought we should have something new and entirely different on our menu. A new sauce was what I wanted and, after some experimenting, I decided that a combination of portugaise and améiricaiue was the best. A little added saffron gave just the flavor I was trying to achieve and aspic the perfect consistency. For more than twenty years it was a spéciaité du Ritz Carlton that appeared regularly on the summer menus.
For this menu I'd suggest the following wines: With the fish one of the Barsacs of 1949 or a Château Latour Blanche 1947; then follow with a red Beaujolais 1947 or 1950, or a Saint-Estèphe 1947 or 1949 for the veal. Then a Gevrey-Chambertin 1949 or one of the Vosne-Romanée 1947 to drink with the duckling. There is nothing nicer than champagne with the fruit dessert and, if the day is really hot, that is all you may want to finish the meal. Otherwise the finishing touch would be the few sips of cognac or liqueur with which so many people like-to end a good dinner.
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