My first introduction to fish cookery, so important in la cuisine classique, was confined to fresh-water fish, because Moulins, where I served my apprenticeship as a chef, is well inland, as is the small town in France where I was raised. In those days, it was not easy to transport perishable foodstuffs over long distances. Salt-water fish had to be packed in iced containers for the long trip from the seacoast, so it was expensive and far from abundant. We had trout in season, of course, and salmon trout, pike, goujons, and crawfish. But it was not until I came to Paris, where one finds every kind of food in greater profusion than in any other place I know, that I learned the fine points of preparing salt-water fish.
In Paris, my first really important job was at the Hotel du Rhin. It was very important to me, even though no one else would have considered it so. I was a commis chef, commis to the saucier, which means that I was on the first and lowest rung of the ladder of chefdom. My wages there were the first money I had ever earned, and those few francs represented far greater wealth to me than has all the money I have earned since. But the money was of much less consequence than what I learned from the chefs of this fine Parisian hotel. The training routine at the Hotel du Rhin was unique even in those days when fine cooking was commonplace. It embraced so much attention to detail, so much intimate supervision, such high regard for perfection. This kind of perfection is sadly missing in today's kitchens, where economy of time and materials is the first rule.
César Ritz had not yet built his famous Paris Ritz, the hotel which was to capture the fancy of every international sophisticate and entice to its doors the royalty and wealth of both hemispheres. At this time, the three finest hotels in Pan's were the Bristol, the Vendôme, and the du Rhin, all of them located on the Place Vendôme. As a matter of fact, a Baedeker of the time lists these and only these as “aristocratic houses with special clientèle, ” a description as apt as it is brief. The Prince of Wales and his close friend King Leopold of Belgium, the Queen of Spain, the Grand Duke of Russia, all of whom stayed at the du Rhin were indeed special clientèle. And in this same Baedeker, these three are the only hotels whose listing does not include any indication of the costs of the accommodations and the meals. Money was of little concern to those who made these establishments their Paris headquarters. The Bristol, for example, was the only hotel in Paris where the first J. Pierpont Morgan stayed. The manager had been a butler in the Morgan household, and the same corner suite was always ready and waiting for the Morgans. Many of the an treasures one sees now in American museums and galleries were chosen in this very suite, because every French dealer who had paintings, rare manuscripts or antiques to sell brought his wares there to be considered for the Morgan collection.
I was hired for the du Rhin kitchen, but since the du Rhin and the Bristol were under the same management, I occasionally worked in the Bristol kitchen as well. Our kitchen at the du Rhin was large, and our chefs were very skillful. Our clientèle was small, but so exacting that the cooking had to be better than fine—it had to be superlative. It was not an easy assignment for a young commis on his first job, but for an ambitious chef-in-training there could be no better experience in Paris.
Neither the Bristol nor the du Rhin had a public dining room. Instead, every apartment had its own private dining salon, beautifully decorated in the ornate style of the nineties. Any of these could seat a dinner party of twenty-five people. Whether the guests were having a formal party or dining en famille, every dish had to be perfect and, as a general rule, most of them were elaborate. Guests of the du Rhin and the Bristol were the famous gourmets of their generation, and when they came to Paris they expected to have their every whim gratified. No one knew their likes and dislikes better than the maître d'hôtel who helped them to plan their menus.
All of this brings me to the subject of this article, because none of these perfect dinners was complete without a fish course, and most of the elegant luncheons also included fish. Each morning the maître d'hôtel discussed with the guests, or with their butlers, the menus for the day. Perishable foods like fish were not purchased until the maître d'hôtel came downstairs with the menus. After that, it meant fast footwork for us commis. We had to rush off to the market to buy the fish and bring it back to the chefs who were waiting to start the preliminary preparations. The fish had to be cleaned and filleted, the mousses had to be pounded and mixed, the lobsters had to be boiled—and all this had to be done as early in the day as possible. It was to Madame Potron's large market in the Marché Saint Honoré that we carried our big baskets. How well I remember Madame Potron, and how grateful I am to her for all she taught me! It was Madame Potron who taught me how to know a fresh fish, and I have never forgotten her rules: The eyes must be bright, the gills pink, and the flesh firm. It is wise always to choose fish that are in season, because then each specific kind is at its best. And when a fish is most plentiful, it is, naturally, least expensive.
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