Lin Christie

In the summer of 2006, I received a grant from Fund for Teachers designed to allow educators to design their own course of study. At the time, I taught high school Drama, Speech, coached the Academic Decathlon Team, and AP Art History. My study plan was to spend a month touring the great museums and architecture in Paris and Madrid, plus pack in as many iconic works of art as possible. The money would also allow me to take a week of private painting lessons in Provence, as well as to participate in a French cooking class. I was able learn more intimately about the cultural touchstones of our common humanity.

Here is the blog entry from today’s date, 18 years ago.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

I had my cooking class today.

Our instructor Reine presented each of us with an apron and a portfolio containing today’s recipes—in French of course. The menu was Fish Three Ways. Our kitchen adventure began by preparing a tomato-based sauce. It’s France. There’s always a sauce.

We started chopping and dicing and blanching and peeling and browning and sautéing and boiling and reducing. A little bit of this, a pinch of that. A taste. More salt—et voila! The sauce only needs to reduce.

Now on to the caviar. Reine gave us each a taste. Everyone commented on how good it was—such a delicacy. I must not have a very sophisticated palette, because I thought it tasted like fishy chewing gum.

Enter the red mullet. Whole entire red mullets. Reine brought out a very large bowl filled with red fish about the length of my hand and as plump as my wrist. With clear, sparkling eyes in their still attached heads. And while they were well past anyone being able to resuscitate them, a couple of them seemed to be saying, “Help me.”

Okay, so here’s a new experience for me—getting to de-scale, de-head, and de-gut a fish. But not just one. Oh, no. There were like forty fish in the bowl and we had to clean all of them. The others just reached in and started. Pretty soon they’re up to their elbows in fish guts. I am, however, a bit more reticent. I decide that I can scale the fish and then just leave the fish sans scales on the cutting board for others to deal with. And I almost got away with it. I had scaled about ten fish when Reine caught on to my game. Taking my elbow, she led me to my cutting board. She demonstrated—slash, cut, fillet, fillet, and voila, she is done. It looked fairly easy.

“Save the liver,” she told me. “It’s tiny.” Then she showed me one. Okay. So that’s what a fish liver looks like.

Well, here goes nothing—take the fish and—slash

Ew! Was that a bone?

cut

Oh, gross!

fillet, fillet

Why are my fish pieces so much smaller than everybody else’s? Oh—I’ve left more meat on the bone than they have. I wonder if I can fix that. Well, that really didn’t help. Maybe I can just throw it in the trash bowl. With all those fish parts, surely no one will notice.

And now where’s that liver? Man, my fish don’t have no liver! No wonder he’s only got little fillets—he’s a very sick fish!

Oh, no, wait a minute. There’s his liver.

Man, I smashed it! Maybe I’ll just put it in the garbage bowl. No one noticed the other stuff I dropped in.

Whew.

Okay. Now if I just take my time and stall and work on this other fish, maybe the others will finish before I have to do a third.

Now this is just freaky. No liver here either. Maybe I just don’t know what I’m looking for.

Oh well. Who’s going to notice if we are short a couple of fish livers?

I learned two things about myself through this experience. First, I never want to work in the fish processing industry. And second, I love the Gorton’s Fisherman.

Next assignment: peel potatoes. Now you’re talking. I’m a champion potato peeler from way back. No guts, no gory. Unfortunately, it was over in no time.

Reine sautés some of the fish and puts the tomato stuff on them and places them in the freezer. Next she wants us to make a fish present—take one fillet, put it on a single layer of filo dough, cover the fillet with tapenade, top that with another fillet and wrap it up in the dough. Tie the ends off with a bow. A fish present.

It looks like a weird Tootsie Roll.

After we’ve been in the hot kitchen for 2½ hours, Reine leads us outside to look for garnishes. We walk through the garden eating flowers. No, really. Why would I lie about a thing like that? A little purple flower with a rather non-descript flavor was chosen and we pick a few then went back to the kitchen and start plating. And right on top of the tomato stuff, people start putting the purple flowers.

We sit out on the patio under a canopy eating the lunch we have prepared. A really nice regional white wine is served and—let the fish feast begin! First course—Fish with Tomato Stuff. Second course—Fish Presents. Third course—Fish with Mashed Potatoes topped with Caviar Gravy.

By the time they brought out that third course, I’m praying for a salad. I was seriously full of fish. I don’t want to look another fish in the eye for a few days. Or maybe ever.

For dessert, peach sorbet and a peach tart.

Coffee and au revoir.