Mayor Sam Adams came to the studio, at the invitation of the City Club, an organization that sponsors on-going urban conversations. So fourteen people gathered around the table at the Chef Studio to eat and talk with their Mayor.
The theme for the menu was “Backyard gardens feeding Mayor Adams.” I solicited ingredients from a number of people. Ann Forsthofel who directs the Portland State Farmer’s Market contributed gorgeous produce from her backyard garden. Fearn Smith from the Farm Cafe brought the first of the season raspberries, and her next door neighbor came up with currants. Levi Cole’s garden yielded herbs and lettuces, and excellent honey. Robert Hammond provided eggs from chickens with names. It inspired me to temember these stories.
FRENCH EGGS
I don’t know the origin of the saying ‘practical joker’ but know the French are practicing jokers willing to go to great lengths for the sake of a good laugh. They are also a very practical people. Who else, for example, would come up the idea of renting out chickens?
A visitor to the French countryside convinced of the absolute excellence of an egg fresh from a French chicken, can rent one if they know how to negotiate in French. Chicken rental is a concept that gives new meaning to the saying: Anything is possible. I know this because I met Christophe recently, and he rents chickens. Christophe is French to his fingertips and is also a practicing joker with a face made for hearty laughter.
The first time I encountered him was in a crowded cafe after the open market. Everyone was packed together around a small table. Christophe told the story of renting chickens to a couple in the area for the summer. I tried to imagine how he even gathers his own eggs. On Christophe’s property there is a chaos of chickens wandering everywhere, on ladders, in the hay loft, in the fields around his property. The image of gathering up four of his best chickens conjures the comedy of shepherding fish. He drove the rented chickens to the destination, and collected an agreed-upon fee. The renters kept the chickens along with the eggs until the end of their stay.
After about a week the woman called to say one of the chickens was behaving oddly and thought it was depressed. “Mon Dieu,” Christophe thought, “How can a chicken be depressed, it has such a small skull for holding a brain?” But he is a serious and responsible person. This is business, and so he told her he would come by.
Christopher drove his tractor to her house because he wanted to create a proper agricultural image. He was dressed from head to toe in white, white chief’s jacket, white pants, white rubber garden boots. He also wore a white head band with a splotchy red cross traced with a felt pen, to signal that he was on a medical mission.
He had to contain his laughter when he told us he hoped he wouldn’t be stopped by the Gendarmes and delayed for impersonating a nurse. He carried a small stretcher for transporting the chicken if necessary. It was made from wire coat hangers and hung from his collar down his back. “Where is this depressed chicken,” and announced “I am here to provide medical attention.”
At first the woman didn’t know how to react, but regained her composure. She took him to the chicken and sure enough it seemed slow and wobbly. Christophe picked it up and said he knew his chicken recognized him. When he held the chicken in his arms and examined her, he noticed a soft sack at the base of her throat. He wondered what it could be and touched it with his finger, then pressed harder. The chicken spit up enough water to empty the sack, along with a grain of corn. He put the chicken back on the ground where she trotted off to continue to work on her part of the contract to make French eggs. Christophe stood tall, rested one hand on his hip, and with the other dangling about mid air announced, “Mais voila!” That’s that.
My all time favorite egg is one that inspires respect for French food. Who else can look any ingredient as tell themselves, or you, “God made you perfect, now what can you become?” It’s as if the French anticipate a conversation with God at the end of time, and how they will sit and talk about how things went. They know, that if God were to re-create the world, the salmon would come as a mousseline. They are pretty certain that God would agree that in other areas, such as the following recipe, the French improved upon the original design.
The French designed and built a special device whose only function is to create dishes such as this one. It’s not made cheaply, of plastic, of produced in the furthest corners of the global marketplace. It’s made of stainless steel, with Bakelite handle, surgical steel spring, and is tamper-proof. It has one function, to create a surgically straight line on the shell of an egg, so that a cap of shell can be removed.
The idea is to decapitate the shell, pour the contents into your hand. Separate the whites from the yolk. (Reserve the whites for some other purpose, like Baci di Dama, or other meringue cookie.) Return the yolk to the shell. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and offer some herbs, chives are best.
Bring a pot of water to a simmer, and set the shell into the pan and watch it float because the egg are bottom heavy. The bobbing shells remind me of a boat that characters in a Beatrix Potter-like children’s book might use to navigate a harrowing escape on a cartoon river.
The eggs float only long enough for the whites left clinging to the yolk to warm and coagulate; when you look inside the opening of the shell you can tell the white has coagulated. It’s heated, but not really cooked.
A small amount of heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks, is meant to replace the useless white. The egg, nested in an egg cup, is served at once to a waiting Eater, along with a demi tasse spoon.
The trick is for the Eater to spin the spoon inside the shell, only three or four times, and much to the Eater’s surprise they will have created a warm mousse. If over worked, over mixed, the whole magic moment collapses. The Eater spoons cream, eggs, salt and peppered egg flavored with spice and herb. Usually their eyes glaze over as they surrender to the egg. I see God nodding in agreement.
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