“You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces—just good food from fresh ingredients.”
Julia Child
When I first read this quote from Julia Child, I immediately thought of my grandmother, Genevieve Fay, who essentially lived by this credo. She and Julia had a love affair with butter and crème fraîche. And like Julia, her cuisine was classic French, full of boeuf bourguignon, blanquettes de veau and hachis parmentier. Yet although she was an excellent cook, she often served simple food.
Dessert, for example, at her house was a piece of fruit rather than a cake, tart or baked confection, but what a piece of fruit it would be! When I was a small child, she would regularly take me on her daily shopping routine, and it was by her side that I learned the art of selecting fruit and vegetables at their acme.
My grandparents lived in Briançon, a fortified ancient town high up in the French Alps. There were no supermarkets there. So we went to the cheesemonger for milk, cheese, eggs and butter; to the butcher for chicken, pâtés, saucisson and other meats; and to the baker for the prerequisite baguettes and Pain de Mie that she served daily. There were no farmers markets during the snowy winter months.
Even in summer, as the growing season was short, the picturesque market—located along the banks of a burbling alpine river—ran for just a few months. As a result, my grandmother, ever the resourceful woman, shopped directly at the local greengrocer’s wholesale warehouse. It was called Chez Jacques. I was a little afraid of going there when I was small, as the building, tucked away on a narrow side street, was unusually cold, gloomy and intimidating. Thankfully, the proprietor was anything but and always greeted my grandmother warmly.
They would discuss in great detail what she planned on cooking and the choice items on hand. She would carefully inspect the proffered vegetables or fruit, accepting the ones she deemed in perfect condition or rejecting those that didn’t meet her exacting standards. This was serious business.
I stood by and watched silently as she explained why she chose a particular item. All the produce came packed in wooden crates, which would be carefully loaded into her car once she made her choices. Once home, she placed the crates in her cellar, where the magic in her kitchen began.
It’s curious how the memory of a place, sight of an object, sound or aroma can evoke such strong emotions. Marcel Proust coined the term involuntary memory to describe this phenomenon, and I relive this experience every year when the first apricots arrive at our farmers market. Along with grated carrots, baby radishes, cherries, blueberries and red currents, apricots are some of my first memories of anything edible. I see them and am instantly transported back to my grandmother’s kitchen, where she schooled my brother and me in the delicious art of jam-making. Her golden-hued apricot jam was legendary in our family.
One of its key components was her use of the apricot kernels, which lent it hints of marzipan. She would cook them with the apricots and leave them in it once jarred. They were small, white and almond-shaped. We painstakingly extracted the kernels from the pits, a task to which we happily lent a hand, as our reward was a giant jar of jam we could take back home with us to London. (Although apricot kernels are toxic in large quantities, it is a common practice to use one or two in jam.)
To remove the soft kernel, you had to break open the pits using a small hammer, tapping them with enough strength to break the pit open but not squash the kernel inside. It took ages, and we’d often smack our fingers instead of the pit! It was a messy job, and we’d usually sit out on her terrace, halving the apricots, bashing pits and telling stories. It’s funny how a little piece of fruit can be so evocative.
When I pick up apricots today, I imagine what can be made with them, apart from the jam. Clafoutis comes to mind; it is divine made with them instead of the classic cherries. Apricot tarts are a particular favorite of mine, and as soon as I get my hands on some just-picked apricots—I favor Blenheims, if I can find them—I’ll make two or three versions of the tart or a galette with them.
The key element is ripe fruit. Not so ripe that they will squish to a pulp when sliced but not too hard, as their flavor can be slightly sour if underripe. It’s worth waiting for that particular moment—you know, the one when you bite into fruit and let out a little involuntary sigh because the fruit is just perfect.
When something is that good, I like to let the fruit (or vegetable) be the star of the dish and not manipulate it too much, hence my new apricot tart where you don’t cook the fruit at all but instead lightly glaze them using a blow torch or under the broiler. You will taste their essence in all its glory.
In the summer months, some of the produce in my grandmother’s cellar came from small local farms in the surrounding valleys and the Provencal hinterland. I remember a particular honey whose floral taste was suffused with the abundant wildflowers and lavender growing in the area.
Imagine my delight when I tasted a local wildflower honey from the Santa Barbara foothills that was so reminiscent of the one I ate as a child! The honey was akin to a silky, sweet conduit, a connection between my childhood in France and my adult life in California.
It was a bridge between the two cultures I call home, but what struck me the most was the simplicity and purity of this link. Freshly harvested honey, nothing more. The bees, nourished by nature as they foraged in the local chaparral, produced perfect food.
I thought about this, the idea of food at its simplest, as I drove through the vineyard-covered hills on a hot summer’s day last year. I stopped the car on the side of the road and gazed out at the Santa Ynez mountains silhouetted against a cloudless sky. A breeze stirred up the sweet, rich aroma of the grapes ripening in the summer sun as the loamy warmth of the earth was palpable in the air. I smiled; it was an aroma I’d come across in the vineyards in Provence, and here it was again. It felt and smelled like home. I drove back to make a late Sunday lunch with my family: an herb- and flower-filled salad, roast chicken with some grapes I had picked up at the farmers market and an apricot tart. As Julia and my grandmother said, “just good food from fresh ingredients.”
