Black Venus 精彩片段：
The Kitchen Child-2
Reading and writing come to me easy. I learn my letters as follows: A for asparagus, asperges au beurre fondue (though never, for my mothers sake, with a sauce batarde); B for boeuf, baron of, roasted mostly, with a pouding Yorkshire patriotically sputtering away beneath it in the dripping pan; C for carrots, carrottes, choufleur, camembert and so on, right down to Zabaglione, although I often wonder what use the X might be, since it figures in no cooks alphabet.
And I stick as close to that kitchen as the cro?te to a paté or the mayonnaise to an oeuf. First, I stand on that stool to my saucepans; then on an upturned bucket; then on my own two feet. Time passes.
Life in this remote mansion flows by a tranquil stream, only convulsing into turbulence once a year and then for two weeks only, but that fuss enough, the Grouse Shoot, when they all come from town to set us by the ears.
Although Sir and Madam believe their visit to be the very and unique reason for the existences of each and every one of us, the yearly climacteric of our beings, when their staff, who, as far as they are concerned, sleep out a hibernation the rest of the year, now spring to life like Sleeping Beauty when her prince turns up, in truth, we get on so well without them during the other eleven and a half months that the arrival of Themselves is a chronic interruption of our routine. We sweat out the fortnight of their presence with as ill a grace as gentlefolk forced by reduced circumstances to take paying guests into their home, and as for haute cuisine, forget it; sandwiches, sandwiches, sandwiches, all they want is sandwiches.
And never again, ever again, a special request for a soufflé, lobster or otherwise. Me mam always a touch broody come the Grouse Shoot, moody, distracted, and, even though no order came, nevertheless, every year, she would prepare her lobster soufflé all the same, send the grinding boy off for the lobster, boil it alive, beat the eggs, make the panada etc. etc. etc., as if the doing of the thing were a magic ritual that would raise up out of the past the great question mark from whose loins her son had sprung so that, perhaps, she could get a good look at his face, this time. Or, perhaps, there was some other reason. But she never said either way. In due course, she could construct the airiest, most savoury soufflé that ever lobster graced; but nobody arrived to eat it and none of the kitchen had the heart. So, fifteen times in all, the chickens got that soufflé.
Until, one fine October day, the mist rising over the moors like the steam off a consommé, the grouse taking last hearty meals like condemned men, my mothers vigil was at last rewarded. The house party arrives and as it does we hear the faint, nostalgic wail of an accordion as a closed barouche comes bounding up the drive all festooned with the lys de France.
Hearing the news, my mother shakes, comes over queer, has to have a sit down on the marble pastry slab whilst I, oh, I prepare to meet my maker, having arrived at the age when a boy most broods about his father.
But whats this? Who trots into the kitchen to pick up the chest of ice the duc ordered for the bottles he brought with him but a beardless boy of his own age or less! And though my mother tries to quizz him on the whereabouts of some other hypothetical valet who, once upon a time, might possibly have made her hand tremble so she lost control of the cayenne, he claims he cannot understand her Yorkshire brogue, he shakes his head, he mimes incomprehension. Then, for the third time in all her life, my mother wept.
First, she wept for shame because shed spoiled a dish. Next, she wept for joy, to see her son mould the dough. And now she weeps for absence.
But still she sends the grinding boy off for a lobster, for she must and will prepare her autumn ritual, if only as a wake for hope or as the funeral baked meats. And, taking matters into my own hands, I use the quickest method, the dumb waiter, above stairs to make a personal inquiry of this duc as to where his staff might be.
The duc, relaxing before dinner, popping a cork or two, is wrapped up in a velvet quilted smoking jacket much like the coats they put on very well-bred dogs, warming his slippered (Morocco) feet before the blazing fire and singing songs to himself in his native language. And I never saw a fatter man; hed have given my mother a stone or two and not felt the loss. Round as the "o" in "rotund". If hes taken aback by the apparition of this young chef out of the panelling, hes too much of a gent to show it by a jump or start, asks, what can he do for me? nice as you like and, in my best culinary French, my petit poi de fran?aise, I stammer out:
"The valet de chambre who accompanied you (garni de) those many years past of your last visit --"
"Ah! Jean-Jacques!" he readily concurs. "Le pauvre," he adds.
He squints lugubriously down his museau.