A meal in France II

If you ran a restaurant, is there anything you would deny your customers?

My brother the medievalist, many years back, took us to a restaurant at edge of Burgundy, the most rural area. The restaurant was essentially a private home; we ate in their dining room. A few years before, he had visited and had an amazing lunch for 20 dollars. In between our visits, Gault-Millau visited.

The price was now 30 bucks for the same lunch. I don’t remember all the choices, but I did have pate first. They brought out the entire loaf, sliced me a big piece, and it returned, equally unceremoniously, to the kitchen. My main course was rabbit, with prunes I think. This being France, even a 6 table restaurant had a cheese plate, 6 cheeses that reflected the owner’s own tastes. I suspected our cheese plate and theirs was not far apart.

Here’s the thing—the entire lunch was basically home cooking. None of it was complicated, or even particularly pretty. The first courses were all things that could be assembled, not cooked—prosciutto and melon, pate, soup. Authenticity wasn’t a worry.

Well, that’s not exactly true. Over lunch, my brother told us of his visit the year before, with the local historical society. The entire way to the restaurant, these three men couldn’t stop talking—In Burgundy—of the local Cider, how much better it was than its Norman cousin, how they would have to have some with their lunch. And of course it was on the menu.

There was just one problem. The owner/maitre d’/waiter refused to serve it with food. They could have it before lunch, after lunch, instead of lunch—but they could not have it with lunch. With food, one drunk wine—not cider. My brother was relieved that his hosts saw the correctness of this advice and had their cider before. After all, lunch was on the line.