The European cookbook for American homes (from Italy, Spain, Portugal and France)

Heat butter and olive oil. Fry salt pork until slightly brown; add onions and slowly fry until tender and golden. Add potatoes, salt and pepper and part of the gravy. Let brown a little, then turn. Repeat until potatoes are nicely brown, adding the rest 344 FRENCH 345 of the gravy during the frying. Drain ofif any extra fat. Sprinkle with parsley, gently turn until parsley is mixed in, and serve very hot. NAPOLEON PUFF POTATOES (Pommes de Terre Souffles) Cut raw potatoes in oval- or almond-shaped pieces about J4 inch thick and 2 inches long; lay in cold water l/2 hour. Dry well and cook in medium hot deep fat 8-10 minutes without browning. Drain and set aside to cool on strainer. Then fry golden in smoking hot fat, shaking occasionally and gently dur- ing the process. Drain on paper and serve at once on a folded napkin. A paper napkin will serve quite as well as a linen napkin, still used abroad where laundry is cheap. Although these pufled potatoes were named after Napoleon he had nothing whatsoever to do with them, and it is doubtful if he ever tasted any. Neither he nor his Empress Louise were distinguished as cooks or epicures and the dishes they some- times concocted were amateurish indeed. Napoleon's immediate predecessors, the Louises, were great trenchermen, however, and spent a good deal of time in the palace kitchen. Louis XIII killed his own game, surpassed his own royal gardeners at raising vegetables and cooked them splendidly himself, since he lived in constant dread of being poisoned. And this is the reason that many monarchs have excelled in culinary arts. Louis XV was not a gardener, but a great hunter and discriminating cook. Louis XVI has left no mark as a cook and he alone of them was not even a first-class gourmet, although a great eater. The history of the French cuisine sparkles with the names of royal cooks, their cooking courtiers and personal chefs, although most of the dishes have lost their original significance in republican France. 346 THE EUROPEAN COOKBOOK The origin of these pommes de terre souffles and how they came to be nicknamed "Napoleon" still makes a dinner table story in France where all dishes are "discussed," as a part of the savor of their eating. It seems that a simple housewife in early Empire days set aside her sizzling panful of pommes frites, French-fried, to rush to the front window and ogle at Bonaparte riding by at the head of his troops, in all the glitter and fool's- gold of battle. An hour later, when this susceptible housewife came out of her trance and got back to the kitchen, her pan of potatoes lay cold and soggy with grease. "Ou la la!" a catastrophe indeed, for she expected her husband home every minute and there was nothing else to eat in the house. So, instead of throwing them away, the thrifty lady, trained in economic sacrifices made necessary by keeping up Napoleon's army, made the best of it, putting her spuds on the fire again. But behold! they puffed up miraculously, became crisp shells full of air, bursting fat and round as toy balloons, tiny sausages, or emperors. So the twice-fried potato puffs came into being by accident and were named after the Napoleon story which ran from tongue to tongue all over France. Normandy POTATO SOUFFLE NORMANDY {Souffle de Pommes a la Normande) 4 cups mashed potatoes i egg Salt and pepper i teaspoon caramel