Rogues, Writers, and Whores
Dining with the Rich & Infamous
by Daniel Rogov
Toby Press, 2007
$24.95, cloth
335 pages
One doesn't sit down to a meal of salted peanuts, but one rarely gets up from the table before the bowl is empty.
Daniel Rogov has written a book full of salted peanuts, essays on history's celebrity gourmets, from Lucullus to New Yorker writer, A.J. Liebling. Men and women who indulged their appetites for food, power, and sex, and sometimes exhausted their wallets, cooks, lovers, and themselves in the process.
Despite their often bad behavior, Rogov celebrates his subjects as gourmets, that is as diners who bring spirit and discernment to the table, turning an act of survival into a delight of art and theater. And besides, these are great stories.
Rogov presents them not in their own words, as has been done in some anthologies, but in tight little essays that remind just who this famous name was and their particular bit of gourmandise, from Apicius' zodiac-inspired menus to writer, Frederic Mistral's conviction that eight eggs a day kept him hale and hearty to the age of eighty-four.
Most of Rogov's highly spiced characters indulged their gourmandise in Paris, establishing themselves in royal courts, at fashionable cafes, or ducal kitchens, though a few, such as Nikolai Gogol and Franz Sacher managed to find something to eat in Russia and Vienna.
Each essay is accompanied by recipes, often named for the duke, mistress, or king who's cook knew where their bread was buttered. Most are fussy things, requiring inordinate amounts of egg yolks or ingredients like veal stock, trimmed artichoke bottoms, or beef marrow that are week of work in themselves. They are concocted into bombes, soufflés, and terrines, dishes designed to please louche generals and canny courtesans.
Rogov stuffs his essays with tasty nuggets. When the widowed Empress Eugenie returned to her native Spain, she never spoke French again. Writer Guy de Maupassant died insane from syphilis, and the Elephant Pie claimed to be served by restaurateur Alexander Etienne Choron during the Siege of Paris was nothing more than pigeon.
Not a meal, but certainly satisfying, Rogov presents his history with plenty of spice.
© 2007 Claudia Kousoulas
