Category: FOOD AND WINE

So, one starts the homage to the magnificent croissant with a story of its origin too good to be true – which of course it isn’t.  When it comes to food, however,  great stories don’t have to be true in order to be truly great, and this one has all the elements of greatness.  The wonder bread known as the croissant which forms the perfect meal through its irresistible airiness, flakiness, and buttery goodness has its origins in legend, but is the more likely descendant of more mundane bakery craft.  The concept of rolling plates of flour with intervening filling has many mothers of invention.  The ancient kipferl, a similarly shaped yeast dough based baked layered roll designed to be sprinkled or glazed, projected out of the misty depths of the ancient Hungarian lands of southeast Europe.  The recognizably modern croissant was essentially borne in a Parisian boulangerie in the 19th century that looked to mimic the pastry concepts of Vienna, achieving the lightness and richness through applying layers of butter between the plates of dough, battering the layers  into thinness and cutting them into triangles that are rolled and twisted, pulling the ends into a crescent shape and baked.  The wondrous magic is in the texture and taste, but the real romance is in the shape itself.

A pastry shaped as a crescent with origins in Vienna became linked with the city’s rich past.and a legend was born. Why shouldn’t such a glorious food have a heroic origin?  And thus we recall the croissant as an eternal reminder celebrating the moment when western civilization, on  the verge of submission to an alien culture, pulled itself together and emerged victorious.  In 1683, at the Gates of Vienna, history was at one of those balance points. The zenith of of a 350 year unimpeded march of ottoman islam into the core of Christian Europe culminated at those gates, as the very future of european culture tremulously looked for a miracle way out.

The Ottoman Turks pushed from their homeland in Anatolia in 1299 to become the dominant caliphate of the muslim world, tied together through the culminating 16th century conquests of Suleiman the Magnificent.  From Iraq to Egypt, Algiers to Budapest, the massive empire had consumed the previous islamic caliphates and put the final nail in the remnant of imperial Rome in defeating and subjugating the Byzantine Empire, its capital Constantinople and its provinces of southeastern Europe.  The jewel of central Europe, Vienna, lay before it, and with it, the gateway into the residual Holy Roman Empire through control of the Danube waterway.  Christian Europe of 1683 was an ungodly mess, barely through the devastation of the Thirty Years War, that left its economies devastated and a third of its population dead.  The squabbling power centers were constantly in conflict with each other,  plotting to take land and riches with the first indication of weakness of a neighbor. The idea that Europe could focus mutually upon a threat as unified, powerful, sophisticated, and confident as the Ottomans seemed the stuff of wistful dreams.

The Ottomans were led by the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha, a general in charge of an estimated 130,000 troops against grim city walls and a local Hapsburg Austrian force of an estimated 15000 led by an opposing general grandly named in hapsburgian fashion, Ernst Rüdiger Graf von Starhemberg.  Consistent with their desire to subjugate when possible rather than destroy captured value, Mustafa settled into a strangulating siege of the city, blocking all sources of food progressively starving the inhabitants.  The rings of siege were moved ever closer to the walls with tunnels dug to allow placement of explosive at the walls to take them down. From such facts the legend grew that the bakers of the city, first to rise in the night to prepare the bread of the diminishing food supply, heard the tunneling actions and warned the city guards sufficiently in time to prevent a breach of the wall.

Heroic bakers were not going to be enough to turn back the irresistible Islamists.  It would take a Polish King named Jan III Sobieski.  Sobieski, the leader of one of Europe’s largest states, the Polish Lithuanian Confederation, did not sit back when the threat presented at his southern flank.  He gathered his army led by Europe’s greatest heavy cavalry, the Hussars, and sought the cooperation of the multitude of less virtuous leaders that stood between him and Vienna. The Hapsburg , Holy Roman , and French royals had to not only resist combatting his effort but additionally underwrite its enormous expense.  Hordes that had invaded Europe had a way of focusing their attention, however, and having a King willing to fight when all others were fatigued by war was a godsend.  On September 12, 1683, the Ottomans determined to have it out and settle the issue.  The battle was vicious and extended with the outcome in doubt, until twilight when, out of the Viennese woods, Sobieski came into the late afternoon sun, and smashed into the Turkish flank.  In the largest recorded cavalry charge, 18000 Polish Hussars crushed in the Ottoman flank and the rout was on.  The victory became total, Vienna was saved, and the defeated Mustafa Pasha met the end of defeated islamic generals, a silk cord garrotment of the neck by his own troops.

The city was said to have celebrated by commemorating the victory by having its hero bakers who had played their role in blunting the Turks prepare a pastry.  It was a baked good that would be shaped into a crescent to forever more remind all of the victory against the soldiers of islam, led by their crescent symbol.  The wondrous victory would always be associated wtih the wondrous pastry, and the romantic origin of the croissant was identified.

Except of course, that not how the croissant originated.  It would be an additional two hundred years before anybody would determine a recipe for the fantastic pastry we recognize  today.  No matter.  The glory of the croissant resonates with us, even if the story told is a wonderful myth. Me? I like my myths, with coffee, thanks.

In no other part of the world does a mix of history, romantic legend, factors of geology, and a curious genetic quality for maximizing quality of life come together as it does in France.  Though fitted with spectacular alpine peaks and thousands of kilometers of picturesque seascape, it is the center core of less spectacular landscape that carries the real mystique.  The temperate part of the planet is full of nondescript rolling hills and rock outcroppings, but leave it to the French to create from a querky ridge of metamorphic limestone known as the Cote de ‘Or, a wonderful tapestry of heroes, stories, legends and magnificent wines that make the region of the Bourgogne famous the world over.  The tapestry is of Roman proconsuls and barbarian kings, the bones of pilgrimage and Benedictine monks, engineers and future French presidents, even rampaging wolves, and they all have their story, but perhaps it can be simplified in saying at a base level they all came for the grapes.  Those special grapes of Pinot and Chardonnay that reach their zenith on the limestone bluffs beyond the towns of Chablis, Chambertin, Beaune, and Nuits St Georges make for some of the greatest wine in the world, and bring us to look in wonder at the characters that were drawn by their allure.

The first recorded burgundian wine interloper happened to write an excellent travelogue of his experiences, and from which we draw our first acknowledgement of the region.  Our author was none other than Gaius Julius Caesar, who in his epic Commentaries on the Gallic Wars introduces us to our first local hero, Vercingetorix, leader of the local tribes of Gaul.  The Gaul of Roman times was already known for its wine crop when Caesar decided to make his mark in history(and expand his bank account) by subduing the tribes of Gaul.  Vercingetorix was more noble than barbarian, but for the haunty Romans, apparently a man much in need of subjugation. Vercingetorix as heroes go was not exactly a humane figure, but rather crafty and violent Celtic leader of the Avernii tribe that fought Caesar to a draw on several occasions before meeting his final defeat at Alesia just outside the modern burgundian town of Alise Sainte-Reine,  in 52 BC .  There was no doubt much burgundian wine consumed by Caesar and his legions as the brought the captured Vercingetorix back to Rome for public humiliation, imprisonment, and in due time, death by strangulation.  To the locals of Burgundy who still see themselves as Aedui, the original inhabitants of the Cote de ‘Or, Vercingetorix is the triumphant hero of the region, and perhaps the first historical French resistor.

The Romans having finally successfully subdued the Celts, converted the celtic lands into the Roman Provence of Gaulus Lungdenesis, and contributed to the agricultural development of the wine crop with high demand for drink, excellent ramrod straight roads like the Via Agrippa for transport of goods, and relative peace.  Nothing lasts forever and that was certainly true of Pax Romana.  Half a century later and it was the “barbarians” that returned the favor on Rome, sacking it, it making wine once again a local product.   It was left to the successor to Roman empire building, the administration of the Christian church, to bring the area back to prominence as a nursery for leaders.  the Benedictines founded one of their great abbeys in Vezelay, and wine is a tonic for all great meditation.  The town became a mecca for pilgrims who sought to begin their great pilgrimage on the way of Saint James, and to get close to the bones of Mary Magdelene herself, said to be housed as relics in the cathedral at Vezelay.  The fact that this was only one of several churches holding the so called remains of Mary, required Pope Stephan IX in 1058 to declare the Vezelay relics as the genuine article, making the little town in Burgundy a center for visitors from all over Europe.  The popularity made the local dukes very rich and very powerful, and the Dukes of Burgundy, ruling from Dijon, became important rivals of the House of Valois for the French throne, stopped only by their lack of fecundity leaving the Duchy without an heir, absorbed in the fifteenth century into the greater kingdom of France. The house of Valois had their Bordeaux and Loire valley wines but nothing quite like the chardonnay and pinot of the Burgundians, thus completing the greatness of the French Kingdom.

As Paris progressively became the center of French power and prestige, the homeland of Vercingetorix concentrated on exploiting the the encarpment of limestone but still occasionally contributed to French civilization with great engineers like Gustave Eiffel, Dominique Denon, developer of the Louvre Museum, and Francois Mitterand, mayor of Chateau Chinon (Ville) , parttime Vichi collaborator and French resistor, and later, President of France.  Well, maybe I should have stopped with Denon, as Mitterand was not a Burgundy native and definitely not Aedui.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the little towns of Burgundy take full advantage of the unique terrior and create some world famous vintages of their special grapes, bringing the Pinot Noir of Gevrey Chambertin and Nuits St Georges and the Chablis of Les Preuses and Blanchot, and the Chardonnays of Montrachet to the pinnacle of world prominence and wine excellence.  I had the occasion to drink a young 2009 Gevrey Chambertin last night, full of flavor to the point of being slightly tart, but already showing the finesse known for burgundy Pinot Noir.  It set off the lamb chop rosemary sweetness perfectly and made me go home and order some more as well as a few Nuits St Georges for my more economical nights of relaxation.

And so with all the history we’ve reviewed, where do the drunken wolves come in?  Well, World War II legend has it that the war made the towns and chateaus of Burgundy  so devoid of people that food was scarce and the wine crops undefended, resulting in hungry wolves from the countryside forests seeking any food they could find feasting on the fermenting grapes, and sauntered into the towns drunk . Laying around burgundian  towns drunk without a care in the world, they met their maker, as the horrified town residents found their presence, drunk and docile as they were, unacceptable.  To this day, one can understand, that there is little sympathy and consolation for those who would drink and travel, regardless of the context.  Loving the Gevrey Chambertin as I did, and wolfishly devouring the bottle, I made sure to have someone else drive me home, so as not to meet the fate of those poor drunken wolves, and miss out the next time I experienced the greatness of the wines of Burgundy.

     The holiday season was made for re-connecting with the family and engorging on great food.  I am lucky to have a mother who is a fabulous cook and upon the occasion of holiday, I get to sit back and experience great culinary events.  Thanksgiving is as traditional as they come in food selection, celebrating the seasonal turn and culmination of the harvest, but my mother is not limited to the traditional.  For this Thanksgiving, the fare of celebration was not fowl nor ham, but rather – Beef Wellington.  Definitely a menu item ‘against the grain’.  Regardless, the dish is certainly celebratory, and has a celebratory origin.  Beef Wellington, a filet of beef braised with a pate’ of mushrooms and meat, and encased in pastry, bespeaks a richness in both taste and history.  The creation has been linked to Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and indirectly savors the victory of the defender of anglo-saxon civilization against the monolithic and aggressive French dictator Napoleon.  In fitting fashion for reflecting  such a place in history, it just happens to be delicious as well.

     Our erstwhile hero the Duke of Wellington may have had, in actuality, nothing to do with the dish attributed to him.  Most culinary experts tie the origin to permutations of the french filet de boeuf en crote’, with the connection to Wellington his love of Madeira wine, beef, and truffles. The more romantic connection is the heroic nature of the meal and the namesake.  Achieving the synthesis of a perfectly temperatured filet, maintaining its succulence, and preventing the pastry from turning into a soggy mess is no mean feat.  These are cooking logistics that would make a genius logistician like Arthur Wellesley quite proud. Crowned with fresh asparagus spears tendered in chicken stock, cauliflower, and mashed potatoes, the centerpiece becomes elevated to a delicious, rather elegant plane.

     The great man befitting such a dish was born in Ireland in 1769 to noble birth, but it was not until he entered the army that a hint of the man that was to come made an appearance.  He entered at the lowly station of ensign, but his connections lead to rapid advancement, when it became apparent that a once drifting youth proved to be premier leader of men.  Wellesley found his footing in the battles the British Empire fought in subduing the subcontinent of India, specifically in the actions against the Sultan of Mysore, Tipu Sultan.  The young soldier led men to victories in the battles of Mallavelly and Seringapatam against the Sultan that secured British influence over the southern Indian land mass. He continued his success in further campaigns against the powerful and larger Maratha Empire highlighted by the violent battle of Assaye, in which his personal bravery, coolness under fire, and willingness to be in the midst of battle endeared him to his troops.  His rank swelled with the victories and he achieved the rank of general by the time he left India in 1804. 

     He returned to Britain to enter politics, but the threat to the realm presented by the brilliant French general Bonaparte through his military domination of the continent would dominate the next decade of his life.  The land mass of Europe was Napoleon’s running experiment in new battle tactics in massed forces, logistics, use of cavalry and artillery.  Wellesley’s specific personality trait of patient battle development and assurance of favorable conditions made him a worthy opponent, and progressively, a threat to Napoleon’s dream of world dominance.  Wellesley’s reputation was assured in his contribution to the destruction of the French flank in the Peninsula Wars for Spain and Portugal, and helped lead to Napolean’s first abdication and eventual confinement on Elba in 1813.  The battle of Salamanca, freeing Madrid from French forces, and subsequently the crushing of the residual French redoubts at Vitoria, resulted in the retreat of the French army led by Field Marshal Soult and the elevation of Wellesley to Field Marshal status himself, and appointment by the King as 1st Duke of Wellington. 

     The momentous escape by Napoleon from Elba and the rapid return to power had all Europe shuddering. An allied force of northern Europeans and British was rapidly assembled, and Napoleon saw the need to sweep out of France into Belgium to destroy the alliance and return France to its dominant position.  The battle was met in the town of Ligny, and a momentary victory was achieved by Napoleon against the Prussian forces led by General Blucher, resulting in the retreat of the allied armies to a ridge just outside the town of Waterloo.  On June 18th, 1815, Napoleon set forth to destroy the Prussians and then the British sequentially.  The titanic battle fought among several hundred thousand troops has become known as one of the pivotal battles in history.  The many layered strategy of  Napoleon this time found his equal in craft and strategy in Wellington.  the typical French maneuver of overwhelming directed force this time ran into Wellington’s willingness to hold, draw in, and ambush. The chaos of battle, so often in the favor of the superbly trained and experienced French troops, proved all consuming and brought to bear Wellington’s carefully manged reserves and counter thrusts.  The result was a crushing French defeat, and Napoleon’s final abdication four days later.

     The battle for Waterloo against one of history’s greatest military tacticians brought Wellington the status of international hero, a label he would wear through the rest of his 83 years.  It served him through a brief interlude as Prime Minister of England, and as Commander in Chief of the Forces for the rest of his life.

     The occasion of his state funeral in 1852 was a level of non- royal adoration that would be known only to Lord Nelson and Winston Churchill.  The 1st Duke of Wellington secured his position in history as the stone that broke the sword of Napoleon, and as such is worthy of the greatness of the culinary preparation perhaps inappropriately named for him.  it is apropo that the selected dessert to climax such a magnificient meal is the multi-layered creme filled cake, the mille-feuille, otherwise known as – the Napoleon.