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No sooner had we performed our ablutions, and changed our travelling dresses for others, than our good hostess, aided by three active young country maidens, served up a plentiful dinner, consisting of an excellent pot-au-feu, followed by fish, fowl, and flesh, sufficient to satisfy the hunger of at least four times the number of our party.
204. =Pot-au-feu.= Put into four quarts of cold water one pound of cheap lean meat, and one pound of liver whole, some bones, cut into bits, two tablespoonfuls of salt, one teaspoonful of pepper, four leeks cut in pieces, and the following vegetables whole; four carrots, four turnips, and four onions, each stuck with two cloves; boil all gently for three hours, skimming occasionally, and adding two tablespoonfuls of cold water about every half hour; take up the meat and the liver on a platter, arrange the vegetables neatly around them, and serve the broth in a tureen, with plenty of bread.
Without doubt there is a bright fire blazing on the hearth in that cosy room, and over it hangs a famous big pot, from which issue puffs of a delicious odour oh, delightful thought! round which my imagination holds high revel, and in fancy I wash down with generous wine the savoury morsels from that glorious pot-au-feu."
He bade Pache go for the water, no very hard task, as the river was but a few yards away, and Loubet, having in the meantime dug a shallow trench and lit his fire, was enabled to commence operations on his pot-au-feu, which he did by putting on the big kettle full of water and plunging into it the meat that he had previously corded together with a bit of twine, secundum artem.
The goose was even already bought. Mother Coupeau went and fetched it to let Clemence and Madame Putois feel its weight. And they uttered all kinds of exclamations; it looked such an enormous bird, with its rough skin all swelled out with yellow fat. "Before that there will be the pot-au-feu," said Gervaise, "the soup and just a small piece of boiled beef, it's always good.
Ralph sank down utterly exhausted and worn out in the settle by the fireplace; and fell into a half doze, while the woman lit a bright fire on the hearth. In a few minutes she had drawn some liquor from the pot-au-feu the soup pot which stands by the fireside of every French peasant, however poor; and into which all the odds and ends of the household are thrown.
The local museum is no less of a necessity to Jacques Bonhomme than his daily pot-au-feu, that dish of soup which, according to Michelet, engenders the national amiability. The splendid public library the determinative is used in the sense of comparison numbers just upon a volume per head, and the art school, school of music, and other institutions tell the same story.
He has no sides of smoked bacon, says the poet, hanging from his roof, but only a cheese, so to add to his meal he goes into his garden and gathers thence a number of various herbs and vegetables, which he then makes into the hotch-potch, or pot-au-feu which gives the name to the poem.
His huge form, clad in white, viewed through the open doorway connecting the dining room with the kitchen, almost conceals the great stove, but occasionally you can catch sight of the pots and pans, the casseroles of pot-au-feu, the roasting chicken, the filets of sole, all the ingredients of a dinner, cuisine bourgeoise ... and after dining, you can hear Bégué sing the Uncle-priest in Madama Butterfly at the Opera House.
The wife you need, monsieur, and she would not be long wanting to your career if you had not, with such incredible haste, accepted the first 'dot' that was offered you, the wife you should have chosen is a woman capable of understanding you, able to divine your intellect; one who could be to you a fellow-worker, an intellectual confidant, and not a mere embodiment of the 'pot-au-feu'; a woman capable of being now your secretary, but soon the wife of a deputy, a minister, an ambassador; one, in short, who could offer you her heart as a mainspring, her salon for a stage, her connections for a ladder, and who, in return for all she would give you of ardor and strength, asks only to shine beside your throne in the rays of the glory she predicts for you!"
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