An old story from our early days – written by Flechemuller. Since we love it, we publish it again, in case you didn’t read it!
It was a year ago that I met them at the river, just at the confluence of the Ardeche and the Chassezac; in their forties, a little roly-poly, fly fishing paraphenalia of the dernier cri with a local accent thick as pea soup. We fished together for a couple of hours and exchanged sandwiches (potted meat/pickels for camembert/butter). Caught up in the euphoria of the moment, I invited them to my house for dinner.
They arrived all slicked up like a couple of japanese tourists; neckties and jackets carefully coordinated and spit-polished shoes. “When you are invited to the home of an american, you must be presentable” they said. Frankly, I thought they looked a little “red-neck” without their waders, but I kept that to myself. My adorable wife played the charming hostess: “A glass of Campari or perhaps a little bourbon? But of course we have Suze!” etc.When we seated ourselves at the table my two new friends had lost their reserve. I saw that the alcohol had made it’s mark as I carried in the enormous plate of Tunisian style mussels (or for all I know, style Moroccan or Algerian; anyway the fragrance of cumin smelled mighty good).
Mussels North African style: 4 lbs of mussels (the big ones). Make a sauce of olive oil, finely chopped garlic and parsley, cumin, salt and pepper. Cook the mussels in a big pot until the open. Shell them. Keep one half of the shell, return the animal and fill it with this sublime sauce. Put all the half-shells on the barbecue until the edges start to brown. Serve hot.
Usually when I serve this feast to guests all conversation stops. The only sounds heard are the sounds of licking and Oooooohs, and AAAAAAhs! as well as: “a little more white wine please”. It’s a great moment of orgasmic pleasure!
But on this famous night our two fishermen (lets call them TOTO and CONNO to keep things simple) were oblivious to my culinary talents; so distracted were they by a subject of prime importance: TOTO extolling the strength of his Sage rod and CONNO, that of his Loomis rod. The famous mussels had as much effect on them as Italian gelati has on esquimos. Never have I known such a failure. They downed my white Cotes-du-Rhone like it was Canada Dry. I determined to be stoic, well aware that the frustration was making my blood pressure rise. Then the plat de resistance arrived at the table. It’s a marvelous recipe that my friend Stephane L. gave me: Braised Pork cheeks. The dish is not expensive but it is time consuming and absolutely sublime; it melts in your mouth and renders you philosophic and loving, brief, it’s that kind of a dish, it’s opium, and yet…
TOTO and CONNO had gone off on a fascinating discussion; the mounting of a Sumbimago Ephemeroptere fly, blah, blah, blah. “No”, said CONNO, “for the tail of this fly you have to use two strands of copper colored chinchilla!”“Absolutely not” retorted TOTO, “The grand Skue clearly says to use 3 strands of hair from a lorraine zebra! As for the body dubbing, it’s evident that it’s the hair of the Kangaroo circled with a thread of gold from the Transvaal.”
“Kangaroo my ass” spit out CONNO, “what a joke, it’s absolutely known that it’s the skin of the Dragon du Komodo. Everybody knows that!”
At that moment my wife shot me a look that clearly said: “What pains in the ass these guys are, I feel like leaving the table right now.” I responded with a light grimace that said: “Do it. Quietly go the garden and I’ll be right behind you”.
They didn’t even notice our absence, our specialists; they continued throwing out names of the most bizarre flys in existence. Us, we sat on a large rock in the garden. The night was magnificent. The stars were those you see in films, the milky way was so close you could walk on it. And little bats, gorged themselves on insects without worrying about their latin names. As it was a little chilly I hugged my wife close to me. She smelled so good. We laid down on the grass.