Onion confit

...with memories, among others, of Simone de Beauvoir, Paris and French Onion Soup

Those were the days of Gauloises, black coffee and onion soup.  In 1957, French onion soup - nothing like the floury stuff they served at boarding school in the Welsh Marches - came in a brown earthenware bowl with little handles and a spoon that stood up by itself.  The broth, clear as a spring morning, was hot and golden and had little globules of marrow-fat that tasted of beef-shin, veal-knuckle and boeuf a la ficelle. 

The onions were soft and pillowy and sweet as honey, and came with a toasted crust with melted cheese that formed strings as long as your arm.  It was eaten at the end of a long night sometime between two and four in the morning at a table covered in chequered red oilcloth in Les Halles, the central market in the middle of Paris, where everything that mattered happened. 

 

It was usual, said my mother, for young ladies with ‘prospects’ (they didn’t last) to attend the London Season, in spite of my desire not to do any such thing.  Between boarding-school and Coming Out I was to attend Mademoiselle Anita's educational emporium, a finishing school in Paris, with the aim of acquiring a smattering of French, a modicum of sophistication - not too much, wouldn't want to frighten the horses - and a billet with four other young ladies under the care of an elderly war-widow, short-sighted and deaf as a post, who served as duenna. 

Things did not go according to plan.  Mademoiselle Anita quickly decided I was something of a trouble-maker.  And since I already spoke French (comes of a diplomatic upbringing), the Lycee would be more appropriate. 

            'Walk down the road, no running, turn left, tell them I sent you.'

            I did nothing of the sort.  I managed to find a friend (Gilles) at the Sorbonne with a Vespa (so useful), took up smoking Gitanes (chic-er than Gauloises), channelling Jeanne Moreau, drinking black coffee with lots of sugar to make up for lack of lunch and dinner.

Meanwhile, I attempted to broaden my horizons at the Sorbonne by way of Gilles and the Vespa and a useful little pass (unofficial) that let me into lectures with Jean Paul Sartre (existentialism), Simone de Beauvoir (feminism). And free copies of the satirical mag, Le Canard Enchainé, left behind on the benches, that turned out to be the blue-print for Private Eye, where I later took employment until marriage and babies, as shorthand typist and seller of the mag in Soho on the street.

Many years later, while driving down the Autoroute du Soleil from Paris, post-marriage via a job at the satirical magazine, Private Eye, in a Volkswagon Combi stuffed with nappies, babies and quarrelling toddlers, I switched on the radio and heard a familiar voice. Just what I didn’t need - Simone de B talking feminism (what else?) with philosopher Bernard-Henri Levi (Hugh Grant with a sizeable brain, in French),

Mademoiselle’s most famous aphorism - ‘One is not born a woman - one becomes one’ - floated along the airwaves. Really? Tell that to the toddlers in the back. Which led Bernard-Henri to the observation that, in his opinion, woman who don’t wear makeup are just a little vulgar. “Precisely my point, Monsieur Levy,” retorted the great woman. “We have only ourselves to blame.”

Meanwhile, my Parisien budget stretched as far as the occasional breakfast - mille-feuille, Paris-Brest - from the patisserie on the Rue Renoir, my billet, but mostly it was onion soup at dawn.  With it came red wine in a Duralex glass that stained your teeth black, took no prisoners, and ended in the obligation to faire-cabrot - the very last spoonful of la soupe a l’oignon with the very last mouthful of le vin rouge to be drunk like a billy-goat straight from the bowl. Memories, eh? 

p.s. To recall the true taste of French onion soup in Paris in 1957, become a paid subscriber (don’t I just love you!) and the recipe will shortly be on its way.

p.p.s. You'll find more of these stories in "My Life as a Wife: Love, Liquor and what to do about the Other Women". (Bloomsbury, circa 2017)). 

Many years later, while driving down the Autoroute du Soleil from Paris, post-marriage via a job at the satirical magazine, Private Eye, in a Volkswagon Combi stuffed with nappies, babies and quarrelling toddlers, I switched on the radio and heard a familiar voice. Just what I didn’t need - Simone de B talking feminism (what else?) with philosopher Bernard-Henri Levi (Hugh Grant with a sizeable brain, in French),

Mademoiselle’s most famous aphorism - ‘One is not born a woman - one becomes one’ - floated along the airwaves. Really? Tell that to the toddlers in the back. Which led Bernard-Henri to the observation that, in his opinion, woman who don’t wear makeup are just a little vulgar. “Precisely my point, Monsieur Levy,” retorted the great woman. “We have only ourselves to blame.”