Chocolate Cream & 'Bone' Biscuits
The French Revolution did nothing to temper Grimod de la Reynière’s sense of humour. In 1813 the gastronome’s friends were saddened to receive an invitation to his funeral. Grimod’s health had been declining so his death was not a great shock. On arrival at 4pm (dinner time, an odd hour to schedule a funeral, they thought, but Grimod had been the arbiter of gastronomy in France, so perhaps it was a nod to his passion) they found a house in mourning, draped in black, with a torch-lit carriage containing a coffin parked outside.
The guests were understandably subdued as they waited for the funeral to commence. Suddenly, the servants threw open the door to an adjoining room where Grimod sat at the head of a dining table adorned with candles. ‘I know that today I will dine with my true friends!’ he exclaimed.
Once again, we don’t know what Grimod served at this funeral feast (or indeed how many of the guests stayed to enjoy it and did not walk out in disgust at his twisted joke). But Grimod’s feasts surely must have been the inspiration for the black banquet hosted by the melancholic character of Des Esseintes in Joris-Karl Huysman’s À Rebours (Against the Grain, 1884):
In the dining room, hung in black and opening on the transformed garden with its ash-powdered walks, its little pool now bordered with basalt and filled with ink, its clumps of cypresses and pines, the dinner had been served on a table draped in black, adorned with baskets of violets and scabiouses, lit by candelabra from which green flames blazed, and by chandeliers from which wax tapers flared.
To the sound of funeral marches played by a concealed orchestra, nude negresses, wearing slippers and stockings of silver cloth with patterns of tears, served the guests.
Out of black-edged plates they had drunk turtle soup and eaten Russian rye bread, ripe Turkish olives, caviar, smoked Frankfort black pudding, game with sauces that were the color of licorice and blacking, truffle gravy, chocolate cream, puddings, nectarines, grape preserves, mulberries and black-heart cherries; they had sipped, out of dark glasses, wines from Limagne, Roussillon, Tenedos, Val de Penas and Porto, and after the coffee and walnut brandy had partaken of kvas and porter and stout.
The farewell dinner to a temporarily dead virility—this was what he had written on invitation cards designed like bereavement notices.
It is from this passage that I have taken inspiration for today’s Chocolate Cream recipe which has been adapted from Charles Carter’s Complete Practical Cook (1730).
Chocolate Crea
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Ingredients (Serves 4)
300ml/10 floz single cream
¼ tsp ground mace
1 egg medium yolk
60g/2oz golden caster sugar
60g/2oz unsweetened, dark chocolate such as this one, coarsely grated or finely chopped *
1 tsp orange blossom water
¼ tsp vanilla extract (optional) **
Method
Place the cream in a saucepan with the mace. Heat to boiling point.
While the cream is heating beat the egg yolk and sugar together until pale.
Strain the hot cream over the eggs and sugar then return to the pan. Cook over a gentle heat until the mixture has thickened slightly (it should have the consistency of double cream). Remove from the heat.
Add the chocolate, orange blossom water and vanilla extract (if using) to the hot custard then stir until melted. Pour into pots and allow to cool. You can refrigerate the chocolate creams if needs be but they are best served at room temperature.
*If you can’t find 100% unsweetened cacao then you can use regular dark chocolate but ensure that it has a minimum of 70% cocoa solids and reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe.
**Carter doesn’t include vanilla in his recipe but in the eighteenth century it was not unusual for chocolate to be ground with spices like vanilla prior to being sold in blocks.
Bone Biscuits
This is adapted from a recipe by Pellegrino Artusi for Fave dei Morti (Dead Men’s Beans) from The Italian Cookbook (1949, p.439-440). His original serving suggestion for these macaroon style, almond biscuits is to form them into the shape of fava beans. He explains the beans significance as follows:
Fava beans, especially black favas, were used as a funeral offering because it was believed that they contained the souls of the dead, and were similar to the gates of Hell.
During the feast of the Lemures (Shades, ghosts of the departed) people would spit out black fava beans while beating a copper pot, to chase out of their homes, the spirits of their ancestors, the souls of the departed, and infernal deities.
Typically these bean like biscuits were made for the Day of the Dead (All Souls Day, 2 November). As life is short and the beans can take a while to form, I have suggested making them into short cylindrical shapes to resemble the bones of the dead which were also popular at this time of the year (you can find a similar recipe from Stefano at Italian Home Cooking).
Ingredients (Makes 8 ‘bones’)
100g/4oz icing/confectioner’s sugar
100g/4oz ground almonds
1 medium egg white (don’t be tempted to use a large egg white otherwise your mixture will be too wet)
A few drops of almond extract
Finely grated zest of half a small lemon
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180℃. Line a baking tray with parchment paper or a silicone liner.
Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. Stir in the ground almonds.
In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg white with a fork until it is being to froth (you are not making meringue so don’t over do it!).
Stir the almond extract and lemon zest into the egg when then add the sugar and almond mixture. Bring together into a stiff paste.
Divide the mixture into eight equal pieces. Roll each piece into a cylinder around 8cm in length. Place on the lined baking sheet. Bake in the centre of the oven for 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden. Place the biscuits on a wire rack to cool before serving.
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