Rossini really wanted to be a chef

Press, 11 October 1988, Page 16

Rossini really wanted to be a chef

Food & Fable

by

David Burton

Although he was the leading composer of Italian opera last century, Gioacchino Rossini had his priorities right regarding food.

“Madame,” he once told the diva Adelina Patti, “I have cried only twice in my life; once when I dropped a wing of truffled chicken into Lake Como, and once when for the first time I heard you sing.”

When the owner of his favourite grocery store asked him for a signed photograph, Rossini addressed it: “To my stomach’s best friend.” “The stomach,” he once wrote, “is the conductor who rules the grand orchestra of our passions. An empty stomach is to me like a bassoon which growls with, discontent or a piccolo flute which expresses its desire in shrill tones. A full stomach, on the other hand, is the triangle of pleasure, or the drum of joy. To eat, to love, to sing, to digest — these are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera we call life. Whoever let it pass without having enjoyed them is a consummate ass.” He often claimed the only reason he never became a chef was that his

education as a boy had been so bad.

“How boring fame is,” he once said to a friend. “The pork butchers are happy fellows.” His friend replied he should have been one. "Of course, I would have liked that,” said Rossini, “but as a youth I was so ill-advised.”

Food imagery occasionally entered his compositions, as in his 56 Semicomic Pieces for the Piano, which includes “The Four Appetiser” —- radishes, anchovies, pickles, and butter.

One of his famous melodies occurred to him in the kitchen. The day before his opera “Tancredi” was to open in Venice, the leading lady criticised the first aria she was to sing. Ruminating over this back home as his servant was frying rice under his supervision, Rossini received the inspiration for a replacement aria, “Di tanti palpit,” subsequently known as the aria di rizzi — the rice aria.

When the inhabitants of his native Pesaro announced they were going to erect a statue of him, he replied they would have made him far happier had they presented

him with several kilos of mortadella sausage, or a fat duck or a goose.

He once wrote to a friend: “What is going to interest you much more than my opera is the discovery I have just made of a new salad [dressing] for which I hasten to send you the recipe. Take Provence oil, French vinegar, a little lemon juice, pepper and salt. Whisk and mix altogether. Then throw in a few truffles, which you have taken care to cut into tiny pieces. The truffles give to this seasoning a kind of nimbus to plunge the gourmet into an ecstasy.” Besides truffles, Rossini’s other great love was foie gras. Indeed, these are key ingredients of the

many dishes in classic French cuisine named after him.

For example, Poularde a la Rossini, created by Escoffier, consists of roast chicken stuffed with foie gras and truffles, served with a sauce made from brown veal stock. Tournedos Rossini, the most famous of all dishes named in honour of the gourmet composer, is claimed by Sacheverell Sitwell to have been invented at the Antico Pappagallo in Bologna, but it is more reliably attributed to Escoffier.

However, not wishing to let the facts get in the way of a good story, here is another (distinctly spurious) version of its creation.

Rossini, it is said, was

sitting in his favourite table in the Cafe Anglais in Paris. Declaring he was tired of every beef dish on the menu, he asked the maitre d’ to fry a crosscut of a fillet of beef in butter and place it on top of a round of fried bread, topping it with a slice of foie gras, again topped with a slice of truffle.

"Never would I dare to offer such a thing, it is unpresentable,” protested the startled maitre d’.

“Well, then arrange not to let it be seen,” answered Rossini.

The dish was served and became an instant hit. However, it was always prepared behind the diner’s back, hence the name in French: tourne le dos — turn one’s back. Or so we are told.

True to his Italian birth, Rossini was tremendously fond of pasta, and spent a great deal of money trying to invent a machine capable of making macaroni.

On one occasion he was sitting at dinner next to a crashing bore who said he was sure Rossini would remember him, since he had been at a party held in his honour where a

grand macaroni pie was served.

Rossini squinted at this man and replied, "I’m afraid I don’t remember you, but I certainly remember the pie.” In his notes for the Metropolitan Opera production of “The Barber of Seville,” Herbert Kupferberg wrote: “One day in the late 1850 s when Gioacchino Rossini, who by then was a Parisian social lion, wit, and gourmet, was out marketing, he rebuked a shopkeeper for trying to sell him Genoese pasta when he had asked for Neapolitan. “Later, when the crestfallen merchant discovered who his customer had been, he said ‘Rossini? I don’t know him, but if he knows his music as well as he knows his macaroni, he must write some beautiful stuff.’ Rossini afterwards remarked that this was one of the greatest compliments he had ever received, and there is no reason to doubt that he meant it.” One of his favourite pasta dishes was Cappeletti in brodo (stuffed parcels of pasta served in broth), Perhaps he might also have appreciated this recipe of mine.

Pasta with Mushrooms Wipe the caps of 200 g button mushrooms and cut each into quarters. Melt 2T butter in a large frypan and saute the mushrooms. After a minute add 2 cloves crushed garlic. When the mushrooms have exuded their juice, transfer them to a bowl and set aside. Return the frypan to the heat, turn it down to low and pour in 1 cup dry white wine (cask wine is fine). Crumble in 1 foilwrapped wedge of blue vein cheese, and simmer the mixture over a low heat, mashing it with a wooden spoon from time to time, until the cheese melts and liaises with the wine. Meanwhile, roast 70g (a small packet) raw cashews in a hot oven until very lightly browned, and boil 250 g (half a packet) of pasta “sea shells.” When the pasta is nearly ready, return the mushrooms to the pan and reheat in the sauce. Toss the sauce with the cooked pasta, sprinkle over the cashews, and serve. This dish is very filling, and should provide a meal for three if accompanied by a simple salad