Proust and the pressure cooker

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The mind works in a mysterious way at times.

I had been reading a history of science in the seventeenth century and came across mention of Denis Papin, one time employee of the Royal Society and originator of, among other things, the 'steam digester' or pressure cooker.
Among the 'other things', by the by, is a paddle steamer, in which in 1707 he travelled on the River Fulda at Cassel until the local watermen had it seized by the authorities as a threat to their monopoly of traffic on the river.

In 1700, Thomas Savery, another associate of the Royal Society, had proposed a like vessel to the English Navy Board, who had a similar mindset to the watermen of Fulda.
Their response was reported to be
'What have interloping people, that have no concern with us, to do to...contrive or invent things for us?'
You have to hand it to the seventeenth century for the sharp set down.

But back to Denis Papin.
While pressure cookers hold no allure for me....youthful memories of mother blowing up a tin of steak and kidney pie having kept me at a safe distance from the brutes....Monsieur Papin is another steam digester of fish.

After the student years of exploring France by train (here), I had advanced to ownership of a car and on my first subsequent trip to France, I had decided to visit the Loire Valley.
Inconveniently placed in the centre of France, it was never an easy stop over on the night trains upon which I had depended to avoid having to take a hotel for the night, so, newly independent, the Loire Valley it was.


I drove down without incident through one of those golden autumn days when the leaves are just starting to fall and arrived in the late afternoon at Blois only to find that every hotel known to the tourist office was booked for some convention or other.
Gloomily heading out of town, thwarted, I saw a bar and pulled in for a coffee, fortifying myself for a trek to somewhere I didn't want to be going to.
But the bar had rooms....clean, even if the smoke from the bar did seep up through the floorboards by about ten o'clock...and there was a dining room at the back where I had one of the best meals that I have ever eaten in France, before or since.
I was saved.

The next morning I set out on foot, crossing the bridge across the Loire in the pearly light that seduced me then and has delighted me ever since, a soft luminescence which casts an enchantment on the buildings and countryside the whole length of the river.
I wanted to visit the chateau, but it was too early, so I walked through the town centre, up the interminable flights of steps and round corners, until I came upon the statue of Denis Papin.
I walked on, I walked round, and  wherever I went I would turn a corner only to find........Monsieur Papin.

I visited the chateau.....redolent of the murders and conspiracies of the Wars of Religion

I drove out into the countryside....I found the Chateau de Talcy, where Ronsard's Cassandre lived ...she of
'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose..'
The other side of the same culture...the age of the poets of the Pleiade.

I travelled through the lakes and woodlands of the Sologne, across to the medieval donjon of Loches and up again to Amboise, where the bodies of murdered protestants were hung upside down from the battlements in the St. Bartholemew's Day Massacre while the young Mary Queen of Scots looked on.

I had gone to visit historical sites and instead fell in love with an area...the small towns, the cliff dwellings, the white stone walls around the vineyards, but,above all, the light of the Loire Valley.

For Proust, the sensation of the madeleine dipped into lime flower tisane...
For me, the unexpected encounter with Denis Papin, bringing back a sudden, vivid memory of my first visit to an area where I would eventually come to spend some twenty years of my life.

Welcome guests

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Now that we and our friends are older, visitors could come all the year round, rather than having to crowd everything into the school holidays, but old habits die hard. A number now have their own full time or holiday homes in France, so the visits are for a day rather than for a week or two, but there is still an influx in July and August which fills the house to overflowing on occasions. I look forward to it....we live a rather solitary life for a number of reasons, and it is good to have congenial company, catch up on the family news, see the photographs of the new arrivals and have the chance to meet the partners of the young entry. Goodness only knows what these partners make of us, but they are generally too busy entwining with their particular member of the young entry to take much notice of anything. I prefer them to do this in the shrubbery rather than under my feet in the kitchen and they are normally kind enough to indulge my whim.



Having company makes me realise how set I have become in my ways...without their visits I think I risk becoming an automaton, my day's course set in stone from dawn to beyond dusk. Thanks to their influence, I can throw my cap over the windmill and go out for the day for a picnic without feeling obliged to combine it with a shopping trip to get best use of the petrol. I can sit on the terrace with a holiday book that someone has brought without thinking that I should be organising the lunch....because the welcome guests treat my house as their own and are doing the organising themselves! It's great to go shopping together, buying something that I would not normally cook as it doesn't figure highly on the list of preferences of the man in my life....with the numbers involved, two or three different dishes can be served, so everyone is happy. I like to cook for numbers...you can try things that don't work for two...and it is lovely when the guests take over and do their own thing...including the washing up! I may never be able to find the zester again, but it's not the end of the world. We have had incidents that have become part of our folklore....Mr. Spaghetti, you know who you are....and the summer influx brings the house and ourselves to life.



While whipping in the guests to go out for the day is a nightmare, it is only so because I am hard wired to get out before the shops and chateaux close for the lunchbreak and the markets wind up on the dot of one o'clock. The guests are not infected with this obsession and will happily pause for lunch in places that would normally have me getting back in the car and driving to the nearest supermarket for a loaf and some cheese. Thanks to them, I have found some delightful spots...and a great many that figure in the list of 'the worst places I have ever eaten in'. The andouillette in Chinon lingers still in all its aromatic horror. As does the half defrosted steak....as does the place with waiters lifting domes from plates like a synchronised swimming team to reveal the flower arrangement masquerading as food beneath.
The lunch break drives me wild when I am out for the day...I have had shop assistants rushing to shut the doors against me at five minutes to twelve, just in case they could not close down their tills on the dot of noon, so sacred is the two hour pause. The guests are unmoved. To them, this is France. To me, it is France, but we seem to have a different take on the fact. They are on holiday, determined to enjoy themselves, and I should take a lesson from their attitude which would help my blood pressure when dealing with the lunacy and obduracy of French beaurocracy, the complacent incompetence of French commerce and the manners the French don't have.
It doesn't matter...the idiots are only running themselves into the ground....smile and pass on.
I can manage this in theory...but not in practice! One more artisan francais who calls me 'ma chere dame' while trying to con me that he knows about what he is proposing to charge me a fortune to mess up and the blood pressure is back up in the stratosphere.

Still, it is the holiday period, the beaurocrats are solemnly counting their thirty five hours on the beach, and the welcome guests are here, so it's time to indulge in pleasure. The man in my life will be doing his impression of Rommel, standing on the terrace with binoculars directing the picking of herbs and vegetables for supper, someone will not be able to pull the plug on the jacuzzi, and we will all be going to Blois for the nicest chateau in France and lunch in the surprisingly formal dining room behind one of the scruffiest caffs on the road south therefrom.

Thank you, the welcome guests. You enrich our lives and we hope you will continue to visit the two old cranks for as long as your cars can make it.