MONEY FOR NOTHING
Philippe started to become vehement about his passion for hunting with a bow and arrow. “If the arrow pierces the heart the animal dies instantly without any shock nor pain, with a bullet it is impossible...the meat does not taste the same”
Jean-Marc launches from the terrace carrying Philppe’s leg of venison cooked in the wood stove with garlic, juniper and rosemary. This is a wild animal killed with passion and patience, it tastes like the food our dear ancestors would eat on a feast day.
Why did we change the world and forget about flavour and taste?
How did we confuse god-dollar worship with conviviality and quality?
The exquisite Sunday lunch under the oak tree stretched on through the summer afternoon. The pan-fried duck liver with plum vinegar, the deep red Madiran wine which married the venison like a match made in heaven, ... then the creamy cinnamon Teurgoule cooked overnight in the wood stove arrived, the children played in the pool, there was laughter and tears.
All those around the table felt almost privileged to be there, the excellent food and the good company all added up to one of those special memories that stay with you for a long time.
Except Charles Kloch, who acknowledged somehow that the food was quite good but he really couldn’t care less. He had come to this part of France and to the little country inn run by his acquaintance Jean-Marc, with a quest - he wanted to make kosher foie gras, the local duck liver delicacy. His plan was to patent the process in the US and elsewhere and sell the patent to Israel for a lot of money.
Now he realised that he was witnessing something bigger and a greater opportunity was staring him in the face. The concept was simple: create a range of pseudo gourmet food, give it a European sounding brand name, and sell it at a very expensive, added-value price, to stupid Americans who will buy anything providing the marketing is done well.
Kloch thought that his idea was just brilliant. He could sell poor quality food with a huge profit margin, he could provide the American nouveau-riche with fake designer gourmet meals, and, best of all, when the scam finally came out into the open, Kloch would be very rich from a few years of making huge profits and the outraged public would hold some weird half-French innkeeper responsible. Kloch started to work out the scheme in his head, “the jewish duck liver can wait” he thought.
“Why don’t you do cookery courses?” Kloch asked Jean-Marc, “your recipes are fantastic, I myself would love to learn how to make some of your dishes.”
All those around the table found the idea excellent. Philippe exclaimed “the French just don’t know how to cook with spices like you, they just know about harissa and couscous, you could be very successful with such a world cuisine concept.”
Kloch registered the remark, maybe the market for his future gourmet brand could stretch beyond the confines of North America. “Yes”, he thought, “Captain Marco’s Designer Foods, Inc. has a good sound to it.”
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