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A shallow testament to her drug culture fame was provided
by
the
1968 Peter Sellers film,
I Love You, Alice
B. Toklas. There however, an interesting 1996 biographical film, Gertrude Stein and a
Companion, with Marian Seldes
as Alice. More memorable is the reference to Toklas and Stein in both the
stage and film versions of
Mame. In a lyric of the song
Bosom Buddies, Vera Charles declares: "But sweetie, I'll always be
Alice Toklas if you'll be Gertrude Stein." Gertrude preferred writing and
engaging her coterie of writer, artists, and other friends in spirited
discussions. Alice preferred to stay in the background and served as her
cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer.
They both loved traveling and good food. Alice began
collecting recipes primarily from provincial French restaurants that
eventually were included in The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook which was
one of the best selling cookbooks of the 1950's and has never gone out of
print, due in part for her hashish fudge recipe.
It
was an unusual book at the time, combining remembrances of her travels
with Gertrude and the recipes from many of the restaurants at which they
ate. One of Alice's and Gertrude's favorite restaurants was the Hotel
Bourgeois near Belley, France. Alice became a close friend of the chef,
Madame Marie Bourgeois, who was twice decorated as the best chef in France.
It was from Madame Bourgeois that Alice learned so much about French cooking
and it was her recipes that became the foundation for Alice's popular
memoir/cookbook.
Here is an example of
Alice's evocative introduction to her recipe for Morilles a la creme:
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"We were seduced at once
by
the little town, the hotel and the forest.
We
not
only ordered lunch but engaged rooms to spend the night. While waiting for
lunch to be cooked, we walked in the forest where Gertrude Stein, who had a
good nose for mushrooms, found quantities of them. A cook would be able to
tell us if they were edible. once more a woman was present in the
kitchen. She smiled when she saw what Gertrude Stein brought for her
inspection and pointed to a large basket of them
on
the
kitchen table, but said she would use those Gertrude Stein had found. for
what she was preparing for our lunch"
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Thee following recipe is an adaptation of Alice's recipe, since it is a
very popular provincial French dish which is prepared differently
by
every
French cook. Alice's recipe calls for morels which are mushrooms with
convoluted spongy caps resembling a honeycomb. Morels range in color
including
black (Morchella angusticeps), yellow (Morchella
esculenta), and white (Morchella
deliciosa), and in size
from two to five inches, although the giant yellow morel called can grow up to twelve
inches. Black morels are considered to be the most delicious of the
mushrooms and in Scandinavian countries, they are known as "the truffles
of the north".
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Morels are generally considered to be the most delicious of all mushrooms,
but are often difficult to obtain fresh because of their short harvesting
period beginning at the and of April and lasting only through the early May,
depending on the species, and variables such as air
temperature, ground temperature and rain levels. Some species last for only a few days while others
may last about two weeks. Morels are usually found growing in warm, moist
places near dying or dead elm
trees, as well as near sycamore, birch, and other hardwood trees, and
occasionally in old apple orchards
Dried morels are available in specialty food shops. |
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