Les Foodingues

Cuttlefish pronounced with the Provence accent, soupions, is already an invitation to feast, a descrete call to pleasure… fenel, garlic, coriander, le basil, a little raw ham … but above all, olives, belly down, are such in a hurry to be there first, that they arrive all broken down “cassée” we say here…

Yes, there is one time in the year, when the olive tree, gives the best of itself, the fresher, the more vivid ; when its fruit is the most ferm and cast the more green aromas. Now or nether. September, October, November, it is the right time to stray in the Alpilles, around les Baux de Provence, to pick the big plumpy green Grossane. The more you pick them, the more they will make you fall.

The Alpilles… Mr Seguin and his goat… a refuge for Florentine conjurators, away from the Medicis revenge; Nostradamus used to live here : “the day the world will come to its end water will rise up to the stele of the Mas de la Dame”…  The Mas de la Dame right in the center of les Baux, THE delicious organic WINE along with its’ perfect olives…

In Provence in the old times, the midwife used to recieve the new born in her arms oined with olive oil and then would dip him in a bath of red wine…

This fantasy could be at the origin of today’s recipe : born in oil, redished in wine…

Prepare the olives, finely cut with garlic and fenel… fry in the wok with olive oil and salt, some celery leaves chopped to their bare element, swiftly, easy.

Horace, in his frugalous moments, was mad about them, Martial used them as the best side meal for drinking. They could ennoble even a duck :

Today it is the turn of two little cuttlefish, who did not asked anything to anybody, but they merit… the wok, same thing, swiftly al dente. You dress them on your dish. Fill them with the cooked olives from head to the jarettière, which is easy to find as there are eight legs in an octopus.

In Béarn, we used to call the little balls, “oulibètes”, little olives. The lady soothsayers of the temple of Mylitta used to suck so well the olives to their bones, displaying the most delicate skills in front of men holding their breath to discover their future. Mylitta was the Aphrodite of the Great Hore of Babylon. It was the duty of each lady from the good society to go there and prositute herself, once a year. Mylitta, pleasures for the mouth; Mylitta, the birth of militants ?

Calm down, give the raw ham a heat in the wok; when crispy, a sip of sweet red wine, “Mas Amiel” from Maury. Remember: born in the oil, redished in the wine. A little coriandre will conclude the prophecy with delicacy.

The olive is the “flower of Joy” in the Sonnet of the asshole from Verlaine the Poet :

” It is the gaping olive with the cuddling flute,
The tube in which descend the celestial pralin,
A womanly Chanaan burst in a clammy win!”

In reality, olives are less mouth irritations, than tactile pleasures : “Gracious olives polished with fingers to become a dove or a marine conch : green, so many, so pure tits of nature…” Thank you Pablo Neruda : the important is to given them always a virgin, cold and prime pressure.

A Greek, a Roman, never likes them too mature. The “omphacine” is the secret of longevity, the viscous juice from the green olives, harsh and fresh. You oint the athletes before the Games with it. Honey inside, sourgreen outside, the winner recieves the oil from Athena and the crown from the olive tree, the “Akeratos” tree, the “one with no horns”, the eternal being.

It was the smell of the olive oil on the body, which used to differenciate the slave from the free man, divine sweat, dew of living gold. It is called “fruttato” oil in Italy, the “S’Olivariu” of Cesare Samugheo from Cuglieri in Sardigna, still vibrant and bitchy, as a revenge from being picked too early. In Mallorca, it is the mythic DAURO cropped only from trees older than 200 years, just after the September rains which tamed them and convinced them to uncover unbelievable ranges of subtleness. But pinacle of fantasy, until now, one would think that the olive was jumping from green to black on Newton’s colour spector… At Dauro’s the olives are cropped when they reach the colour of flesh.

Treasure of life, treasure of flesh, when the sea encounters the mountains, the soothsayer orders to cheer with the wine Stèle Blanc 2008 from the Mas de la Dame…… still waiting for the water to come. TRINK…

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