Pot au Feu Recipe

Of Human Bondage and Pot au Feu.

Of Human Bondage? Sorry, not as fun as it sounds. Somerset Maugham's masterwork "Of Human Bondage" Yet another book that starts out “head-in-the-oven” slow, following the life of the protagonist as he matures from an idiotic, coddled, club-footed child into a disturbed, co-dependent club-footed adult.

We start off with young Phillip (Again with the Phil?) who is an orphan, because it’s the nineteenth century. He goes to live with a cold unfeeling minister uncle, and an aunt that wants to be nurturing but really just can’t figure out how (how very English). There are a few chapters about nothing really. Some chapters about boarding school with some really fruity overtones. He gets all worked up because G@d won’t cure his club foot. He does, however, excel academically. Phil then decides he wants to go study in Germany. Good L@rd, why!?! I mean, was the English food not bad enough? Did he hate Poland with a burning zeal? His uncle and teacher are dead set against it, because they want him to fruit it up at Oxford. But, if I remember correctly, it was actually his aunt that convinced them to let him go. However, I could have just made that up.

Phillip buggers off to Germany, and learns German and how to drink beer. Lives in a boarding house with a bunch of really horrible people. There is some stuff about racism (Duh, its GERMANY? Hello? Have you not been listening for the past 70 years?), and a sad sack of poetry that is really quite atrocious. Eventually he decides that he doesn’t have to follow the Church of England, and becomes agnostic or something. Eventually he goes back to his uncle’s house, all edjumacated, and has an affair with a woman twice his age. Right on dude! Score! Then, because she is an emotionally scarred Lifetime movie all to herself, she falls in love with our fruit cup of a hero. Then she has to sod off to Germany (again with the Krauts?), but writes him long soggy love letters, which eventually he stops even trying to pretend to care about.

His uncle decides that enough is enough and gets him apprenticed to be a chartered accountant! No! I am not pulling your chain. These are dark, hellish days indeed for Philip. One of his managers, or what have you, takes him on a little outing to Paris. It’s like Vegas, baby!

Now our little hedonistic hero gets a wild hair up something, pulls his head out of the oven, and decides to become an artist and live a Bohemian lifestyle in Paris. He manages Bohemian so far as it is defined, but the artist bit? Not so much.

So off again to Paris to join one of the many pointless grotty art schools that cropped up all over the place in the late 19^th century (anywhere there was a skylight and a couple of loose tarts willing to lounge around stark nekkers in front of a bunch of pervy, absinthe drinking, pipe smoking, artist wannabes).

Somewhere in the Paris section there is a floor seated dinner party with a roast and some carrots. There may have been turnips or potatoes. Ah ha, you will see where I am going with this a little later on.

Here the book gets about as good as it’s going to get. He meets Miss Price, who is a poor (as in skint, not as in unfortunate or hapless), talentless artist with really bad hygiene problems, at the same fetid art school. I mean REALLY talentless. There are things lurking around at the bottom of ponds that have more talent. She seems to like Phillip a great deal. However, he does not reciprocate those feelings. There is a great scene with an omelet around about this part. (I like food in books. I like books in food. I have a smashing recipe for a shredded newspaper soufflé).

Eventually she significantly reduces the stench of nineteenth century Paris (a great feat indeed) by killing herself. Whereupon our hero realizes while settling her affairs, that he really did not know her at all. Awww, sad. I think I cried at this point, but that could have been Styrofoam cup of wine number six of Chateau Cheveaux Aisselle de Marins in a box.

His aunt then dies, which is rather thoughtless of her. Yet again Philip-the-pillock goes back to his uncle’s place realizing that he is just marginally better at art than a slug is at calculating velocity as a function of time for constant acceleration.

Then there is some more bits that are boring. Finally he decided to follow his late father’s career and become a doctor. It’s the nineteenth century, it’s just that easy. Well, he does have to go to medical school for a couple of years. Our club-footed protagonist finally falls in love with some tart who works at some tea shop. Though true to the story’s, by now, predictable nature, she couldn’t care less about him, but pretends to like him when he can take her out to see low base comedies at the Music Hall n’stuff. She then tells him to sod off, because some guy is going to pay her to shack up with him, although I think she uses the word “marry”.

Philip decides to drown his sorrows by getting a leg-over with some hack writer named Norah (Roberts anyone?). Somewhere in here the waitress girl shows up knocked up, and very much not married. He takes care of her, and then she runs off with one of his friends. (Told you she was a tart.)

After sometime has passed Phil runs into the waitress again and she is now a hooker (getting PAID to be a tart). He takes her and the baby in. Well, at sometime he takes the baby in. It could have been the time before. I don’t remember. She works as a maid for him because, now that she is a ruined woman, Fruity-Mc-Fruiterson doesn’t want to have anything to do with her.

Eventually she gets all hosed off about something and destroys his possessions (not the stuff, man!). There is some dialogue. Something about one of the pictures that he drew of someone with no clothes on. Oh yeah! SHE is the one taking a moral tone? Miss “Two Shillings in the back alley guv’?” Then something about a chair? Eh! Whatever! Not important. What is important is the waitress goes bitch-cakes and demolishes his residence.

In or about this part of the book he meets the Athelny’s (Don’t ask me how to pronounce that. I have tried and failed just like Phillip!) there is a bit more about food here. He goes over to their squalid dump for dinner every Sunday. Thorpe Athelny seems to think of himself as some sort of philosopher, though a lazy one (Is there any other kind?). Philip loses what money he has on the stock market or a stock pot, or stocks in pot? Phil then ends up pulling a scene straight out of “Confessions of an Opium Eater”; wandering aimlessly around London for a few days. The Athelnys take Fruitcake-the-wonder-boy in. His uncle dies. So yay! He finally has enough money to finish medical school! Double plus yay! Maybe now I can get out of this rather uninventive bondage that is this book! It’s time to chew through the straps! No such luck, but it does start happening rather quickly from here on in. Almost as if Maugham was just as sick and tired of the book as I was and tacked on an unlikely ending. Boom! Phil finished Med school. Boom! Goes on Holiday with The Anthenys at the seaside. Boom! Thinks he knocked up their daughter. Boom! Decides to marry Thorpe Anthely’s daughter, Sally. Boom! They all live happily ever after.

I am not kidding. That is how fast the last part of the book goes. I feel like my eyes have been molested by the words they were forced to read.

Well here is the Pot au Feu I referred to above in the Paris Section of the book. Sort of a French Yankee Pot Roast with a better background.

This is a dish not often found in French restaurants being more of a home-style meal, though made less often these days than in the past due to the rapid rise of convenience foods.

This is the way my mother’s French friends used to make it when I was a kid, they had it a least once a week.

Ingredients:

4 Pounds of beef rump roast

2 Turnips whole

4 Large Carrots cleaned and cut into two large pieces

2 Stalks of Celery

4-6 Leeks trimmed white part only left whole.

One onion stuck with one clove

1-2 Cloves of garlic

½ Tsp of thyme

1 Bay leaf

¼ Tsp of whole peppercorns

4½ Quarts of water OR

3½ Quarts of water and 4 cups of beef broth or stock

Method:

Take a very large pot and place the beef in it, cover with the water or the water and broth bring quickly to a boil and then reduce temperature and simmer for 2 hours. As skuzzy scummy scum rises to the top (Like politicians) skim it off using a large spoon or skimmer. Then add the vegetables and seasoning, cover and simmer over low heat for 1 ½ hours. Continue to remove any scummy scum.

Remove the beef and place on a platter to carve at the table, or let rest five minutes and slice very thin. Remove the vegetables and cut into smaller pieces, place vegetables around beef on platter. (I place platter in the warm oven where the bread has been drying covered with foil. Strain the broth through a fine strainer into a clean sauce pan and return to the heat.

Take some think slices of bread and dry them in an oven. (You can toast them in a pinch, but it is not the same) preheat oven to 250 and place bread directly on the oven rack, cook for 20 minutes or so till they feel very crisp. Top these with shredded Gruyere, Swiss, Mozzarella or Parmesan cheese, place one in each soup bowl and ladle over the very hot soup , serve immediately. This is optional, but you should serve hot bread with the soup for those that can eat it.

Serve the beef and vegetables as a main course accompanied by boiled new potatoes.

What to do with the leftovers?

Petite Marmite:

This can be done with leftovers from any pot roast or oven roasted dinner.

The Petite Marmite Leftover style

Technically the Petite Marmite is a dish in and of itself. So if you want to start from scratch, follow the exact recipe for pot au feu, up to the serving part, then continue with the method here.

For this recipe we are going to assume that you have already made a pot roast or pot au feu the day before.

Leftover beef

Leftover vegetables

Leftover broth or new broth or stock

Cut the beef into cubes, cut the vegetables into small dice, or some small portion suitable to their shape. Place into individual casseroles and top with hot broth. Top with a thick toasted slice of French bread and sprinkle thickly with Swiss cheese. Broil for 2-3 minutes serve immediately sprinkled with parsley.

I have actually seen petite marmite on menus in France; however they are never as good as homemade from fresh made or leftover pot au feu.