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RAT - Rodent which was elevated to the rank of comestible during the seige of Paris in 1870, and which is eaten in certain regions. The flesh of well-nourished rats can be, it seems, of good quality, but sometimes with a musky taste. Rats nourished in the wine stores of the Gironde were at one time highly esteemed by the coopers, who grilled them, after having cleaned out and skinned them, on a fire of broken barrels, and seasoned them with a little oil and plenty of shallots. This dish, which was then called Cooper's Entrecôte, would be the origin of the Entrecôte à la bordelaise.
RAGEUNEAU - Parisian pastrycook described by Cyrano de Bergerac in his Voyage aux états de la lune, and again by Edmond Rostand.
A pastrycook of renown, keeping shop near the Palais, as fat as was suitable for a shopkeeper whose sign carried the words: Aux amateurs de haulte graisse, his days were spent happily, and without any occurence of note, between the supervision of his oven and the service of his clientele, which was composed of attorneys and lawyers, among who had slipped in some hungry-looking writers.
Why did he have to begin to write? History suspects one Béis - an author today completely forgotten - of having maliciously drawn him into it.
The pâtisserie of Ragueneau became a sort of academy, where the pastries and tarts served as attendance tallies. Rageuneau set himself to write a Pindaric ode, then a tragedy: Don Olibrius, l'Occiseur d'Innocents.
He neglected the oven, neglected his clients; the effect on his business was such that he felt constrained to shut up shop.
Packing up his belongings into a miserable little cart, he set off for the Midi with his wife. At Béziers he sought out Molière, to whom he offered Don Olibrius. One may guess the response of the great humorist; but out of pity he offered the ex-pastrycook a modest part as a valet in his troupe. Rageuneau was as bad an actor as he was a writer and he had to resign himself to the function of a candle-snuffer.
These functions he carried subsequently at Lyons until his death, leaving as his whole fortune a hat with holes in it and a washed-out cloak. Among his papers were found four hundred and fifty-six sonnets, eight tragedies, seven epithalamiums, four elegies, sitxty-three odes and nineteen heroic plays.
(From the inestimable Larousse Gastonomique, of course.)
RAGEUNEAU - Parisian pastrycook described by Cyrano de Bergerac in his Voyage aux états de la lune, and again by Edmond Rostand.
A pastrycook of renown, keeping shop near the Palais, as fat as was suitable for a shopkeeper whose sign carried the words: Aux amateurs de haulte graisse, his days were spent happily, and without any occurence of note, between the supervision of his oven and the service of his clientele, which was composed of attorneys and lawyers, among who had slipped in some hungry-looking writers.
Why did he have to begin to write? History suspects one Béis - an author today completely forgotten - of having maliciously drawn him into it.
The pâtisserie of Ragueneau became a sort of academy, where the pastries and tarts served as attendance tallies. Rageuneau set himself to write a Pindaric ode, then a tragedy: Don Olibrius, l'Occiseur d'Innocents.
He neglected the oven, neglected his clients; the effect on his business was such that he felt constrained to shut up shop.
Packing up his belongings into a miserable little cart, he set off for the Midi with his wife. At Béziers he sought out Molière, to whom he offered Don Olibrius. One may guess the response of the great humorist; but out of pity he offered the ex-pastrycook a modest part as a valet in his troupe. Rageuneau was as bad an actor as he was a writer and he had to resign himself to the function of a candle-snuffer.
These functions he carried subsequently at Lyons until his death, leaving as his whole fortune a hat with holes in it and a washed-out cloak. Among his papers were found four hundred and fifty-six sonnets, eight tragedies, seven epithalamiums, four elegies, sitxty-three odes and nineteen heroic plays.
(From the inestimable Larousse Gastonomique, of course.)
