During the recent heat wave, I spent a lazy afternoon on the couch with the fan pointed at me while I perused the July 1955 issue of Woman’s Home Companion. I was looking for the article featuring Lilly Daché’s “Secrets of Lifelong Glamour,”1 when I stumbled across these words and sat straight up:
Like most Frenchmen, Balmain appreciates good food and takes a great interest in his own table. In the warm summer days ahead you might like to try his “Vent Vert” salad. Here is the recipe he gave me—if you can’t get some of the ingredients, you can eliminate or substitute as you choose.
It was from Margaret Thompson Biddle’s column, “Companion in Paris.” "Vent Vert" salad clearly borrowed its name from Balmain Vent Vert fragrance. Here’s the recipe:
“Vent Vert” Salad
Cut young romaine into pieces to make 1 quart. Add 1 cup each of diced celery, chopped endive, thinly sliced green pepper and about 8 asparagus tips cut in half. If available you may add some leaves of corn salad, sometimes called lamb’s-quarters. Add 1 tablespoon Beaufort cheese (you may substitute Swiss cheese) cut into thin strips. For the dressing combine 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar and two tablespoons walnut oil (you may substitute olive of salad oil); season with salt and black pepper. Toss with greens until lightly coated with oil. Serve in large salad bowl and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of chopped walnuts.
Well! I emailed the recipe to Robin right away, and she pointed out that Alice B. Toklas included the recipe in her cookbook. That made sense. Gertrude Stein and Pierre Balmain were old friends. Stein even sat in the front row at Balmain’s first fashion show in 1945. (During the show, one of his models walked the runway with Balmain’s Airedale, Sandra, who chose that moment to pick a fight with Stein’s Poodle, Basket.)
I hustled to the bookshelf and pulled out my battered paperback copy of The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book. There it was, in the “Recipes from Friends” section, written with more demanding detail than Biddle's recipe:
“Vent Vert” Salad
Cut in small right angles, not omitting the stalks, the hearts of young romaine salads. Add celery, endives, sweet green peppers and asparagus tips, a quarter of the volume of the romaine salad for each of these last ingredients. Add to this some leaves of corn salad from which the stalks have been removed to make little perfect ovals and about 1 tablespoon per person of Beaufort cheese, Savoyard cheese of the Gruyère type cut into thin matches.
Prepare a salad sauce with salt, Indo-China pepper, white-wine vinegar and walnut oil (1 tablespoon vinegar to 2 tablespoons walnut oil). Carefully peel 2 fresh walnuts per person, cut them into very small pieces and sprinkle on the salad, which is to be served in a green unbaked earthenware salad bowl.
But wait! There's more. Alice included a recipe for Vent Vert Chicken, which she insisted accompany the salad:
“Vent Vert” Chicken
Choose young chickens of about 1 lb. each (2 chickens for 3 people). Carve them uncooked as if they were cooked (legs, wings and breast—put the carcass and the giblets aside). Make a strong bouillon seasoned with thyme, laurel, cloves, onions, celery salt and Indo-Chinese pepper.
Half an hour before serving, sauté in butter over low heat for and ½ hour the pieces of chicken, with salt and pepper. To serve place on a silver dish. Pour the prepared bouillon with a dash of brandy into the casserole. Stir to incorporate the glaze into the sauce. Then add a large handful of chopped fresh tarragon and let it come to the boil. Cover the pieces of chicken, placed on the silver dish, with this tarragon sauce. Fresh cream may be added according to taste. (Personally I prefer the chicken without cream.)
Now you know what I did Saturday night. Don't tell Alice, but I had to make a few substitutions. For the salad, mâche (corn salad) is out of season here, so I couldn't make "perfect little ovals," darn it. Beaufort cheese also comes — and sells out — in the spring at my favorite cheese shop, so I used Comté, instead. I pressed my dinner guest into service cutting "small right angles" of romaine and matchsticks of cheese and green bell pepper and beheading asparagus. And, sadly, I don't have an unglazed green earthenware bowl and had to settle for a blue one.
For the chicken, I quickly learned you can't get one-pound birds unless you're in a position to slaughter your own pullets, so I settled for thighs and legs from pastured hens from a local family farm. For the bouillon, I pulled some homemade chicken stock from the freezer, then let it simmer with bay leaves, clove, thyme, and onion for an hour before making the chicken. Alice said she preferred the dish without cream, so I skipped it.
Verdict? It was delicious! Besides all the chopping,the trip to the liquor store for brandy, and bouillon simmering time, it was a relatively fast dinner to pull together, too. The butter the chicken cooked in browned, adding a terrific nutty flavor that complemented the salad. I'll be making salad dressing with walnut oil all summer now.
As we sat down to eat (anointed with vintage Vent Vert Extrait, of course), I squinted and imagined my spotted mutt was a poodle, a Picasso hung on the wall, and the front garden was the summer-warmed French countryside. We cleaned our plates.
1. More on this in a future post, I hope. Lily Daché, a famous milliner, married an executive at Coty and had firm opinions about perfume.
What great recipes – with a lovely history! I will certainly try these – pity I have no vintage Vent Vert Extrait (sigh) to make it perfect but I do have a fairly old EdT that will have to do…… We are having extreme South of France style weather here in London – which is nearly killing me – so it’s salads or nothing.
The EdT sounds perfect for the weather you’re having, and so do salads. Something about a steamy summer day in London sounds very romantic, though!
Angela that was awesome! I will have to try it this weekend.
Any recipes for Lamb ala Opium or Veal Obsession ??
I hope you have better luck tracking down mache than I did. Longing for those “perfect little ovals,” I went to three stores. I thought that surely I could at least find something in a bag from California, but no. It was good, anyway, though.
And “Veal Obsession”! That’s hilarious.
I’d love a taste of Veal Obsession!
Maybe I’ll make some Kale Obsession over the weekend…
Amazing!
Those 2 recipes are going strait to my weekend list.
Now I also have a reason to hunt down Vent Vert! (As if I ever needed a reason to buy more frags)
I read Balmain’s autobiography, and I was surprised by how little he seemed to care about the fragrances that bore his name. So it’s nice to see he named a salad and chicken dish after Vent Vert. (I guess naming a dish Jolie Madame is kind of macabre.)
Oh how fun! I’d love a post along these same lines now and then.
Perhaps your readers could make up fragrance-inspired recipes and share them?
Now off to enjoy some Vent Vert …mine is the modern version, but it’s a nice one for the heat.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! It’s Vent Vert weather here, too (although I started out the day with Mythique and have on Iris 39 now).
I honour all that attention to detail even if I cannot observe it myself. It really goes to show how much work women used to put into cooking. AND the level of knowledge they routinely had – I would simply buy chicken pieces ready cut rather than attempt to cut the chicken myself. Nevertheless, if women now have the chance to put that level of skill and dedication into rewarding and fulfilling jobs or careers, I’m not complaining.
Isn’t Alice’s recipe a joy to read – ‘Cut in small right angles, not omitting the stalks, the hearts of young romaine salads.’ Beautiful sentence, almost edible in itself.
I thought exactly the same thing about the romaine squares! I made myself a salad for lunch today and enjoyed cutting careful shapes for a change rather than tossing a bunch of ragged bits together. The rest of the cookbook is a great read, too.
A wonderful post, Angie. If you had only invited me I would have brought over one of MY favorite Alice B recipes…her shortbread made with corn meal to shich I add a sherry-sugar glaze. I could have even borrowed a poodle for the occasion! HA!
I would have loved to have–and your shortbread–here! And, of course, dogs are always welcome. I’m rereading the cookbook now, and I’ll put a marker on the shortbread recipe.
Thanks for the story! I have that cookbook, too, but I haven’t read it since I started getting interested in perfumes. I will have to go back and reread that part
I hadn’t read the cookbook in years, but reading the Vent Vert recipes reminded me of how wonderful it is, and now it’s by my bed for a few pages (at least) every night.
Oooh, I love this, what a delightful post! Have you read The Book of Salt? Seeing Stein and Toklas mentioned I think I’ll have to read it again.
I’ve seen The Book of Salt around, but I haven’t read it yet. It’s good, huh? I’ll have to hunt it down.
Great post Angela! I love new/old recipes. I have more cookbooks than perfume bottle I think. I especially love reading old cookbooks I’ve collected from mom and other family members. I also love that there was a poodle in the story.
I love cookbooks, too! As for the poodle, if you google “gertrude stein basket balmain” you’ll find a gorgeous old photo by Horst of Gertrude Stein and her poodle looking at a model in a Balmain ball gown.
What a great photo.
I like it, too. So many great contrasts.
Great summer post! I’ve always meant to get that cookbook. I’m off to at least add it to my Amazon wish list.
It’s a good read. You can even skip the recipes while reading it and feel like you’ve dipped into someone’s fascinating life.
Such a fun post! I will definitely be trying this recipe – I will probably use boneless, skinless chicken thighs – my preferred versatile “go to” chicken. Unfortunately, I don’t have any Vent Vert perfume to accompany the meal with.
The thigh is probably my favorite meat on a chicken. You can stew them with practically anything. I do like the skin, though!
I loved this post! Robin’s food knowledge must be encyclopedic! Plus, any woman who has a well-worn copy of Alice B. Toklas’ cookbook demands respect in my book. Looks delicious, Angela! I can’t wait to try it myself. Thank you for the recipe, the history, and the write-up!
I’m glad you enjoyed it! I have to admit that the reason my copy is so beat-up is because I bought it used. I only read it through once, but it’s getting another thorough reading right now.
A delightful discovery, Angela. Thanks for bringing us a summer menu with such appeal.
The Alice B. Toklas cookbook is a terrific read. Highly recommended!
What a hoot, Angela! I love the “Vent Vert” recipes that you found, and Balmain Vent Vert is one of my absolute favorite perfumes. I’m lucky to have a small bit of the extrait and a HUGE bottle of the vintage edt. In fact, I need to pull that edt out soon here — it’s so perfect for summer. Thanks for sharing this; it’s a great post! I love what one can find in vintage magazines.
I adore vintage magazines, too, and am always on the lookout for them, no matter how tattered. Enjoy that Vent Vert!