Apropos
this post, Mom & I got talking French cooking terms, and she pulled out
The Gold Cook Book, given her by a favorite aunt when she was a child. It's by one Louis P. de Gouy, or "Louie the Gooey" as she then styled him. The recipes are accompanied by charming explanations of their origins, such as this for Crabs Benedictine:
The story goes that the monks in some monastery of the Benedictine order in France discovered in the course of their meditations and experiments on refinements of the calm pleasures of the refectory, that crabs as well as chickens might be milk fed, and since that happy day full many a tender young crustacean has been torn from its seaweed bed, to be drowned luxuriously in rich custard or eggnog sauce as a prelude to immolation on the gridiron.
The ancient recipe of the brothers of the black cowl prescribes a bath of milk and eggs for the selected young soft-shell crabs that are to be treated in the Benedictine manner. The crabs are washed, but not dressed or killed, and then they are placed in a deep bowl and immersed in a rich mixture of beaten eggs and milk, and left to enjoy or lament their peculiar fate for at least three hours. If the bowl is full and the victim lively, a heavy cover should be provided to guard against a break for liberty.
Or sometimes by philosophy, such as this instruction:
DO NOT rush egg cooking. Eggs are like some people --rush them and they get tough. Cook eggs slowly.
