Coquilles St. Jacques
October 20, 2004
My mother claims that Coquilles St. Jacques is one of her favourite meals. She’ll never eat it again. That doesn’t make a lot of sense at first, but give it some thought. It turns out that once, when she was much younger than today, she was in France on holiday and had Coquilles St. Jacques in a restaurant. It was delicious. Though she has had it a few times since then, nothing has been able to live up to her expectations and memory of that experience. Consequently, in order to preserve the memory of the perfect meal, she has sworn off all scallops in the manner of Jack!
That’s a bold move. I’m not sure I could be so strong. To give up something that you love in order to preserve it in your memory forever takes fortitude. I love my dog dearly, but could never give her up in order to keep her perfectly in my mind. I know she will misbehave in the future. I know she will cause my heart to break someday, but I still couldn’t give her up today. Perhaps that is an unfair comparison. Let’s keep it in the food world… chocolate, for instance. I love chocolate (so does my Mum, for that matter). When I was young I was a non-discriminating chocolate eater. Anything would do. I went through phases of chocolate bars – Coffee Crisp, Kit Kat, Twix, Flake –always having a current “best bar”. I would even snack on semi-sweet chocolate chips. Mine was the only house I knew where the chocolate chips were stored in a tin, rather than in the pre-packaged plastic bag, in order for there to be easier and less conspicuous access to a handful of chips should my mother or I find ourselves in need of a chocolate fix. As I grew older, my need for chocolate remained strong, but my taste developed and I became more selective in my choice of chocolate snacks – Valrhona, Scharfenberger, Callebaut, Joseph Schmidt. Indeed, today I would rather go without than settle for a substandard chocolate, and anything less than the best is substandard for me now.
So, chocolate then… I love chocolate, but could I give it up? Could I enjoy the perfect piece of chocolate, and then say good bye to the delicacy altogether? I don’t think so. I think instead I would always be on the search for the next perfect chocolate experience, risking disappointment. It wouldn’t be easy. I’d have to eat a lot of chocolate on the way to finding perfection, but I would persevere and hunt down the perfect sampling, or die trying. (It’s sounding better and better, come to think of it.) Would my quest for the best ruin chocolate for me as a whole? Well, I think there is that risk. Sometimes the best remedy to obsession is to indulge that obsession until it becomes routine, redundant, even revolting! My brother experienced that during his first year at university. Having been seriously restricted by my parents with respect to his intake of Coca-Cola at home, he arrived at university and indulged himself with the beverage at every meal – yes, including breakfast. A Coke here, a Coke there, a Coke everywhere. Soon the beverage that had been so special at home that it required a report card of straight A’s to permit consumption at dinnertime became nothing special. My brother quenched his obsession with over-indulgence. Perhaps the same thing would happen to me with chocolate should I embark on my hunt for chocolate perfection. I would have so much chocolate that it would become unexciting.
Did Mum realize that she risked losing Coquilles St. Jacques forever should she attempt to repeat the meal? Did she see how close she was to the edge, having risked a few other samplings of her favourite dish? She pulled herself from the ledge just in time. She saved her food soul from the Devil, snatching it out of reach at the last moment – quite heroic really. It must have taken great strength and a great food love. Some of us are just not so strong – or perhaps we’ve just never had those Coquilles St. Jacques.