Tuna omelette "à la Brillat-Savarin"

The philosophy of the culinary art

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) is one of the world's most famous gastronomic critics. His best known work was The Physiology of Taste, published in 1825, a few months before his death. On publication, his contemporaries proclaimed him a genius and ranked this work on a level with De la Rochefoucauld's Maxims and La Bruyère's Characters.

He envisaged the art of eating as a philosophy. He is the author of a large number of aphorisms, one of the most famous of which is the following: a dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye.

Period Recipe

For 6 people, take 2 milts of a carp, wash them well and blanche them for five minutes in slightly salted, boiling water. Take a piece of fresh tuna about the size of a chicken's egg and add to it a small very finely chopped shallot. Chop up the milt and the tuna together, mix well and then put the mixture in a saucepan with just the right amount of top-quality butter. Place over a medium flame and sauté until the butter has melted. Take a second piece of butter and roll it in chopped parsley and chives. Place it in the fish-shaped plate in which you are to present the omelette; squeeze some lemon juice over it and place it on some warm coals. Then beat 12 eggs (the freshest are best); add the sauté of milt and tuna and mix the omelette in the usual way; make sure that [when it is cooked] it is long in form, thick and runny on the inside. Neatly place the omelette on the plate prepared for it and serve immediately. Bon appétit!  Henriette Parienté, Geneviève de Ternant, La Fabuleuse histoire de la cuisine française, Paris: Éditions ODIL, 1981, p. 276

Bon appetit

 

Type of Recipe

savoury

Serves

6