Not knowing much about the personal life of famous artists, I wasn’t aware that Claude Monet was a food lover who kept a 1-hectare (2.5-acre) garden near his home in the village of Giverny, in Normandy, France. I guess I never thought about what happened to the quinces, melons, grapes and other fruit after the artist had finished painting them – they went down his throat, it seems!
Authors Aileen Bordman and Derek Fell delve into the artist’s love of food in their book Monet’s Palate Cookbook – The Artist & His Kitchen Garden at Giverny (2015). Monet wasn’t always able to indulge in fine food, the authors write in the introduction.
“Considered by many to be the father of Impressionism, Claude Monet was one of a group of avant-garde painters who rebelled against traditional concepts of artistic merit. Until the invention of photography, a work of art was judged by its realism. When artists realised that it was impossible to be more realistic than a photograph, they sought new ways of artistic expression […]
“Because this new style of painting was so different from classical art, and represented what an artist saw with his inner eye, it took a long time for the public to appreciate its value. Until his mid-40s, Monet struggled to earn a living. Only when his work began to sell to American collectors was he able to purchase his own home in Giverny and live a largely self-sufficient lifestyle.
“Almost every franc that he earned, after taking care of his family’s welfare, he would spend on the freshest ingredients for meals and improving the interior and exterior of his house. Originally a farmhouse with a cider press and called Le Pressoir, it became better known as the ‘Pink House’ for the brick dust used to colour its stucco facade.
“With the help of his second wife, Alice, his two sons and six stepchildren (four girls and two boys), he cleared the site to plant gardens. The gardens initially provided flowers for still-life paintings when the weather would not allow him to paint in the surrounding countryside, and they satisfied his craving for fresh vegetables.”Instagram cooks on the cookbooks their social media posts spawned
The book has plenty of photos of the Pink House and its gardens, giving the reader a glimpse of the artist’s life: the kitchen, with its gleaming copper pans arranged by size against the blue-and-white tiled wall, the large dining room painted in a cheerful yellow, Monet’s bedroom with its narrow bed and its walls hung with paintings by Cézanne and other artists, and outside, the lush flower beds and the peaceful, Japanese-inspired water garden.
The dishes in Monet’s Palate Cookbook are not necessarily what the artist ate, although there are a few, including the bouillabaisse that he served to Renoir when he dined at the Pink House, and Cézanne’s cod recipe.
Other recipes are by chefs such as Anne Willan, Roger Vergé, Alice Waters and Daniel Boulud, who were “inspired by Monet’s cooking journals and featured in the film Monet’s Palate”, which was created and produced by Aileen Bordman.
The recipes include melon with cured ham, mint and sweet balsamic drizzle, Cézanne’s roasted cod with fresh corn, red pepper, onion and caper salad, baked cheese-stuffed portobello mushrooms with herbed tomato sauce, Venetian-style spaghetti with roasted tomatoes, anchovies and capers, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with gruyere and herbs (Monet apparently loved Yorkshire pudding), Camembert scrambled eggs with tomato and chives topped with asparagus and morel mushroom sauté, and Normandy French apple tart.
Like what you read? Look for more food and drink in SCMP Post Magazine.ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tK%2FMqWWcp51kuqKzwLOgp52jZL2wv9NmpJqfka%2B2r7GOn6aonF2Zv6q6ymiYq6yZmLmme5JqbGpuZWp8pLvDZpqop5uasW6vxLOYp6aVqHq4rdhmpKimlanAbsXOq6KsoJmnsm681J2boqaX