What do deep-fried atrocities have in common with truffles?
March 11, 2016 10:40 AM   Subscribe

Do you get nostalgic for the days when the tag "barely legal food porn" was applied with discretion to things more interesting than burgers with 1000 slices of cheese? Well, yearn no more; after more than 5 years' hiatus François-Xavier is once more updating the incomparable FXcuisine.com

Previously and more previously mentioned with great affection, FXcuisine is a food blog which simply comprises stories about memorable food, written with exceeding wit and accompanied by excellent photos. If it's new to you, you have an enviable treat in store delving back...

Some highlights from the archive include:

How I bought President Mobutu's very own brandy stash ... he who can resist buying a colorful deposed African dictator's booze and sofas cheaper than at Ikeas can cast the first stone.

The Road to Hell is paved with Truffles My Parmesan-White Truffle sauce's hit-me-back flavor turned me into a truffle-hunting pig worthy of a glutton in Hieronymus Bosch's Hell.

Duck Tour d'Argent An antique, spectacular, barbaric and sophisticated recipe you need to see at least once in your life.

Swiss Vacherin cheese makers ... living heroes ... the artisans who labor day and night to milk the milk of the gods and transform it into the best cheese on earth.

Mother-in-Law Blanquette de Veau An old-fashioned, elegant slow-cooked French classic that will convince even the most hardened battle axe that you are fit for their child.
posted by protorp (25 comments total) 39 users marked this as a favorite
 
One of those blogs I never gave up on, I audibly squee'd when I saw a new post on here. So much wonderfulness on FXcuisine.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 10:52 AM on March 11, 2016


I didn't realize how much I was lacking the image of chestnut flour flowing from a wooden scoop in my life. Thank you.

Also, I love "then season with rose water... ... just a drop will do" accompanied by an image of a hearty pour of rose water into the ricotta.
posted by carrioncomfort at 10:59 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Frati della Strettissima Osservanza della chiesa del Slow Food
posted by jedicus at 11:07 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Bookmarked!
But the page-changes are frustrating
posted by mumimor at 11:14 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oooh, nice! I've dimly remembered what he did to this Stilton cheese, but have never remembered enough details to Google it.
posted by Harald74 at 11:19 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm partial to the red currants hand-seeded with a goose quill and the roasted boar in a giant castle fireplace episodes for truly spectacular and somewhat insane stories but I've yet to read one of his posts and later regret it.
posted by jetlagaddict at 11:28 AM on March 11, 2016


*reads the author's bio*

*checks out the recipes*

So a crazy rich guy living in a chalet on the shore of Lake Geneva and obsessed with theatrically good food ... I feel like I've stumbled onto Hannibal Lecter's saner RL cousin.
posted by aperturescientist at 11:31 AM on March 11, 2016 [14 favorites]


I feel like I've stumbled onto Hannibal Lecter's saner RL cousin.

For the moment.
posted by maxsparber at 11:34 AM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


Some of his older recipes/articles are really well worth going back to. I sort of didn't like his videos or the things he wrote about cooking at the crazy castle—his personality doesn't come through as well. Go back six or seven pages and just start reading at random. He's a great writer.
posted by kenko at 11:36 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


You can't say a kadish for a wild boar, so we all thanked him for lending his young flesh to flatter our jaded palates and moved him out into the courtyard.

Well, you can't say that he doesn't have a certain élan.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:43 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


This person is living my best life so do I find themand eat them or how does this work?
posted by The Whelk at 11:44 AM on March 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


Oh shit it's this guy! I saved a beef daube recipe of his a long time ago, purely because I loved the writing style and pictures so much.
posted by agress at 12:42 PM on March 11, 2016


Here's the beef daub! It's ine of my favorite go to French stews cause it uses everything you should have already in* and is so, so satisfying.

*maybe not the calf foot
posted by The Whelk at 12:55 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


I adore the (mostly) unspoken or (nearly) dismissed assumptions about what's required to accomplish many of this recipes. The "roast leg of lamb with a string" suggested the following:

• Climb onto your roof and attach a string to the top of your chimney.
• Lower the string down into the fireplace and climb down from the roof.
• Light and tend to the fire until it's going well, somehow without lighting the bare piece of string on fire, requiring you to start again from scratch after the fireplace has cooled back down.
• Splice the string attached to the lamb to the string hanging down into the fireplace without setting yourself on fire.
• Arrange for the hanging string from the chimney to somehow be precisely 12 inches from the fire.
• Tend the fire and lamb meticulously for 3 hours, keeping the fire at a constant temperature and the lamb in constant motion (but not too fast!!)
• Safely cut the lamb roast off of the string without dropping it (or yourself) into the fire.
• Enjoy!
posted by WaylandSmith at 12:56 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]


jetlagaddict: "I'm partial to the red currants hand-seeded with a goose quill"

Well this is pretty great: "Alfred Hitchcock, the British dietician, was so fond of it that French hotels placed this gooseberry jam on their breakfast menu to attract him and his crew"
posted by boo_radley at 2:14 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


So a crazy rich guy living in a chalet on the shore of Lake Geneva and obsessed with theatrically good food

That sounds like a marvellous life goal, with wiggle room on the "rich" and "chalet" parts. I used to half-jokingly predict my twilight years would consist of lounging around as a fat, old jazz drummer, but this seems like a better idea.

Many thanks protorp, this post is going to make my weekend!
posted by iffthen at 2:39 PM on March 11, 2016


Incidentally, I'd like to see some more "barley legal food porn." Time to end the hegemony of the Wheatists.
posted by iffthen at 2:40 PM on March 11, 2016


Jesus Christ, y'all, I had things I needed to do this weekend.

*pours big glass of wine, ignores sink full of dishes and makings for dinner nachos sitting out on the counter*
posted by Lyn Never at 5:43 PM on March 11, 2016


So, you need something to show that you are made of the marble out of which statues are sculpted, not toilet seat enamel

I love this guy. I also had things I needed to do this weekend but what were they....
posted by iffthen at 6:59 PM on March 11, 2016


I want to be him when I grow up
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:57 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


You can't say a kadish for a wild boar, so we all thanked him for lending his young flesh to flatter our jaded palates and moved him out into the courtyard.

I wonder why not. Because it's not human or because it's treyf?
posted by sourwookie at 7:59 PM on March 11, 2016


The redcurrant jam one pleased me, as I didn't realize that redcurrant and gooseberries, which grow in gardens everywhere around here is someone's idea of a delicacy. The redcurrants end up in jelly as he implies in the text, though, because who has got the time to deseed them?
posted by Harald74 at 10:53 PM on March 11, 2016


Guys got a tandoor. I want a tandoor.
posted by valkane at 5:31 AM on March 12, 2016


This is the man who made me think very seriously for several years about becoming a cheesemaker. The result is yes, although I have a few more years of saving until I buy my land in the North Carolina Piedmont and begin building my goat herd.
posted by notquitemaryann at 5:54 AM on March 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


"Guys got a tandoor. I want a tandoor"

Me too. And I've seen various instructions to make one yourself on various sites, doesn't even look too hard to do. I'm totally doing this as soon as the snow finishes melting.
posted by coust at 10:12 AM on March 13, 2016


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