Left to right: Dagny’s secretary Agnes, Dagny, Tinky, and Eric in Paris
With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, I am thinking of chocolate .. and specifically of my mother’s recipe for Chocolate Mousse.
“Mousse” means “frothy” or “foamy,” apt words for this airy dessert. Many sources credit the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec with inventing it. Alas, according to “Food Republic,” recipes for Chocolate Mousse were published long before he whipped it up for his Bohemian friends in Paris. Still, he did make it.
My own association with Chocolate Mousse relates to another artist who lived in France, the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890).
I have consumed (and even prepared) many amazing meals over the years. Among the most memorable of these was a luncheon in Auvers-sur-Oise in France when I was 19.
Auvers is about an hour outside of Paris, the city in which I was helping my godmother Dagny, her nephew Eric, and a host of colorful characters mount a summer film festival. Dagny, who was a paraplegic, lived in Florida but spent several months each year in Paris. She wanted to make sure she could get wherever she needed to go; the metro was far from accessible to someone on crutches. She consequently shipped her red Ford to France each time she visited.
One day she decided to drive Eric and me to Auvers. Our destination was the Auberge Ravoux, the inn in which Van Gogh spent the last two months of his life. When we visited it was known as la Maison de van Gogh (the House of van Gogh).
© Institut Van Gogh and Erik Hesmerg
The dining room was small but inviting. We sat at a corner table and ordered. My main course was Steak au Poivre (Pepper Steak). This is a classic French dish: a small steak, crusted in freshly cracked peppercorns and pan fried.
The same pan is used to make the sauce. This consists of stock, brandy or cognac (which the French warm and then light dramatically), and cream. Heaven on a plate.
The restaurant served it with Pomme Frites (French Fries), which I can usually do without. These crispy pieces of potato I adored. I then had a salad glistening with a simple vinaigrette of oil, red wine vinegar, and mustard. I can almost taste this perfect combination of foods in my mouth today.
When the waiter asked about dessert, I intended to say “non” … until I saw it. He returned to the table with a large bowl—the word “vat” comes to mind—of fluffy, chocolaty Mousse. It melted on the tongue.
After lunch, Eric and I climbed the shabby, curved wooden stairs at the Maison to see the room in which van Gogh spent the weeks before he killed himself. The room was unfurnished, illuminated by a skylight.
The publicists at the Auberge write on its website that the room has “rien à voir… mais tout à ressentir” (“nothing to see … but everything to feel”). Legend has it that the owners of the Auberge never rented it out again after the artist’s death, reluctant to have others stay in “la chambre de suicide” (the suicide room).
© Institut Van Gogh by Erik and Petra Hesmerg
In fact, Van Gogh didn’t shoot himself in the room. He pulled the trigger outdoors and made his way back to the auberge. Still, he died in his bedroom a day and a half later so I guess one could call it “la chambre de suicide.”
The room was tiny, a little more than 75 square feet in area. Apparently, van Gogh used another room at the inn to paint.
Paint he did. He averaged more than a painting a day during his time in Auvers.
Despite his productivity there, he continued to be plagued by the physical and mental ill health that had followed him for much of his life.
I often wonder why many people who are intensely artistic—painters, musicians, actors, even some writers—are mentally ill and/or engage in self-destructive behavior.
Does their artistic talent stem from their off-kilter way of seeing and feeling the world? Or does their genius render them incapable of moderation and common sense?
I will never know. Although I have some creative gifts, I am no genius. I can be sadly pedestrian.
Vincent van Gogh painted full time for only about a decade. As a young man he dabbled in a variety of professions until his younger brother Theo convinced him that he should devote his life to art … and provided the funds to keep Vincent housed and fed while he painted.
Despite the relative brevity of his artistic career, van Gogh produced an astounding body of work, one with which even most non-art students are familiar.
According to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, his last painting was a vivid, gnarly study called “Tree Roots.” In “Smithsonian,” Meilan Sooley writes, “In some ways, the painting appears to function as a goodbye.”
Tree Roots, 1890
Sooley quotes art historian Louis van Tilborgh as suggesting that “it’s van Gogh’s way of saying: ‘I have lived, just like those tree roots. I’ve done my best, I’ve struggled with life, I’ve grown, had setbacks and now is the time it ends. I am falling.’”
Van Gogh’s brother Theo arrived before the artist died and recorded Vincent’s last words: “La tristesse durera toujours.” (“The sadness will last forever.”)
For me, the flavor of Chocolate Mousse will last forever. (I told you I was pedestrian!)
Mousse at the Auberge © Institut Van Gogh/Erik Hesmerg
Mousse au Chocolat
Ingredients:
6 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) sweet butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
5 tablespoons coffee, divided (you may use water instead or use a bit of each)
4 eggs at room temperature, separated
1/2 cup superfine sugar, divided
1 pinch salt
Instructions:
In the top of a double boiler (or in a heatproof bowl over warm water) combine the chocolate, the butter, the vanilla, and 2 tablespoons of coffee. Cook the mixture over hot water, stirring, until the chocolate melts. Remove the pan from the top of the hot water, and set it aside to cool.
In another heatproof bowl combine the egg yolks, 3 tablespoons of coffee, and 1/4 cup of the sugar. Place them over the hot water and cook, whisking vigorously, until the mixture becomes uniformly frothy and lighter in color.
Remove the yolk mixture from the top of the hot water, and whisk it for another minute or so. Whisk in the chocolate mixture. Allow the resulting concoction to cool for a few minutes so that it is lukewarm to the touch. (You may begin beating the egg whites while the chocolate/yolk mixture is cooling.)
Combine the egg whites and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat them until the egg whites are foamy. Sprinkle on the remaining sugar and beat the egg whites and sugar until stiff peaks form. Gently fold the whites into the chocolate mixture. (It helps to add a little bit of the whites at first, followed by the rest.)
Spoon the mousse into a serving bowl or bowls. Cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight; then serve with a little whipped cream. Serves 8.
