On the Consequences of Dishonesty in Pastry
Time is a man of honor, an old Italian proverb tells us; he always tells the truth. Why persist in lying, then, when fraud is always discovered sooner or later, heaping ridicule and shame upon its perpetrator?
When it comes to food, it is all the more important to be truthful; to represent a dish as an artist’s creation, when, in fact, it is the work of some miserable hack, is not only to impugn a reputation but to utterly compromise one’s own good faith and integrity.
And that is just what happened on an estate outside Paris, on Sunday, July 30, 1809, at a belated name day celebration for a lady whose patron is Saint Anne.
One guest, wishing to do right by Madame A.—the mistress of the house, who is known for her unwavering generosity—brought a very handsome pâté that he attributed to Monsieur Le Sage.
On hearing this revered name, all the guests turned their attention to the item at the end of the table and impatiently awaited its opening.
The pâté was beautiful to behold, but as soon as the crust was lifted, we saw from the vast barrenness of its interior that it could not have come from Le Sage, whose pâtés are always generously filled and, what is more, garnished with the golden veal aspic that is his signature.
This one, purporting to be a pâté of Bayonne ham, offered only an indigestible mixture of dried-out country ham and leathery strips of veal; the crust and forcemeat were no better.
We cried with indignation that no such pâté could have come from Monsieur Le Sage’s establishment, but the gift-bearer, a magistrate by profession, repeated with such certainty that it did—and, moreover, that he had bought it himself—that we had to believe him, especially since he was a man of the law.
Nevertheless, we had our doubts, for a dishonest magistrate is a likelier thing than an ignoble pastry signed Le Sage, who has the valor of thirty honest men.
And so we wrote to him the very next day, relating all that had happened and providing the address of the gift-bearer, who lived not far from him. Monsieur Le Sage, accompanied by Monsieur Proton, his son-in-law, immediately made his way over there, and the magistrate was surprised in his study by two be-aproned artisans, armed with kitchen knives, looking quite enraged and altogether unlike his usual callers.
An explanation followed, the result of which was to reveal that the pâté had been purchased from a pâtissier, whom we will not name, but will identify as a purveyor of the lowest order, worthy at most of serving the district of rue du Cygne, rue de la Réale and rue du Montdétour.
Monsieur Le Sage compelled the gift-bearer to write a retraction, which was delivered to us that day with a plea for discretion, and to pay for his crime by visiting his shop to eat the genuine article—which he has yet to do.
We leave our readers to consider the consequences of such a deception, noting that this account is of the utmost truthfulness, and that the documents of evidence remain in our hands.