آشپزی می‌تواند یک مدیوم هنری باشد. طعم‌ها می‌توانند یادآور چیزهای مختلفی باشند. مثلاً به این تکه از در جستجوی زمان از دست رفته مارسل پروست نگاه کنید:

… She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called ‘petites madeleines,’ which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim’s shell. And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?

I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing its magic. It is plain that the object of my quest, the truth, lies not in the cup but in myself. The tea has called up in me, but does not itself understand, and can only repeat indefinitely with a gradual loss of strength, the same testimony; which I, too, cannot interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call upon the tea for it again and to find it there presently, intact and at my disposal, for my final enlightenment. I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for it to discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders; when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day.

می‌بینید یک طعم چه به روزگار آدم می‌آورد؟ آن چه این انیمیشن در پی آن است همین ذهنیت فرانسوی نسبت به آشپزی است. سرآشپز گوستو شعار معروفی دارد که می‌گوید:”همه می‌توانند آشپزی کنند” اگو منتقد غذا پس ازخوردن راتاتوی دستپخت رمی می‌نویسد:

در گذشته به راحتی شعار معروف سرآشپز گوستو رو به سخره می گرفتم “هرکسی می تواند غذا بپزد” ولی الان میدونم که واقعا معنی حرفش رو نفهمیده بودم هرکسی نمی تونه یه هنرمند بزرگ بشه ولی یه هنرمند بزرگ می تونه از هرجایی باشه. نمیشه تصور کرد کسانی متواضع تر از اون نوابغی که در رستوران گوستو مشغول آشپزی هستند کسانی که به نظر نویسنده این نقد عنوانی به جز “بهترین آشپز فرانسه” شایسته اونها نیست.به زودی به “گوستیو” بر می گردم با اشتهای بیشتر.

به همه توصیه می‌کنم این انیمیشن زیبا را ببینند. شاید یکی از همین شب‌ها خارج وقت اداری شد و توانستیم جلسه نقد این فیلم را برگزار کنیم. و حتماً گزارشش را خواهیم داد.

پ.ن:

راتاتوی یک پیش غذای فرانسوی است شبیه یتیمچه خودمان. اگر چه من دوست ندارمش ولی در پست بعدی حتماً دستور طبخش را برای دوستان می‌نویسم.