Aspic, by the definition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking authors Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle (1961), is "the whole decorated dish of various elements coated with or molded in jelly [Gelée]." They note that "gelée is the French culinary term for beef, veal, chicken, or fish stock which stiffens when cold because it contains natural gelatin, or because gelatin has been added to it." In essence, this means that an aspic is any edible matter suspended in a savoury jelly, which may or may not have been created through the extended soaking and rapid boiling of calves feet or cracked veal knuckles. Now, whilst I do enjoy a good knuckle cracking at the end of a long day, the thought of cracking veal knuckles, or harvesting the foot of a wee calf and reducing it to a liquid, for that matter, rubs me the wrong way. But i do enjoy sour worms, which I presume contain some form of gelatin and therefore, are probably derived from the same methods. Hmmm... this was an unexpected ethical twist. Let's save that one for another rainy day. Today, I wish to report back on my first (and most likely, last) aspic experience, which took place in the German metropolis, Frankfurt-am-Main (named after the Main River, pronounced 'Mine').
View of the Frankfurt cityscape and Main River from Maintower (200m)
Often to the great entertainment of my family and close friends, I exhibit nonsensical behaviours, characterised by what I like to describe as a heightened sense of cuiriosity.
Exemplar 1: Age 2 1/2; swallows a smooth precious stone after being warned not to touch the precious stone.
Exemplar 2: Age 14; Protrudes tongue, allowing it to make contact with dry ice covering rear aspect of standing fridge/freezer whilst no-one is in the house, despite sneaking suspicion that tongue may stick.
Exemplar 3: Age 20; Places raw egg in plastic bag and attempts....actually i'm not going to publicise that one on a public forum.
Evidently, elements of my intelligence are yet to develop beyond Piaget's preoperational stage of cognition. It is therefore, no surprise, that I so eagerly ordered aspic of suckling pig meat from a restaurant in Frankfurt, after being firmly warned by Julie Powell (author of Julie & Julia), that aspic jelly should be avoided at all costs. What she didn't say is: 'avoid even if sliced into triangles and arranged on a platter with traditional Frankfurter green herb sauce'. And P.S, I was already dying to dry the herb sauce after reading about it prior to our travels...and menu item 85 was the only dish in which the sauce featured.
The waiter seemed most delighted when I placed my order. He also reported that the dish was one of his own favourites (trust me, I already considered that this may have been a poor translation of what he actually meant to say -but no, he definitely spoke English as fluently as your average Australian man). Our meals arrived within fifteen minutes. Not bad.
Upon being served, I felt...tentative. I could see where they were headed with presentation but in actual fact, the triangular slices of suckling pig aspic bared an uncanny resemblance to piggy ears. You know...the kind that you see on headbands that college students wear to fancy-dress fundraisers. Needless to say, I was still keen to give it a whirl. My first impression was - 'OK, not bad. I could possibly get used to this'. The pieces of suckling pig were tender and on a whole, the aspic was well seasoned and flavoursome. The nature of the texture required 2 x mastication reps, at which point the jelly melted in my mouth. From what I've heard, a good aspic is one which does exactly that - melts in the mouth. So on a technical note - ten points to the chef. On a personal note, as a savoury, this was not a texture I had experienced before. Two slices in and too far out of my comfort zone, I politely pushed my plate to the side and began to contemplate: do modern-day beings actually enjoy eating aspic jelly or is society merely clinging on to a culinary practice of it's predecessors? I am certainly not one to disrespect tradition. I could cope with savouries being set in solidified consomme as a decorative measure at Christmas time - but to pretend that I enjoy the likes of meat set in a sliceable savoury jelly would be simply outlandish. No can do. As for the Frankfurter sauce, it wasn't the bang I was expecting but in fairness, the cold pig set in clear jelly probably didn't do it justice. Whilst I am pleased to have been exposed to the time-honoured art-form of aspics, I would not voluntarily subject myself to this experience again. If you, on the other hand, wish to ignore my advise and meddle with such madness, Mastering the Art of French Cooking devotes an entire chapter to aspics. Go on, have a crack.
