Babette Feasts in Pittsburgh

By Vice Chargé de Presse Ken McCrory

Imagine yourself in a windswept, isolated, seaside village in the cold, barren Jutland area of Denmark. The year is 1885 and you have been invited to what you expect will be an ordinary dinner for the times of cod fish and stew, with milk or water as the choice of beverages. Instead you are presented with a feast fit for Parisian Haute Societe.

Such is the theme for the film "Babette's Feast" and "Babette's Feast" was the theme for the Pittsburgh Baillage's dinner June 21, 1997 at the Doubletree Hotel. The movie won the 1987 Academy Award for best foreign film and, if Academy Awards were given for dinners, the Doubletree would have an Oscar on its mantle.

The two maiden sisters who employ Babette have no idea she is the former chef at the "Cafe Anglais" in Paris -- which was the Taillevent or L'Ambroisie of its time. The feast she produces coincides with the visit of General Lorens Lowenheilm, who had once dined at the Cafe Anglais and had also been smitten by one of the sisters on a long ago visit to Jutland.

General Lowenheilm was also present at the Chaine's version of "Babette's Feast", played by none other than Bailli Peter Hanowich. The role of the sister (for the sake of Pete's marital bliss), was played by Dame de la Chaine Barbara Hanowich. Chef Grillardin and Doubletree Executive Chef Mike Fischetti didn't look much like Babette -- the moustache was a dead giveaway -- but his cooking artistry was every bit as good as the legendary chef from the Cafe Anglais.

The reception featured assorted hors d'oeuvres and Mumm's Cordon Rouge. We couldn't exactly duplicate the wines (we all felt the mid-1800 vintages would probably have been a little past their peak) but the wines used were a worthy substitute.

A Sandeman Royal Corigidor Oloroso perfectly complimented the first course of turtle soup. A Veuve Clicquot, Yellow Label, matched with the "Blinis Demidoff" (osetra caviar with poached mussels in a lemon vodka cream sauce) gave meaning to "Babette's Feast" author Isak Dinesen's description of "¼lifting us off the ground into a higher and purer sphere".

If the Blinis Demidoff lifted us off the ground, the next course carried us into the heavens -- quail filled with foie gras and truffles, baked in a pastry shell, with a rhubarb demiglace accompanied by a Vosne Romanee, Domaine Grivot.

After an interval for sorbet, we continued our spectacular heavenly journey with tomato tarragon crusted lamb paired with sauteed medallions of beef and topped with a Jerusalem artichoke. The powerful 1985 Carruades de Lafite was a perfect match for this, melt in your mouth, meat dish. Chevalier Bill Bryan postulated that these courses had transformed a dinner into "a kind of love affair". We were very impressed with Bill's lyricism until Dame de la Chaine Denise Kennedy mentioned that Bill had lifted that line from the movie. Oh well, plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

Chef Fischetti closed with a cheese course that featured, among others, a danish blue, in honor of the movie's locale, and a 1991 Sandeman Port Late Bottle Vintage. Dessert was a trio of chocolate accompanied by a Veuve Clicquot Demi-Sec.

All great productions require great directors and Grainne Trainor, the Doubletree's Director of Restaurant Operations did a superb job of coordinating the many staff involved. Visiting Bailli Howard Gordon of Los Angeles must have thought he had wandered onto a movie set at home rather than into the Doubletree Hotel in Pittsburgh.

The movie closes with Babette, poor once again, having expended all of her funds on the meal, but proclaiming "a great artist is never poor". If food is art -- this feast was a Mona Lisa.