The Belly of Paris is part of Emile Zola's multigenerational Rougon-Macquart saga. I’ve read almost all of them and this is one of my favorites, next to Nana.

Florent is a wrongly accused man who escapes imprisonment on Devil's Island. He returns to Paris and finds a city changed from the one he remembers. The working class neighborhoods that he remembers have become, what we would call in this century, “gentrified”. He ends up living and working in the neighborhood of the Les Halles market, and we are audience to the intrigue and petty politics that divide the rich and poor in the city’s food industry.

One passage describes the items to be had at the butcher:

In front of her was an array of white china dishes, containing long Arles and Lyons sausages, slices of which had already been cut off, with tongues and pieces of boiled pork: then a pig’s head in a mass of jelly; an open pot of preserved sausage-meat, and a large box of sardines disclosing a pool of oil. On the right and left, upon wooden platters, were mounds of French and Italian brawn, a common French ham, of a pinky hue, and a Yorkshire ham, whose deep red lean showed beneath a broad band of fat. There were other dishes too, round ones and oval ones, containing spiced tongue, truffled galantine, and a boar’s head stuffed with pistachio nuts; while close to her, in reach of her hand, stood some yellow earthen pans containing larded veal, pate de foi gras, and hare pie.

Maybe I’ll try the truffled galantine later this year, but today I tackled the larded veal, and it was not nearly as hard as I anticipated and very, very good. It’s mentioned more than once in the book; it must have been a favorite and I can see why.

First preheat your oven to 500. Traditionally, to lard something means to insert strips of fat into the meat to make it juicier; a century ago meat was a lot drier and less fatty than it is today. There is a tool you can use that will insert hardened lard in a roast; I used strips of bacon and inserted them into slits cut into a veal breast roast. I also pushed in pieces of sliced mushrooms and a few previously roasted garlic cloves; those I found already made at the olive bar at my supermarket. I had those in so I used them, but you could just use raw cloves of garlic and it would be just as good- maybe a little stronger tasting. I found it best to make the slits in the roast with a small paring knife, and then the same knife helped me push the bacon etc down deep into the meat. I don’t think you can make a mistake by making too many filled slits. I made as many as I could before I got tired!

I used here a six pound veal roast breast. There will be rib bones underneath and a large piece of meat on top. If you can find a boneless veal roast, you can use that too and adjust for a shorter cooking time since there are no bones. I decided to make this today at the last minute and this was the only veal cut I could find.

After you have larded your roast, coat with olive oil, liberally salt and pepper, and season with fresh or dried thyme. Place the roast on a layer of vegetables, meat side up (I used carrots and they were terrific after cooking in the veal’s juice) and roast at 500 for 20 minutes. Then flip it over and roast for 10 minutes.

Finally, take the pan out, turn the meat over again (meat side up) turn the oven down to 350, and add a small amount of broth or white wine to the pan. Cover it tightly with foil and roast in the 350 oven for about 60 to 80 minutes. Check for doneness by a temperature of 155. The meat should be falling off the bone, and pulling away from the ribs underneath.

Let it rest for about 15 minutes. Slice and serve with some of the juice spooned over top and with the delicious carrots. I served baked white and sweet potatoes with this, and a salad.

Use your knife to get the strips of bacon and mushroom inside the meat. As long you add the bacon, which is the “larding” part of the recipe, you can add anything else here that you’d like. Mushrooms, onion, herbs, or garlic would all be good.

This is the veal after 20 minutes in a 500 degree oven.

Finished! This six pound roast took about 80 minutes.

I added a few sprigs of herbs to the cross cuts in the potatoes. I don’t know that it did much for the taste, but it smelled really great cooking. I rubbed olive oil on the skins and coarse salt, and baked them directly on the rack of my oven.

Are you interested to try a recipe from 1875? Instructions are limited!

From the September 9, 1875 issue of the newspaper The Southern Plantation (Montgomery, Alabama):

Loin of Veal.-This is best larded. Have every joint thoroughly cut, and between each lay a slice of salt pork; roast a fine brown, and so that the upper sides of the pork will be crisp; baste often. Season with pepper; the pork will make it sufficintly salt. (sic.)

I’ve always loved the beginning of The Hobbit, when poor Bilbo’s kitchen is commandeered by Gandalf and the dwarves, while they plan their epic journey. Bilbo struggles to lay out a feast that will accommodate their hearty dwarvish appetites, all the while fretting about the damage done to his pantry, and to what lengths he was expected to stretch his hospitality:

They had not been at table long, in fact they had hardly reached the third cake, when there came another even louder ring at the bell.

‘Excuse me!’ said the hobbit, and off he went to the door.

‘So you have got here at last!’ was what he was going to say to Gandalf this time. But it was not Gandalf. Instead there was a very old-looking dwarf on the step with a white beard and a scarlet hood; and he too hopped inside as soon as the door was open, just as if he had been invited.

‘I see they have begun to arrive already,’ he said when he caught sight of Dwalin’s green hood hanging up. He hung his red one next to it, and ‘Balin at your service!’ he said with his hand on his breast.

‘Thank you!’ said Bilbo with a gasp. It was not the correct thing to say, but they had begun to arrive had flustered him badly. He like visitors, but he liked to know them before they arrived, and he preferred to ask them himself. He had a horrible thought that the cakes would run short, and then he --as the host: he knew his duty and stuck to it however painful-- he might have to go without.

“Come along in, and have some tea!’ he managed to say after taking a breath.

“A little beer would suit me better, if it is all the same to you, my good sir,’ said Balin with the white beard. “but I don’t mind some cake— seed-cake, if you have any. “

‘Lots!’, Bilbo found himself answering, to his own surprise; and he found himself scuttling off, too to the cellar to fill a pint beer-mug, and to the pantry to fetch two beautiful round seed cakes which he had baked that afternoon for his after supper morsel.…

Poor Bilbo! We can all empathize with his frenzied running to and fro in the midst of visitors. Here is a seed cake for which I hope you will not have to sacrifice your portion, as Mr. Baggins feared.

*Note: see the bottom of this post if you’d like to try a 19th century recipe for seed cake. Includes little to no instruction or measurements. I have also included a recipe from a Boston paper from 1924. I have not tried either yet but will post here when I get to them.

Bilbo Baggins’ Seed Cake

2 sticks butter, softened
2 cups flour (cake flour if you have it)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 tsp caraway seed, more if you like- it’s really up to you

Preheat your oven to 350. Grease a round 8 or 9 inch pan. I lined mine with parchment but you don’t have to. You can also do this recipe in a loaf pan.

Sift four, salt and baking powder together. Cream butter and sugar. Mix in caraway seeds and egg. Add flour mixture and milk. Batter will be sticky, not pourable. Drop batter into cake pan and smooth to meet the edges of the pan. I like to sprinkle sugar over the top; it gives a nice crackly finish. But if you want it more like a pound cake top, skip the sugar.

Bake for 45 minutes. Check with a knife to see if it comes out clean when you insert it in the middle of the cake.

The batter is very sticky. You won’t be able to pour it in the pan; you’ll need to use a spoon or spatula.

I like this nice crackly top you get with the sprinkled sugar. It’s very delicate and has a beautiful crunch.

The caraway seeds give this an interesting but not overpowering flavor. Delicious with a cup of tea!

A beautiful round seed cake “for an after supper morsel.”

Seed Cake Recipe from 1895, found in the Matawan Journal: note that this cake is rolled out and cut in rounds, like biscuits.

Seed Cake- Once cup of butter, two of white sugar, three eggs, half a cup of caraway seeds and flour enough to make a stiff paste. Sprinkle the board with sugar, roll out the dough very thin and cut it in rounds. Bake about fifteen minutes.

Seed cake is also served by Miss Temple to Jane Eyre and her friend, Helen Burns:

Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each of us a cup pf tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake.

“I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you, said she,”but as there is so little toast, you must have it now”, and she proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand.

We feasted that night as on nectar and ambrosia…

Seed Cake Recipe from 1924, found in the Boston Globe::

Dear Mary Ellen- If the recipe that you asked for is not sent in, perhaps you would like to try the following for seeds cakes: 2 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup thick cream, 1 1/2 teaspoons caraway seeds, 3 cups pastry flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt. Beat eggs until light, add sugar gradually, caraway seeds, cream and flour mixed and sifted with baking powder and salt. Chill thoroughly, toss on a floured board, pat and roll one half inch thick, sprinkle with caraway seeds, roll one fourth inch thick and shape with a round cutter, first dipped in flour. Bake in a buttered sheet in a moderate oven.

Emile Zola's Larded Veal

Hobbit Cakes (and, Miss Temple)