When I saw Paris-Brest on the menu I thought an “a” might have been omitted.
I had never heard of this classic French patisserie and it is to the credit of my club that the chef has revived it. Created in 1910 to celebrate the Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race, the circular pastry evokes a wheel. It is about 1,200 km so not for the faint-hearted but you can have a go. The cognoscenti call it PBP and it’s the oldest cycling race in the world (1891). There must have been a lot of punctures in those days. My grandfather, born 1890, thought unpuncturable tyres would be invented and, as I have never seen a Boris/Santander bike with a puncture perhaps they have now. Unfortunately it is necessary to qualify to enter, so me and my red Brompton will not be dawdling across Brittany with Robert and Bertie in support in the green Mini.
To slightly digress, I was interested that General Sir Nick Carter chose Black Forest gateau for Lunch with the FT. I imagine Lady Carter didn’t have to provide much for dinner.
I’m fortunate to have a first edition of Men at Arms, the first in Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy. I warmed up with Put Out More Flags written in the summer of 1941; a novel that would be a masterpiece if he hadn’t followed it up with his post-war trilogy. Somewhere, in a post passim, is the first paragraph of Powell’s dancers – good, but Waugh is more concise and I prefer his setting; a scene of Catholicism with a whiff of warfare.
”When Guy Crouchback’s grandparents, Gervase and Hermione, came to Italy on their honeymoon, French troops manned the defences of Rome, the Sovereign Pontiff drove out in an open carriage and Cardinals took their exercise side-saddle on the Pincian Hill.”
Something of Waugh’s attitude to the army can be gleaned from an extract from his diary when he was at Lancing.
“The corps parade this afternoon was awful. Vey long and very cold. The attack was really rather a wonderful sight though. All over the face of the downs little knots of men strolling aimlessly about, benignly lost, firing blanks into the air at intervals.”
A rather good first draft of Sword of Honour.
Dancers – https://christopherbellew.com/dance/
Actually, the attack sounds a lot like the field exercise in Put Out More Flags, albeit without the poor anti-tank gunner swearing as he hauls his weapon.