Some people are remembered by History and become household names, sometimes for silly reasons. Other, more worthy men and women are washed away in the River of Time and are undeservedly forgotten.
Nobody has been cheated out of a legacy more cruelly than Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813), one of the advisors to doomed king Louis XVI of France.Very few historians would make the case that Louis was a wise and competent king, but by the 1780s even he could see that things were going badly. France was overpopulated and underfed. The People, seeing the example set by the American colonists, were talking about overthrowing their ruler. (The irony that the American Revolution had been largely financed by Louis himself was not lost on him.)
The upshot was that the French people were as angry as they were hungry, which is to say, very.
There was actually a partial solution available, however: potatoes. The Spanish had brought potatoes back to Europe from South America a century or more previously, but most European peasants could not be enticed to eat them. Even though they would have provided a welcome boost of calories and carbohydrates, most peasants were convinced that they were deadly poisonous. (To be fair, the actual fruit of the potato is; only the tuber is edible.)
Louis asked his smartest advisor, Parmentier, to try to convince the French peasants to plant potatoes.
Parmentier had his own formal gardens dug up and planted with potatoes, then announced to the locals that nobody was to touch his potatoes under pain of terrible, unspecified punishment. Potatoes were too good for the likes of them; only aristocrats could properly appreciate them. Then, to ensure the security of his potatoes, he placed armed guards around his potato patch for 12 or more hours per day.
Within weeks all the potatoes had been stolen and planted across the French countryside.
The irony of this is that if the French peasantry had not been well-fed on potatoes, they might not have had strength enough to revolt a couple of years later.
Parmentier never got famous, but he did get to keep his head, so he was probably not too bitter about the slight.
In his honor, I have renamed a classic cocktail — The Forbidden Fruit — the Parmentier.
Parmentier
1½ ounces apple brandy – I like Laird’s Applejack
1 ounce Pimm’s No. 1
½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
¼ ounce simple syrup
2 dashes each of two different bitters – this recipe traditionally calls for Angostura and Peychaud’s, which is what I’ve used here
3-4 ounces ginger beer to top
Combine all ingredients except the ginger beer with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake until bitterly cold.
Strain into a tall glass, over fresh ice, and top with ginger beer.
Stir, and drink wistfully, while listening to Maurice Chevalier sing “C’est Magnifique.”
This is a complex and slightly melancholy drink. Pimm’s is a slightly baroque-tasting base to build any drink on with its own collection of herbs and alcohol. Apple brandy brings its own sophistication with it. Throw in two competing flavors of bitters, and you have dropped yourself into a labyrinth of flavors before you even get to the ginger beer, which has a talent for throwing drinkers for a loop.
Which is not to say that this isn’t delicious, because it is. It’s just that normally, with more straightforward cocktails, you can spend the first half-minute or so making a flavor inventory. With Forbidden Fruit — as with History — you might be better off just surrendering yourself to the experience.
John Fladd is a veteran Hippo writer, a father, writer and cocktail enthusiast, living in New Hampshire.
Featured photo: Parmentier. Photo by John Fladd.
