LA MÈRE POULARD, August 2017
Before 2020 struck, millions of tourists and French locals flock annually to Mont-Saint-Michel, France’s second most visited attraction after Paris, and who could blame their earnest desires to see this geographical and architectural wonder? There are the swiftly galloping tides that interchange the regional identity of Mont-Saint-Michel with Brittany owning the island at high tides and Normandy reclaiming the fortress-town during low tides. Atop lies the majestic Benedictine abbey that dates back to the Middle Ages. Because entering the monastery will require muscular legs to withstand hiking up hundreds of steep town steps, the omelettes of La Mère Poulard may just be the nourishing remedy for the pedestrian journey.
La Mère Poulard is a restaurant-inn situated at the foot entrance of Mont-Saint-Michel and has long been woven into the town’s modern tapestry with the makings of a fairy tale love story. When the hostel was still nonexistent, Mont-Saint-Michel was a haven for convicts, their ostracized families, and shrimp fishermen. The task of restoring the ghost town to its medieval and present-day cultural glory fell to the architect, Édouard Corroyer. One grey evening, Corroyer’s young chambermaid, Anne Boutiaut, accidentally got trapped in the middle of a violently rising tide, and Victor Poulard, the son of a town baker, saved the distressed damsel from the beach. Shortly after, the rescue blossomed into romance and an eventual marriage that lasted 50 years until Victor’s death in 1923.
A La Mère Poulard omelettier beating his eggs to an enthralling rhythm.
Marrying a town local also meant Madame Poulard had to settle at Mont-Saint-Michel for good. She decided to do two things from her permanent stay. She took a basic education on math, spelling, and grammar from the abbey nuns. A great cook at her own right, she opened a conjugal enterprise in the hospitality sector with financial assistance from Monsieur Corroyer, who also served as the witness to her wedding.
When Corroyer’s accounts of the monastery reached and spread around Paris, archaeologists, scholars, artists, and religious pilgrims became the first guests of Mont-Saint-Michel. Braving the swallowing high tides at a time before the establishment of a dike-bridge was an exhausting task more so than an exhilarating adventure, forcing town visitors to congest hostels and restaurants during low tides. As a result, an irregular and unpredictable tourist population made preemptive food preparation impractical, unmanageable, and wasteful from the business standpoint. Fortunately, Madame Poulard had a quick and facile solution for her hungry and impatient clients- a humble omelette. This omelette would become her signature dish, propel her to iconic status that rivals the archangel guardian of the town, and earn the ever-faithful Victor Poulard the prosperity and political mileage to successfully win mayoralty. Even the late Paul Bocuse proclaims, “Mère Poulard is France!”
Teasing canapés for amuse-bouche. with foie gras as my favorite among the three.
One glaring pitfall of La Mère Poulard is much like Mont-Saint-Michel; it has all the unreasonable indications of a tourist trap. The omelettes significantly outprice the average cost of eggs and butter in France. Perhaps, famished restaurant guests, such as myself, were paying for more than just the trademark. The price of an omelette seems to include preserving its batter as a cultural heritage and as a trade secret- a mere suspicion and recent speculation on my part.
Plus, La Mère Poulard has been seemingly possessed by a corporate soul and the ethics of an accessible fast food chain. Recently, it has been keen on franchising its name to countries outside of France and on distributing its salted caramel butter cookies rather than relying on the matriarch’s recipe archives of 700 dishes that drew celebrities, world leaders, and royal families into becoming photographic mementos hanged around the restaurant walls.
All La Mère Poulard omelettes share a light and airy batter, an end that can be achieved via two means. Either, the eggs are thoroughly beaten until they fluff up like a genoise cake batter. Or, egg whites are separably whipped into stiffness and are folded into the egg yolks, akin to a soufflé. The eggs are then ladled to a shallow-bottomed pan filled with the richest French butter that can combust at any moment it comes into contact with the raging flames. With precise timing, the omelette is cooked in an open fire to baveuse stage so its interior is as creamy as a custard yet as runny as a creme anglaise.
Free-Range Chicken Salad with Herbs: predicatably above-average but not exceptional.
For better or for worse, Mère Poulard herself was protective and secretive of her signature dish from the curiosity of the public. She was widely believed to have mentally taken the science of her omelette along with her to her grave, according to The Norman Table by Claude Guermont and Paul Frumkin. Subsequent proprietors who are unrelated to her by name or blood claim to have inherited the technical knowledge from her, which is an assertion that will possibly see its day in court. Whether the reader finds the Omelette de la Mère Poulard conclusively authentic or deceitful, I could only witness omelettiers rattling the voluminous eggs against mise en place copper bowls at a percussive rhythm that sounds delicious to the palate.
My set lunch at La Mère Poulard had three courses with a complimentary serving of canapés. Even when the ham was slightly salty, the canapés, particularly the ones topped with the morsel of foie gras and fruit preserve, were teasing and brought a delightful anticipation for what is to come. The free-range chicken salad that followed was above-average but not exceptional. Sure, it was predictably fresh as I would expect from all restaurant salads served in France, yet it lacked a unique identity to stand out as its own probably because it had lost itself forever to the main course and dessert omelettes.
A savory Omelette de La Mère Poulard with seared king prawns.
The savory omelette was accompanied with three perfectly seared king prawns. By burying the well-seasoned and juicy prawns underneath, the omelette looks stuffed, presentation-wise, yet pulling out a tail disrupts the illusion. The omelette was heavenly from the first slice down to the last bite, and its velvet and buttery texture matched its soft and pillowy appearance.
The sweet omelette drizzled with salted caramel and flambéed with Calvados was equally memorable. Its interior was softer, foamier, and more liquid and had diced apples as its hidden treasure. Although the omelette was not fruity due to the faint smell of Calvados, it still tasted marvelous especially when the decadence of salted caramel butter diffuses into the egg foam and the softly cooked apples. Clearly, the flavors in the dessert omelette were a distinct and triumphant reminder that I was in a crossroad between Brittany and Normandy., and the heart of that crossroad is La Mère Poulard.
A sweet Omelette de La Mère Poulard with diced apples, drizzles of salted caramel, and flambéed with Calvados.
As I was heading towards the exit gate to leave Mont-Saint-Michel for Paris later that afternoon, a new crowd gathered outside La Mère Poulard to listen to the instrumental music the omelettier casts on the copper bowl. The thumps had the same tune I heard before lunch, but its lyrics were chanting for my distantly future return.