Entertaining expert Sebastien Centner has been inspired by the elegance and simplicity of the south of France ever since he was a boy. Having just returned from one of his annual summer visits, he kicks off a four-part series today on entertaining the St. Tropez way. Topic one: the tabletop potential of crudités.
When I was a child, my French mother saw summer as a time to immerse my brother and me in the ways of her native country, meaning that - until the age when work began to get in the way - we spent almost the entire season far from our Toronto home at my parents' St. Tropez villa. Nowadays, those summer-long vacations have been reduced to a more practical two or three weeks a year, but I continue to be inspired by the hospitality and savoir-faire of les tropeziens. Somehow, the denizens of a haven for the rich, famous and infamous have elevated the simplest methods of entertaining to an art form. Take their way with crudités.
To many North Americans, crudités conjure up those pre-packaged arrangements you see in supermarkets: cut raw vegetables on covered plastic plates with unremarkable dips in the centre. But at the restaurants along St. Tropez's famous Pamplonne beach, the basic elements of a crudité platter are regarded as raw material for edible tableaux.
Typically served at lunchtime on the beach, the vegetables are washed and mostly left uncut, then arranged in artful fashion on oversized cork platters cut straight from local trees. They are usually the first items placed on the table (sometimes even before the rosé) and remain on the table until the dessert course arrives. Guests will, throughout the meal, pick from the display as they please, enjoying a cherry tomato here or a slice of cucumber there.
In North America, cork platters may be scarce, but deep wooden bowls will do just as well. To create your own St. Tropez "centrepiece," assemble a variety of seasonal vegetables from your local farmers' market - think cucumbers, tomatoes, green onions, broccoli spears, endive leaves, carrots - and arrange them in the rustic vessel of your choice. Give thought, as you're layering them, to colour and composition, much as you would when arranging flowers. Cap off the tableau with a handful of hard-boiled eggs still in their shells and scatter a few smaller bowls of sour cream and chives around the creation for dipping.
Simple? Yes. Beautiful? Absolutely. That's how it's done in St. Tropez.
Sebastien Centner is the director of Eatertainment Special Events in Toronto.