6/27/2005. Our royal tourne-broche

On a rainy weekend in Normandie a couple of months ago, Denis and I stopped into a small antique fair in the nearby town of Veules-les-Roses. We had just about finished perusing the place when my eye was caught by a piece of pottery at the last stand. It was a heavy earthenware piece, deep clay red in color and blackened on the outside with years of use. It resembled a rectangular baking dish, but with two loops attached to one long side, and a pouring spout at one narrow end. I recognized it instantly as a lèche-frite, a special dish made to catch the drippings from a meat or fowl being spit-roasted in a fireplace.

Now, the lèche-frite is an item that always kindles warmth and desire in my heart. For me, it is emblematic of a highly-evolved fireplace cuisine to which I aspire. Denis and I already had a rather handsome copper lèche-frite which we had found in a small antique shop in our town. But so far it had been condemned to hang uselessly in lonely fashion on the inside wall of our fireplace. I resented its relegation to mere ornamental status. I was burning with desire to see it filled with simmering beans or roasting potatoes, being bathed by the savory drippings of a spit-roast. Having it hanging decoratively on the wall galled me. Just the sort of thing a Parisian bourgeoise who had no idea of how to use a lèche-frite would do to decorate her country house, it was not my thing at all.

I tore my hot gaze from the lèche-frite and looked around the rest of the stand. I quickly took in that all of the items concerned fireplace cooking, but there were several intriguing contraptions which I'd never seen before. On closer inspection, these turned out to be mechanisms for turning a spit in front of a fire. They used a system of pulleys, interlocking gears, and a counterweight to slowly turn the spit. No electricity or motor required.

We looked around for further enlightenment, but the owner of the stand was absent. It was lunch hour, and the other vendors--eating together at a communal table--offered to call him for us. When Mr. Dieutre arrived ten minutes later, he demonstrated one of his wondrous contraptions which he had set up complete with weight and enormous spit. At the top of the gear gizmo, four metal arms whirred around as the spit turned slowly in response to the slowly descending weight at the end of a rope. One or more of these, he explained, could be fitted with a simple feather (!) to brake the speed of turning. A system of gears served to transfer the energy of the stone descending at the end of the rope to the spit.



The weight takes from about 20 to 30 minutes to descend to the end of its rope, at which time the grill master needs to wind up the rope on its spool. In the photo at right, the handle for winding is stowed on a nail on our wooden mantle, as you must remove the handle while the spool unwinds.

Well, with that, I've given away the story. As you can imagine, I was hopelessly smitten with this device. Poor Denis must have known from the look on my face that he would never be able to leave that antique fair without buying the thing.



After long deliberation about which model was the most handsome, we made up our minds and arranged with Mr. Dieutre that he would come in three weeks to install it in our fireplace. I practically crossed the days off my calender in my excitement. By happy coincidence, we were to have two house guests to help us inaugurate our new, very old tourne-broche, which had been made for an eighteenth-century ch”teau.

Mr. Dieutre arrived at 9 on Saturday morning. He joined us for breakfast before launching into the installation. It went amazingly quickly. Before long, our tourne-broche was up and ready for testing. The clockwork mechanism was mounted on the outside left wall of our fireplace. A shaft leading from this mechanism was inserted through a hole drilled in this wall, where, inside the fireplace, it connected with a pulley-and-chain assembly that turned the 6-foot-long spit below.



The spit is supported in front of the fire by two specially adapted andirons, which have three sets of U-shaped brackets welded on the front, for supporting the spit at three different levels. We were especially fond of these andirons, whose massive, twisted iron construction dates from the end of the 17th century. Topping each one is a circular bracket for holding a bucket of basting sauce.

Mr. Dieutre explained to us that the trick when using the tourne-broche for asymmetric pieces of meat was to thread the meat on the spit in such a way that the weight was evenly distributed around the axis of the spit. He kindly threaded our inaugural leg of lamb on the spit to show us this technique. And, indeed, it turned handily in a test run (without fire, photo left).



The remainder of my day was spent in preparation of this celebratory meal. I pounded up a mixture of herbs, garlic, sea salt, and pepper in my mortar, mixed it with olive oil, and slathered the leg of lamb with the fragrant mixture, leaving it to imbibe this heady perfume for several hours. I cooked up a batch of creamy Tarbais beans from last year's crop, preparatory to giving them a final turn under the drippings in the soulful earthenware lèche-frite which Denis had made part of our negotiation with Mr. Dieutre. Dessert was an almond-apricot clafoutis. And, I can't forget my favorite part of every dinner--a salad of assorted lettuces and weeds fresh from the early summer garden.



At last the hour arrived for the maiden voyage of our tourne-broche. Denis built a rather large fire, and before long, the lamb was turning with great dignity, while the whirligig on the gizmo spun merrily around, making a barely perceptible whirring sound. One of the great advantages of this device is that, because the meat is in front of--and not over--the fire, you don't have to wait for it flames to die down to have coals. In fact, flames are necessary for correctly cook the meat.




As you can see from the main photo at the head of the article, the inauguration of the tourne-broche was a roaring success. Not only was one of my most cherished cooking fantasies fulfilled, but Denis assumed new stature in his career as maître grilleur. Now he could add to his resume that he is a member in fine standing of the Ch”îne de Rotisseurs. Meanwhile, as I gazed at the convivial faces gathered around our table devouring our spit-roasted lamb, I reflected that this was truly French country life as it should be.

Share