The foundation of French cuisine

Kicker: Expert evaluates B&B owner’s collection of rare cookbooks over brunch

It’s not often you can arrange a small gathering of interesting people who would otherwise probably never meet, much less interact up close and personal. But just such an opportunity recently arose for this writer.

My wife, Regina, and I have had the pleasure of getting to know Jacques Rolland and his wife, Liz. They own A’ Tuscan Estate, a stunning bed and breakfast on Northeast Evans Street, which makes them neighbors of ours.

What’s more, when Regina worked in retail on Third Street, she sold them some décor items that continue to grace their stately inn, which they have operated since 2005.

I wrote a story about Jacques Rolland awhile back. Besides being a highly skilled chef and consummate host, he is also the author of three books on food and wine.

“The Food Encyclopedia,” published in 2006, is an exhaustively researched reference book that features more than 8,000 entries and 500 photographs. From arugula to zucchini, the compilation explains how comestibles can best be incorporated into various recipes.

Two year later, he came out with “The Cook’s Essential Kitchen Dictionary: A Complete Culinary Resource.” It features definitions for 4,300 terms, thus combining history, etymology and the culture of food.

Not content with covering all the basics of cuisine, Rolland then turned his attention to wine.

In 2013, he published the 325-page “C’est le Vin,” French for “That’s wine.” It’s a challenge to find an obscure wine, place or technical term overlooked in this comprehensive book.

Given such skill, experience and creativity, you can imagine the exceptional table Jacques and Liz Rolland set for their B&B guests. On more than one occasion, we have been invited to share in their fabulous food and superb service.

The couple’s collection of fine antique furnishings, décor items and collectibles further enhances the experience. Here’s just one example:

Consider these four sizable items, all of glistening, solid copper — a deep sea diver’s helmet, a Prohibition-style pot still, a manual water pump and a pair of milk cans. Rolland has found them in such faraway places as Argentina.

Then there are the books.

He treasures the printed literary word in many forms and genres. Among the numerous rare and highly collectible books in his personal library is a first edition of selected works by famed writer/philosopher François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire.

He also owns a first edition of “Memoires de Monsieur D’Artagnan: Capitane de la premiere Compagnie des Monsquetaires du Roi.”

If you haven’t already guessed, this is a memoir supposedly written by D’Artagnan, Alexandre Dumas’ fourth musketeer. The subtitle translates, “Captain of the First Company of Musketeers of the King.”

Rolland is especially proud of his collection of old French cookbooks, dating far back as the late 17th century. It includes two books written by Marie-Antoine Careme, the acknowledged father or French cuisine, and, coincidentally, a contemporary of Voltaire.

This brings us to the other couple who completed the count of six involved in this rather unusual and most interesting Sunday afternoon.

Phillip Pirages is a nationally known antiquarian bookseller who just happens to make his home in McMinnville. His profession is as rare as the ancient tomes and manuscripts in which he deals.

Only a handful of people around the world successfully navigate this field on the international level. A doctor of philosophy and prominent member of the Antiquarian Bookseller Association of America, he needs no more than the name Phillip J. Pirages on the cover of his 260-page catalog.

His wife, Ellen Summerfield, drew the couple to McMinnville when she was named director of international programs at Linfield College in 1984. It was then that Pirages, who had been dabbling in rare books on the side, plunged into the trade on a full-time basis.

After significantly enhancing the program’s profile over her 18-year tenure, Summerfield retired in 2002. But the desire to make a community contribution motivated her to join with her husband, and longtime friend Tricia Crawford, to give a little something back to the adopted home that had treated them so well.

In 2008, the trio founded the Give A Little Foundation, an independent nonprofit dedicated to the principle that “small amounts of money or assistance, provided at the right time can make a critical difference in people’s lives.”

The foundation has helped hundreds of people over the six years since. In the process, it has gained a following of solid supporters, including business partners.

The catalyst for our little gathering at A’ Tuscan Estate was, of course, Rolland’s rare books and Pirages’s expertise in them.

My idea was simply to get the two of them together and write a story about the expert’s evaluation of the B&B owner’s collection. But Rolland insisted we do it over brunch with wives in attendance.

That’s a far better idea than merely leafing through the books, no matter how rare, interesting or valuable. And as it turned out, all of the above worked out well beyond expectations.

First and foremost, Jacques and Liz have brunch down pat — so much so that the four of us felt as if we were dining in a Michelin 3-star restaurant.

For starters, an enticing fromage blanc in heavy cream, with fresh raspberries, strawberries and blueberries, was placed before us. Apple turnovers and croissants with raspberry jam and butter accompanied.

Sparkling framboise blanc was the paired aperitif.

If you like raspberries, and you’re not familiar with framboise blanc, think of the incomparable aroma of raspberries billowing forth from a glass as tiny bubbles of the same flavor burst in your mouth. Drink-wise, it seems the French think of everything.

The piece de resistance was Quiche au Rolland, a perfectly prepared dish featuring gruyere cheese and black truffles with white truffle salt.

Jacques paraded out an ostrich egg of near-football size, proclaiming this as the dish’s foundation. And Liz poured Italian dark-roast coffee throughout.

That brings us back to the books, six in all, which have served as an ongoing inspiration for Rolland.

The collection includes two 1795 copies of the “Cuisinier Royale,” by the legendary Careme, along with a pair of Menon works, one from 1755 on the art of discerning the heart or core of different types of foods and one from 1176 on the science of cake and pastry decoration with sugar. Rounding it out are “Cuisinier Francois,” written in 1712 by Francois Pierre de la Varenne, who provides his own take on fine food, and “Nouvelle Instruction pour Les Confitures, Les Liqueurs et Les Fruits,” a 1692 work expounding on preserves, syrups and extractions.

Rolland explained that, since there was no refrigeration back then, preservation of foods was of paramount concern to cooks. Thus, much effort was put into finding ways to best achieve that end.

“The work of these chefs was an essential part of the foundation of great French cooking,” he said. “Books such as these put what they learned into published words and carried that knowledge forward.”

Upon examination of the time-honored tomes, Pirages proclaimed them to be indeed very rare and valuable. He noted that all of them are in quite good condition, considering their age.

Rolland was delighted to discover that one had sold for $10,000 and two others for $2,600 each in recent transactions.

Speaking of value, Jacques and Liz Rolland have recently placed their B&B business with its two properties up for sale. Jacques, now 70 years old, has decided to retire. The asking price is $1.25 million and he said they will take their time in finding the right buyer to assume operation of the business they have spent years building.

And that’s what I found out while OUT and ABOUT — indulging in fine food, admiring important books and enjoying excellent company on a Sunday afternoon in McMinnville.

Karl Klooster can be reached by e-mail at kklooster@newsregister.com or phone at 503-687-1227.