A basic omelette: perhaps the most French of foods
Published: 07-07-2025 2:17 PM |
The French are getting ready to celebrate their big national holiday, 14 Juillet (July 14, known internationally as Bastille Day). So are Francophiles around the world.
The day celebrates the storming of the Bastille, a former fortress and eventually a prison and armory in Paris, on July 14, 1789. Only a few prisoners resided there to be liberated; the real target was munitions.
The fall of the Bastille and the events that followed it were the culmination of shocks that had been building for decades. Many of the era’s problems in France were economic.
The nation had spent much of its treasury helping our young nation win its revolution. Increased taxation on the lower classes (the clergy and the nobles were powerful enough to avoid taxation) led to starvation and justifiable resentment. The peasants and the bourgeoning middle class had no place in government.
The king, Louis XVI, lived outside of Paris in the opulent palace at Versailles. He was increasingly out of touch with his people.
The governor of the Bastille at first resisted the human invasion and ordered his troops to fire on the mob. When the prison fell, the governor was decapitated (as many were to be in the months as years that followed). His head was placed on a pike and paraded through Paris.
When news of the fall of the Bastille reached King Louis the following day in Versailles, he is supposed to have cried, “Is this a revolt?”
To this his advisor, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, replied, “No, sire, it is a revolution.”
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According to the host of the French History Podcast, Gary Gidot, the fall of the Bastille was indeed a major spark in the French Revolution.
“The storming of the Bastille was a symbolic turning point, and it demonstrated the power of the people against the Ancien [old] Régime,” he said. ”In a matter of days the people of Paris were able to organize into a militia, take over the military garrisons of the city, and force the king to submit to their rule.”
Eventually, the Revolution turned Louis from a prisoner into a corpse. He went to the Guillotine in 1793.
Bastille Day in Paris is a splashy celebration with an elaborate military parade, fireworks around the Eiffel Tower, and street parties everywhere.
The one time I spent the holiday in Paris, I found it a bit overwhelming. Wandering through the streets that evening, I encountered far too many people and too many small explosions. Nevertheless, I remained and remain a Francophile.
I inherited my love of France. My mother, Jan Hallett, majored in French at Mount Holyoke, spent her junior year abroad in Paris, and served as president of the tiny French House (Le Foyer) on campus her senior year.
She was a lifelong Francophile and was proud of her French accent. My father was no linguist so he often took her along to translate for him when he worked in Paris. At the end of one session, a Frenchman asked my mother a question she didn’t translate, and she laughed.
My father asked her about it later. She told him that the man had said, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Madame. But why on earth did you marry an American?”
My mother learned to cook many French specialties, first from her landlady in Paris and later at a Cordon Bleu cooking school in New York.
She taught me that the secret to French cooking — in fact, the secret to all cooking — was to use quality ingredients and to keep things as simple as possible. She could produce a cassoulet, a steak au poivre, a pot of onion soup, or a chocolate mousse without much effort.
I have made three out of four of those. (I have yet to try my hand at cassoulet.) Nevertheless, to me the most French of all dishes is perhaps the most basic one: the humble omelette.
Humble might be the wrong word. The perfect omelette, firm on the outside and creamy on the inside, is a joy. The New York Times calls it “the egg taken to its highest form.”
Daniel Gritzer explains in “Serious Eats” that the omelette was traditionally used in French restaurants to test new cooks.
He explains, “They chose an omelette of all things because, in a matter of minutes, it could show a chef everything he needed to know about the cook. Did he make an egg-splattered mess or keep things clean?
“Was he wasteful, or did he scrape every last bit of egg into the pan? Did he handle the pan correctly, seasoning the traditional carbon steel to give it a perfect nonstick surface? Was he quick, deft, efficient?
“And, after everything, did he produce that textbook almond-shaped package?”
I’m not sure Gritzer would approve of my usual omelette. I use a manufactured nonstick pan rather than carbon steel to keep the eggs from sticking. (Sticking pretty much ruins an omelette.)
I fold my omelette instead of rolling it into that almond shape. And I often let the outside get a little brown, something upon which French chefs frown.
Nevertheless, my omelettes are always well received. I plan to make one for Bastille Day. In only a few minutes, I’ll produce a delectable meal (breakfast, lunch, or supper; it can be any of those!) that will take me back to July 14 in Paris … without the crowds and the fireworks.
Actually, I might attract a small crowd if my neighbors learn that I’m churning out omelettes.
My Omelette
This version enhances the eggs with a little cheddar cheese. Feel free to use whatever you like: a little ham, some vegetables, chopped herbs, different cheese. It’s important not to overstuff your omelette with additions, however. The eggs are the star of the show here.
Ingredients:
2 farm-fresh eggs
1 splash water
a sprinkling of Creole seasoning (or just salt and pepper to taste)
1 to 2 tablespoons butter
1/4 to 1/2 cup freshly shredded extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
Instructions
Crack the eggs into a medium-size bowl. Add the water and the seasoning, and whisk the mixture thoroughly.
In an 8-inch nonstick skillet warm the butter over medium-low heat. When the butter melts and starts talking to you, pour in the egg mixture.
Let the mixture cook for about 30 seconds; then begin pushing the egg in from the outside of the pan with a nonstick spatula so that it cooks thoroughly and evenly, tipping the pan slightly to allow the uncooked bits of egg to move out to the sides.
Cook for a total of 2 to 3 minutes, until the eggs are cooked but not dried out in the center. Once the egg mixture starts to firm up a bit, sprinkle the cheese on top. Fold the omelette in half, and serve. Serves 1.
Note that you don’t want to use super high heat with a nonstick pan — and you don’t want to rinse the pan immediately after removing the food you have cooked. Allow it to cool for a couple of minutes; then wipe out any grease that remains in the pan and wash it with warm water.
(Some nonstick pans say they can go in the dishwasher, but all of them will last longer if you wash them by hand.)
Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.