Fr Peter bites more than he can chew as the superstitious 14th guest

The revered philosopher Fr Peter Serracino Inglott had a knack for walking straight into comic situations when he was studying to become a priest. In this excerpt from his biography PSI Kingmaker, the author Daniel Massa recounts how the superstitions of the Parisians propelled Fr Peter to a lavish dinner, where he was expected to feast on Ortolans à la Provençale, a banned, stomach-churning tradition of devouring the fattened ortolan songbird whole… bones, entrails and all.

Read the previously published excerpts from PSI Kingmaker:

When his sister Josephine returned to London, Peter resumed his nomadic adventures in Paris, washing dishes, sleeping in restaurants or getting involved in some misadventure with a fellow seminarian or sleeping with the homeless under the bridge.

The chaplain of the Institut Catholique learnt about Peter’s midnight adventures through the grapevine and secured him an attic right opposite the institute where he could have some privacy and catch up on his studies.

At times, if he did not stop to comb his unruly red hair, Peter would manage to arrive for Mass at the Séminaire des Carmes on time, much to the surprise of the other seminarians.

A fortnight before Christmas, Peter took a job with Le Bon Marché, a department store on the Rive Gauche showcasing designer collections, jewellery, toys, furniture and a splendid gourmet market.Never one to shy away from odd jobs, the young Peter once dressed up as Father Christmas, posing for photos, as children tugged at his white beard.

There, at Junction 22 Rue de Sèvres, corner with Rue Babylone, in seasonal festive disguise, Peter watched Maltese people he knew hunting for presents for friends or relatives.

Nostalgically, he surmised how somewhere out there might be a Maltese child who would have unknowingly posed for a photo with Peter in disguise.To boost his morale he would stop at La Ferme de Normandie, where you eat just cheese – cheese soup, main cheese dish and cheese-based dessert.

He recalled: “Then, I was a great cheese eater… I sometimes ate little else but baguettes and Camembert.”

On one occasion, Dame Fortune seemed to smile on him. With a pocket dictionary in hand, dressed up with nowhere to go, Peter approached Hôtel Paris Bercy and was accosted by a gold-braided doorkeeper who in an urgent voice asked whether he was free for the next four hours.

If he were, would he be quatorzième. In many cultures, 13 guests at table was considered unlucky. French hotels got round this by setting an extra place at table for a beautifully carved wooden cat, to whom they offer food as an additional diner — the 14th guest.

In this case, the manager was at his wit’s end because the regular quatorzième had a bout of flu and failed to turn up. While Peter stood there, breathing in the aromas wafting out the restaurant door, the doorkeeper pounced.

Before he knew it, Peter was being persuaded by this six-foot doorkeeper to join a lavish dinner… as the honoured quatorzième. All Peter had to do was give up four hours in return for a meal, the like of which he was assured, he had never tasted.

At the first nod that could be interpreted as assent, Peter was pushed inside the hotel, sprayed with rose water, dressed in a spotless jacket and tie and introduced to the French ladies dripping with jewels and well-heeled corpulent gentlemen, as a red-haired relation to Riquet à la Houpe, alias Ricky the Tuft, who had come to their rescue.

A gastronomical feast

It was a gastronomical feast, starting with a clear consommé of fattened pigeons, then the choicest fillet of beef, capons stuffed with black truffles; a Strasbourg pâté de foie gras; delicious Rhine carp richly dressed; truffled quails with marrow on basil-flavoured toast; a stuffed pike with a prawn and mint sauce; baby asparagus and… Ortolans à la Provençale.

Peter watched the ladies tasting the delicacies as the gentlemen guzzled and munched away. At one point, as he was fidgeting with the salt-cellar, the gentleman across the table gave him a shrivelling look indicating he should desist.

His wife informed Peter her husband was mortally afraid of spilt salt. Peter recalled that in Da Vinci’s Last Supper, Judas had spilled a bowl of salt; a portent of evil and bad luck.

The lady assured Peter all the men at table were superstitious, which was why he was there, n'est-ce pas?

She added that her husband believed that way back in 1716 or 1718, the Marquis de Montrevel, who was famous for his courage on several battlefields, died of fright when a waiter spilled the contents of a salt-cellar on him. The wife, however, indicated his playing with the salt-cellar was not bothering her.

Smiling charmingly, she then proceeded to guide Peter through the instructions for consuming the next dish – the ortolan! This was a notorious ritual that was not for the fainthearted; a centuries-old rite for French gourmands where tiny songbirds were snared alive, kept in the dark, force-fed on millet, grapes, and figs, drowned in Armagnac brandy and roasted whole.

This cruel practice has since been banned in France but is often disregarded by French custom. A gong sounded. The master of ceremonies announced the steaming arrival of the roast ortolan within three minutes.

He urged newcomers to the ritual to attend to his instructions:

“When the precious ortolan lands on your plate, cover your head with the serviette. Next, place the entire ortolan into your mouth, bite off the head and discard it. The hot ortolan should then be eaten immediately. Rest it on your tongue while inhaling rapidly through your mouth. This allows its ambrosial fat to cascade freely down your throat. When cool, start to chew. It takes about 15 minutes to work your way through, as you chew in the darkness you can taste the bird's entire life — the wheat of Morocco, the Mediterranean salt air, the lavender of Provence. The lungs and heart will burst into a liqueur-scented ecstasy on your tongue. The ortolans are here. Taste heaven on earth.”

Peter listened intently as the tiny songbirds were lifted out of the steaming tureen, placed on the plates, and the ritual began. While the other 13 guests draped their head with a linen serviette to savour the aromas in private, Peter wrapped the ortolan in his napkin, slid out of his chair and moved towards the nearest bathroom, where he unsuccessfully tried to force himself to throw up!

When after 10 minutes the other guests lifted their eyes from their satin serviettes to sing their epicurean ecstasy, the distant relative of Riquet à la Houpe had vanished.

Not cut out for the job

He had had enough! He took off the borrowed dinner jacket and tie, and put on his own. As he moved towards the front door, he saw the tall doorkeeper coming towards him with an inquisitive look on his face. Peter grinned broadly as if to say, ‘thanks but no thanks’, and deftly handed him the linen napkin with the steaming ortolan still wrapped inside.

And, before the doorkeeper could call him back, Peter was on the street, taking the bend at a sprint and disappearing out of sight. It was dark and his heart was pounding, like that of a frightened hare. That was when he threw up! He had absconded before the toast in honour of the Republic and in turn missed his promised remuneration. His mind was in a whirl and he had to accept that he was not cut out for this last job.

Thankfully, a week later, the chaplain as always came to Peter’s rescue and found him a job as a night watchman near the Séminaire at a subsidiary of Perrier’s bottling plant in Paris. In his interviews, Fr Peter recalled: “There, I had no problems. I was all by myself. So I could read all the time; sometimes I even dozed off. Nobody ever came to rob anything. If they did, I never saw them. I was even given a gun. It was just for show, they never told me and I never asked them how to use it! I enjoyed drinking Perrier for free, which I loved.”

The author Daniel Massa.

A statement that would come to haunt him 50 years later.

This is the fourth in a series of weekly long reads from the biography of Fr Peter Serracino Inglott — PSI Kingmaker — to mark the 10th year from his death. The book is available via https://bit.ly/PeterSerracinoInglottKingmaker.

Read the previously published excerpts from PSI Kingmaker:

Sign up to our free newsletters