The Pilgrim by Lynne Crook

The man arrived in the evening, trudging up the stone paved streets of Mont-Saint-Michel to l’Auberge.  He had entered the kitchen like the Pope, about to deliver a blessing. That night, they were overwhelmed with visitors, supplicants making the long journey to come and pray at the Abbey. 

A number of them turned their heads in recognition as he entered. The head chef at Maxim’s, he had collected many admirers across the city. Not so many years ago, his name had been the first to be spoken in hushed tones among the gastronomic elite. Now, however, the whispers were of new dishes outside of Paris. He had determined that these culinary follies would be laid bare to him.

The time had therefore come to seek an audience with the originator of the famous Omelette de la Mère Poulard. Here he duly was, but found himself placed second to the demands of the dining room. His desire made him impatient to study to learn her methods, straining for a view of the copper pan over the open fire. But he came too close, distracting Mère Poulard from the crucial, final flip of the omelette. The dish threatened to fall to the floor. She rounded on him. One more transgression, and he would be banished. 

He could not countenance this, being dismissed like a lazy sous-chef. He spent the rest of the evening on the lightest of tip-toes, observing from the shadows. This most sincere repentance seemed to placate the woman. The promise that he would cook with her had come like a benediction.

So, the next morning, as his fellow travellers wound their way up the hill to morning matins, he had made his own journey. While the church collection plate rang with coins, his tribute consisted of a dozen eggs. The sermons he listened to were as enigmatic as the epistles recited at the Abbey. The flick of the wrist had to be ‘just so’, but how ‘just so’? The eggs were to be fresh, but not too fresh. 

His questions now became supplications, an entreaty for knowledge beyond the common man.

"Do you only ever use the salted butter?"

The heat from the fire was too much for him, and his face was red with the exertion of beating the eggs to the exact level of sunny frothiness required. Mère Poulard remained inscrutable. It was twenty minutes before she instructed him to introduce the mixture to the pan. 

The copper pan bubbled as the eggs were poured into the golden fat. His heart lightened as they rose and browned. A large fork was brought in to aid in the turning manoeuvre. The world stilled as the omelette began to leave its resting place. Alas, this proved to be his undoing. The whole endeavour split and seemed to sigh as it collapsed. His pilgrimage ended with an omelette that offered only ashes to the mouth. 

Looking at the disappointment in his eyes, she showed some mercy. Face as inscrutable as the Madonna, Mère Poulard took a bite from the sad offering on the plate. After a short silence for the fallen, she said, ‘I think, perhaps, you were looking for a secret?’

He nodded, searching her face for meaning, as a cloistered monk would sift for meaning among the words of a holy text.

‘Ah, but there are only eggs.’

Lynne Crook is a writer of fiction inspired by history, folklore and the landscapes that surrounds her characters. Her work explores themes of belonging, tradition and the search for meaning in everyday life. She is currently writing a novel and short fiction, with a particular interest in place-based storytelling.

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