an oyster knife and serve them like oysters.”
Dufour is as creative with animals and animal products as is a
vegetarian chef who works exclusively with vegetables. For
example, one of the dishes he teaches me is called Bone Marrow
and Escargot.
From the butcher, Dufour gets bone marrow sliced vertically, so
you get this long bone with the fat marrow inside. He scoops out
the marrow with an offset spatula (one of his favorite tools),
trying to keep it together in one big piece so that when it cooks, it
will stay whole. (If it were in pieces, because it’s pure fat, it
would all melt.) Onto the bone he slathers a shallot puree that
contains garlic, peppercorns, and good red wine; on top of that, he
lines up escargot from a can. He rests the marrow back on top and
sprinkles everything with garlic, parsley, and bread crumbs. Into a
hot oven it goes and when it comes out, it’s impossible to stop
eating: fatty, crusty orbs of marrow resting on garlicky, shallot-
ensconced snails.
Dufour’s meat infatuation started early. When he was eleven,
growing up in Canada, his dad gave him a gun and took him
hunting and Dufour shot everything in sight. “Squirrels, little
birds,” he recalls, somewhat solemnly. “It was never easy, though.
I remember going home and crying.”
Those tears would later inform his career as a chef. “It’s like
harvesting a carrot,” he explains. “If you pick it, you care about
preparing it properly. You know you should do something with it.
It’s the same process.”