TASTES
 |
- Sean Connery in "Playboy," November, 1965 AT LEAST WE CAN EAT LIKE BOND
"You must forgive me," he said. "I take a ridiculous pleasure
in what I eat and drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from
a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It's very pernickety and old
maidish really, but then when I'm working I generally have to eat my meals alone
and it makes them more interesting when one takes trouble." Bond enjoys dining at restaurants. According to continuation series novelist Jeffery Deaver, Bond's favorite restaurant is: "No question: Le Grand Véfour in Paris. This classic establishment traces its roots back 200 years, and reportedly has counted among its diners Jean-Paul Sartre, Collette and Victor Hugo. Napoleon brought Josephine to an earlier incarnation on a date. Go during truffle season. Oh, and take a high-limit credit card - or wads of euros you've liberated from an enemy safehouse in the sixième arrondissement." Bond also cooks himself... Actually, a lot of the meals that Ian Fleming details so lovingly in his books are completely made up. But Bond loved two things that we can enjoy as well: martinis and scrambled eggs.
- "Casino Royale,"
Chapter 8
"When Bond drinks his wine it has to be properly chambre,
the tournedos slightly underdone, and so forth. But whenever I ate with Ian at
Goldeneye the food was so abominable I used to cross myself before I took a mouthful....
I used to say, 'Ian, it tastes like armpits.' And all the time you were eating
there was old Ian smacking his lips for more while his guests remembered all those
delicious meals he had put in the books."
- Noel Coward
 |
|
Three measures of Gordon's Gin
One measure of Vodka (preferably made with grain - not potatoes)
1/2 measure of Kina Lilelet
Large thin lemon peel
Directions:
Shake ingredients (except lemon peel) together until ice cold.
Pour it in to a deep champagne goblet and add lemon peel.
Note: Felix Leiter notes in Thunderball that Bond only uses double measures.
Kina Lillet hasn't been made since 1985, and the modern substitute would be Lillet Blanc, made by the same company, Lillet, based in Podensac, France. (in the film, Bond still orders Kina Lillet--nice bar, if they keep stock pre-1985 on-hand!) How does it taste? Well, if your vodka is really well chilled, and make it very dry (just a kiss of vermouth), then drink it down all at once, there won't be any taste at all. Just a burning sensation all the way down your insides. And after three or four, you won't be tasting anything at all.
The reason why you want the martini shaken is because at one point, by shaking the drink, the poisonous fusel oil that appears in cheaper vodkas will float to the top and then can be discarded. In the novel Moonraker, he drinks a shot of vodka straight, served with a pinch of black pepper, a habit he picked up working in the Baltic region.
OTHER DRINKS
According to AtomiccMartinis.com in 2007, Bond consumes a total 317 drinks in Fleming's novels, of which 101 are whisky, 35 sakes, 30 glasses of champagne and a mere 19 vodka martinis. This is an average of one drink every seven pages. But clearly, his favorite drink is champagne.
The literary Bond's favorite drink? Continuation novelist Jeffery Deaver told GQ (publication date: 26 May 2011): "Bourbon was Bond's favorite drink, not the iconic martini (though yes, he liked the latter shaken and not stirred), and his brands were Walker's Deluxe, IW Harper and Old Grand-Dad, which are, or were, all perfectly fine - I speak from experience - though not in the ultra-premium category. He drank relatively little Scotch whisky, but did enjoy Dimple Haig. His vodka was Stolichnaya." But as we have learned, he drinks champagne the most. Deaver continues: "It is with Champagne that Bond shuns the proletariat for the elite. His favorites are Veuve Clicquot, Dom Perignon, Krug, Pommery and Taittinger." Dom Perignon '53 gets a good mention.
Bond's favorite champagne in the movies would be... well, the brand that supplies free liquor to the producers, which 007 flashes to the camera with great panache. He may be a connoisseur of fine things, but he's not above product placement if the money's right. For Example: in exchange for supplying Eon Productions with champagne for parties and film openings, Bollinger has received free exposure in every Bond film since Live and Let Die (Sean Connery drank Dom Perignon).
 |
In From Russia With Love, Bond's typical breakfast is described. It consists of:
- Two large cups of black coffee from De BR in New Oxford Street, brewed
in an American Chemex (and no sugar, dammit).
- A single egg, boiled for three
and a third minutes.
- Thick slices of wholemeal toast, with Jersey butter
- Tiptree "Little Scarlet" strawberry jam,
- Cooper's Vintage Oxford marmalade,
and
- Norwegian Heather Honey from Fortnum's.
In Fleming's Thrilling Cities, we learn how Bond prepares breakfast for guests (presumably either his current captors or the previous evening's conquests).
For four individuals:
12 fresh eggs
Salt and pepper
5-6 oz. of fresh butter
Break the eggs into a bowl. Beat thoroughly with a fork and season well. In a small copper (or heavy-bottomed saucepan) melt 4 oz. of the butter. When melted, pour in eggs and cook over a very low heat, whisking continuously with a small egg whisk.
While the eggs are slightly more moist than you would wish for eating, remove your pan from heat, add rest of butter and continue whisking for half a minute, adding the while finely chopped chives or fines herbs. Serve on hot buttered toast in individual copper dishes (for appearance only) with pink champagne (Taittainger) and low music.
THE
JAMES BOND WORK-OUT
Now that you've spent all night drinking and all morning ingesting cholesterol,
it's time to burn off the fat. While we can't swim two miles underwater to attach
mines to ships, battle giant squid, or parachute out of exploding cars flying
off the Rock of Gibraltar everyday, we need some sort of exercise program. Here's
what Bond does when he's stuck at home:
"Bond went down on his hands and did
twenty slow press ups, lingering over each one so that his muscles had no rest.
When his arms could stand the pain no longer, he rolled over on his back, and,
with his hands at his sides, did the straight leg lift until his stomach muscles
screamed. He got to his feet, and, after touching his toes twenty times, went
over to arm and chest exercises combined with deep breathing until he was dizzy.
Panting with exertion, he went into the big white-tiled bathroom and stood in
the glass shower cabinet under very hot and then cold hissing water for five minutes."
- "From Russia With Love"
