Marie-Louise Langlais
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Marie-Louise writes: "As for you, readers, you may very well not want to eat it, but personally I always find this dish delicious and enjoy it every time I pass through Strasbourg. Bon appetit to those who want to try!"
VEAL KIDNEYS
Veal Kidneys
IMPORTANT: The kidneys have to be cooked quickly to be slightly rosé (pink) otherwise they will be tough. Choose only veal kidneys, not lamb, beef or sheep.
INGREDIENTS
METHOD
TIP:You can also add Paris mushrooms in this recipe; Cut them in slices, cook them separately with lemon juice for 5 minutes, and add them to the cooked kidneys, with a tablespoon of fresh cream. Mix everything for 3 minutes.
Marie-Lousie recounts introducing Americans to this dish:
During my first concert tour in the USA, in 1974, I started in California especially in San Francisco and I lived in Palo-Alto with one of my French cousins, a pianist, who had married an American. I invited my new American friends to her house to let them taste a typically Alsatian dish that I had discovered and really enjoyed during my law studies in Strasbourg. I often ate it in these typical old taverns that surround Strasbourg Cathedral. To find the ingredients, I went to the local covered market to buy, in addition to shallots and mushrooms, 4 veal kidneys from one of the butchers. I remember (50 years ago!) that he looked at me and asked me with surprise if it was for my cat. So, it was me who was surprised by his question, and told him no, it was for dinner. I seem to remember him shrugging his shoulders. Perhaps he was thinking: a crazy woman! I really wanted to please my new musician friends, including John Walker, at this time professor of organ at San José State University, San Jose, California, and now professor of organ professor at Baltimore Peabody Institute. In 2014, he was elected President of the American Guild of Organists. In short, a professional recognized by all, but above all, a wonderful musician and a faithful friend. I think they loved it, but when they asked me after dinner what it was and I told them, I’m happy to report that none of them asked where the toilets were. I then realised that such a dish might not please them because of the veal kidneys, and I then understood the butcher’s question better. |
Marie-Louise Langlais
Born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1943, Marie-Louise Jaquet studied both law in Aix-en-Provence and Strasbourg, and organ performance at the conservatories of Marseille and Mulhouse, before she concentrated entirely on the organ and musicology.
After she earned a diploma in both organ and improvisation in Jean Langlais’ class at the Schola Cantorum in Paris in 1969, she was named in the same year titular organist of the Silbermann organ in Mulhouse. She left this position in 1979 after her marriage to Jean Langlais, and she became then his assistant on the Cavaillé-Coll organ of Ste. Clotilde, Paris. Marie-Louise Langlais began a career as professor of organ and improvisation in 1974, successively at the Conservatoire National de Région in Marseille, at the Schola Cantorum, and at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional in Paris. In addition, she has taken part in several jury competitions, both national and international. At the same time, beginning in the 1970s, she wrote numerous articles for French and foreign journals, whose principal theme is French organ music, and in particular, “The tradition of Sainte-Clotilde: César Franck, Charles Tournemire and Jean Langlais.” In 1992, Marie-Louise earned the Doctor of Musicology degree of the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne with a dissertation on the life and music of Jean Langlais, of which a condensation was published by editions Combre in 1995 under the title Ombre et lumière, Jean Langlais (1907-1991) [“Shadow and light, Jean Langlais (1907-1991)”]. She was awarded the special Bernier Prize of the Institut de France for it in 1999. For the centenary of Jean Langlais’ birth in 2007, Delatour France published her CD of the composer’s Souvenirs. Still in the organ world, to show her admiration for the great French composer Jean-Louis Florentz, she united in 2009 various testimonies and analyses in a book-CD called Jean-Louis Florentz, l’œuvre pour orgue, témoignages croisés (editions Symétrie). A concert organist, she has toured extensively, giving conferences and master classes in North America and Europe, and has recorded for different labels: Arion, Delatour, Lyrinx, Solstice, Festivo (Netherlands), Koch International and Motette (Germany). Between 2012 and 2016, she was three times as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College (Ohio), at the invitation of Professor James David Christie, to share with his brilliant students a certain tradition of the French organ school. Marie-Louise website: MarieLouiseLanglais.org
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