#13 Chantilly

mist on the water on my morning walk

There is a moment, when you decide to book a class on whipping Chantilly cream and you wonder if it’s wise. Whether you’ll have the strength and stamina of your probably much younger classmates. Whether you’ll be able to whip the cream to standing point—or whether you’ll have to go doggo and ask the chef to do it for you.

The class was at L’atelier de la Chantilly on the main street.

And here I must introduce Bertram, who is both charming and entirely in command of cream, which is a combination you don’t see every day. He ran the class with a seriousness that wasn‘t too serious, just enough light-heartedness to make you feel you were in safe hands.

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And with a lovely grin. He translated into English too—not all of it, but enough.

He spent twenty-five years in tech, and then he reinvented himself by opening a small tea room in Chantilly and his passion, apart from cooking pastries, is teaching people to whip cream.

There were ratios (30% min fat) and percentages (less than 15% confectioners‘ sugar AKA pure icing sugar) and a méthode delivered with the gravity of a medical procedure—sugar, cream, vanilla flavouring, timing, technique. I listened carefully and retained almost none of it.

What I did understand is that Chantilly cream is not something you bully or rush, but something you use your charm on, to persuade it to be light and full of air. And surprisingly, the best whisk is not the finest, but one with thicker wire.

I was the first to be told I could stop whipping. I‘m not sure if it was because I was so skilled, or if I looked as if I might not survive the experience.

He also told us three entirely plausible and, as he said, contradictory stories about how Chantilly cream came into being, and naturally I have forgotten all three. What I do remember is the book itself—an original volume, csitting in his museum case, proving that Chantilly cream dates back at least to the 1700‘s. Anyone who produces a book like that has to be a hero. There are other classes, but you should book Bertrand‘s, and hear them for yourself—even if you’re not coming to France. https://atelier.delachantilly.fr/

Then—the horse spectacle at the Royal Stables built by Louis Henri de Bourbon and finished in 1735.

I had expected an equestrian demonstration—dressage maybe. Something tasteful and Ralph Lauren.

But this was theatre. And fabulous horses and actors and riders and acrobats. Under the vast dome of the Grandes Écuries de Chantilly, the whole performance played out in a circular ring, the floor of packed earth.

It was set in the medieval period and followed the seasons and the zodiac: autumn, winter, spring, summer.

My favourite scene smacked of the classics: a woman at her bath in the forest, attended by a maid and a man who shouldn’t be there.

She entered the stage, escorted by the man. He lingered just a fraction too long before she dismissed him with annoyance.

When he left, there was a brief return to order as she bathed—or appeared to—leg stretched above her head, toe pointed, her long hair let down by the servant girl.

Then he returned, and everything went out of control.

Thunder rolled, lightning split the space, and from the top of the dome, long red ribbons dropped—two streams of silk—and she, in flesh-coloured tights that gave the unmistakable impression she wasn’t wearing anything at all, climbed.

She pulled herself up into the air, into the storm, wrapping and dropping and catching herself, twisting through the silk as though gravity no longer applied

At the end she gathered the entire length of ribbon around herself, wound and wound an wound upwards until she was completely cocooned in it, and then, without ceremony, she let go and fell—fast and clean—unwinding as she dropped, the silk streaming out above her in a double line. She landed like a feather.

Her name was Anaïs Delva.

And there was a man—Kévin Ferreira—who could do anything on a horse branded JF. He could fall from the saddle and return to it in one movement. Flip, run alongside, cartwheel beside it, then be back again—seated higher than the saddle, turned backwards on the horse’s neck, galloping with him facing the tail as if it were the most natural position in the world.

A showman to the end, he lifted a hand, not to himself but to the horse, asking for the applause to go there. It did. And then more for him.

And yet the whole performance appeared to be deliberately without stars—an ensemble, balanced, no one celebrated above the rest. Which made it all the more striking that he stood out anyway. And so did the woman on the ribbons.

One of the horsewomen was limping. Not as part of the act, I imagine. No doubt it’s a dangerous business.

And now I’m back in the courtyard of the Auberge, doing an analysis of the day, which involves a glass of champagne and a prawn and sweet chilli snack which they call torpédo.

Barman Max has just told me his grandmother is ninety-six and drinks a bottle of champagne a day—not a glass, a bottle. I‘m not sure I believe him.

And I’m sitting here thinking how today was exactly right, and if I'm lucky, tomorrow‘s visit to the château might improve on it.

Here‘s a few photos of what caught my eye.

Oh, and if you have any questions about whipping Chantilly cream, just ask me in the comments! I’ll answer with confidence. Accuracy not guaranteed.

Je t‘attends,