I originally started Le Canard with an individual named Hans Horn. Hans has been a great friend of my family and mine for many years, and he had what we perceived to be the best restaurant possibly in Africa called "The Fiddler." Not happy with local politics all those many years ago, Hans sold up the business and went to America, where he opened another restaurant named "The Fiddler." Unfortunately he had not done his homework, and the restaurant was highly unsuccessful because the needs of the area, in which it was located, was for family styled restaurants, and there he had this so-called "posh" restaurant. So he very quickly realised his mistake, sold up in America and returned to his homeland Germany where he opened a wonderful little restaurant, where he was very happy with the chef, the waiters, the manager.....and everything else in this lovely little place.
For a number of years I had been giving cookery classes. In the evenings I taught professional men and women, and those were great fun. We made the food, ate the food, and had a jolly good time with it. However, I had cause to teach my housekeeper, which resulted in me presenting morning cooking classes to African housekeepers. and I made a point of making all of the recipes I shared with them. I am probably lazy at heart. I cook food that is certainly delicious, but it must be easy to prepare. I am not the kind of person who will go shopping for two days to make a single meal. So in these classes I made the recipes simple so that it is easy both to shop for, and easy to cook. Amongst these was chestnut soup. I showed the group of housekeepers in my class all the ingredients, and had them taking notes on the trade names of the ingredients, ensuring that they knew exactly what the correct ingredients were to make this chestnut soup, which was both delicious and inexpensive.
A couple of evenings later, as I was sitting down to evening dinner with my family, the phone went. As an aside, we had a family tradition to always eat dinner together. My husband, having been born in France, had a few culinary wishes, of which one was that he had to have bread with his meal. If he didn't have bread, he couldn't eat! Another was that he had to have salad, which my mother in law with her French accent described "French Letters." She meant "Lettuce" of course, and never got to know what "French Letters" really were. So while my husband had to have his salad and bread, I had to have my dessert. I also took into consideration the tastes of my children, and if there was one vegetable they specifically hated, they could nominate that vegetable which they would not be served. Other than that single vegetable, they ate what was on their plates.
So, now we were sitting down to this happy family meal, when the phone went. I answered the call, and there was a very irate lady on the other end of the line. I think that by listening to the voices of individuals on the phone, one can determine who they think they are, and this caller thought that she was both very posh and very angry. She informed me that she was so upset, because her husband had just thrown a plate of soup on the floor and walked out, and that she wasn't sending her housekeeper for cookery classes when she could not even prepare a recipe to satisfy her family. She thought that was disgusting, and wanted a refund of the money she paid me.
I responded "OK, just calm down a minute, and tell me what soup it was," since by then I actually knew what she was talking about. She retorted "It was chestnut soup!" I queried "Now, how did you or your housekeeper acquire the chestnuts?" She said "My housekeeper phoned Thrupps, and Thrupps delivers." I responded "That's very nice, now what did you get from Thrupps? Do you still have the container the chestnuts arrived in?" She responded "Absolutely!" I asked her to check whether it was a tin or a box, to which I got the reply "It was a very fancy box that came from France." I informed the lady that this was probably glacé (candied) chestnuts. "Oh" she says "it says something like that on the box." At this point I asked her to fetch the chestnut soup recipe I gave her housekeeper, which will indicate the right ingredient to be water chestnuts, and added "If your housekeeper couldn't read, or you couldn't direct her, or you couldn't shop for the right ingredient, then I suggest you owe me an apology right now, and establish whether it was your problem or the housekeeper's problem. I suspect it is you who have not discussed with your housekeeper what she must do. Thank you so much for letting me know. Good bye!"
That's when I sat down at my dinner table and told my family "That is the end of my cookery classes. If I have to have my dinner with my family interrupted by some cheeky socialite who doesn't have the time to see what is happening in her home, then I am not teaching anymore." The following morning I phoned my friend Hans Horn in Düsseldorf, telling him that I am no longer teaching and that I have got to do something. He responded "don't worry, you and I will each put some money in and open a restaurant. Now, you look for a restaurant that will suit me. I will come to South Africa for six months of the year when it is out of season in Germany. So I will travel backwards and forwards, and it will be wonderful! You just find the place you want."
So after much soul searching and property searching, I found a place. I specifically found a restaurant where I would always have fresh flowers and no air conditioning, hence I wouldn't have a place in a shopping centre. Dinner in a shopping centre I find depressing, albeit a few weeks ago a lady from Absa bank came to Le Canard, and was very dismayed at the ceiling fans. She said "You mean to tell me that you don't have air conditioning? We are used to air conditioning," to which I responded "Well I am so sorry! We do have four windows to the room and two doors. They're all open and we have fresh air." With that Absa lady and I parted company!
Getting back to the saga of Le Canard, before we could open the restaurant we had to find a name for the venue, and I think that was the only thing Hans and I argued about. I held my cooking classes at my home, where Hans spotted the curtains on my kitchen window. He piped up "Finished.....finished! I know what we call it.....Le Canard!" I responded "what in hell are we going to have a restaurant called that? First of all South Africans won't be able to pronounce it, and secondly, what are we going to do with the ducks?" He responded "Because the South Africans won't be able to pronounce the name and say 'what's that?' you will say 'it's the duck.....the f**cking duck!'" Being by now exhausted with this name seeking game, I very reluctantly agreed.
We opened Le Canard and in due course Hans came out for the opening, and decided that his restaurant in Düsseldorf was being neglected and promptly rushed back. Whilst I know that I am a damn good cook, I am not exactly a people's person. I do think before I speak, but I sometimes speak before I think! I knew I wasn't the kind of person to rush around and say "is everything alright," because God help anybody who tells me something wasn't alright! I needed a Maître D', so very good friends of mine, who were chair persons of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, highly recommended a gentleman who used to work at the then Rosebank Hotel in Johannesburg. So I phoned this gentleman whose name is Hans Frieser.
Hans arrived and he was possibly the cleanest and nicest human being I ever met. He was exceedingly well trained at the best butler school in Berlin, and he adhered to a special routine. He arrived in the morning and prior to serving lunch, he would retire to the restroom where he would scrub his fingernails, clean his teeth and brush his hair. After service he would go home, return at around 18h00, go the restroom and repeat the procedure of scrubbing his nails, cleaning his teeth and brushing his hair.
Hans Frieser and I got along like a house on fire. He had a lovely sense of humour, a very heavy German accent, and he prefaced everything he said with the word "Mensch." I asked him one day "Hans why did you leave the Rosebank Hotel?" He said "You know Mensch, I can't understand. Helen Suzman [the South African politician] was a regular customer. I knew Helen Suzman and I used to greet her at the door and seat her. One day she came, and I can't understand. I said to her 'you know madam, you look like a flower.....and she beamed! And she said 'thank you Hans!' And I said 'Yes madam, you look just like a cauliflower!' I saw the beam disappear from her face, and straight after lunch I was called into the manager's office, and he said 'Hans it's not acceptable. How dare you say anything like that?' and I said 'but sir, she did look like a cauliflower!' He said 'but you can't say that,' and decided to suspend me for a month. So I stayed home for a month, and you know what? I didn't think it was fair. I wasn't in the wrong, so I resigned."
So that is the story of Hans Frieser, who worked for me for quite a number of years. He was wonderful.....and he never called anyone a "cauliflower" again!
Freda
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