Vianne Quotes

“We laughed a lot. ...I hope my body remembers.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Total freedom sometimes feels like a kind of paralysis. So many choices. So many doors all clamoring to be opened. But with every choice we make, so many more must be put aside. Discarded futures, unknown friends; lives unloved and paths uncrossed.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Behind me, the cries of the gulls on the wind are scratches of silver in the sky. And it smells of smoke, and the carnival, and of the river in the sun, and sugared dough fried on the hot plate, and herbs to heal a troubled heart. I walk from the harbor and do not look back.
Vianne, or Mother?
Vianne it is.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“The soft wind from the south-west calls in a voice like my mother's. Italy, it whispers. Greece. Corsica, Sardinia. Its name is Sirocco, Levante, Ostrale, and sometimes even Khamaseen, and it promises magic, and freedom, and love. But that cold, clean wind from the north-north-east has a chilly charm of its own: its name is Mistral, and it calls to me in a voice I think I know; a voice I first heard when I opened the map and saw the village with my name. The voice of an unknown future.
Vianne or Mother? Which will it be?”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“What's your favorite?'
I must have looked confused. That's my trick; no one ever asks me which chocolate I prefer.
'Let me guess,' said the man in black, and, looking over the display, seemed to consider the chocolates, the candied fruits, the nougatines. Lingered for a moment over the green tea truffles; the salted pralines. Then he looked up, and his sea-blue eyes were filled with crazed reflections.
'You didn't like chocolate at first,' he said. 'You never used to eat it. But now, you're starting to understand. Its power to awaken the past; its dark and troubled history. The stories it tells about itself. It's many re-inventions. Ah. Here we are.' He paused at a tray of chocolate-dipped cherries, still with the stalks attached, and said. 'These, I think, Vianne Rocher. Dark chocolate, not always your favorite, but here, with cherries, it evokes something almost magical. Bite through the bitter chocolate shell to the brandied fruit inside. Hold the little stone on the tongue. Roll it gently around your mouth, like a long-kept secret.' He smiled, and I found myself liking him in spite of the coldness in my heart: the Man in Black has a kind of charm that I would never have suspected.
I said: 'You may be right, monsieur. Yours is---' A gilded thread in the air. A little bastide on the Garonne. Not Vianne, but somewhere close; light, like the bloom on an apricot, a sky like the edge of forever----
I said, in a slightly trembling voice: 'Apricot hearts. They're your favorite.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“But when I reached Xocolatl, my heart beating ferociously, I found the display window brightly lit, with fairy lights on the window-ledge and along the shelves of chocolates. Cellophane-wrapped and gleaming like a pirate's buried treasure, they seemed to glow with a precious light, those gilded piles of mendiants, and truffles, rose creams and santons de Margot, while above them rose the centerpiece; a statuette of the Bonne Mère, much larger than the ones in the shop, one hand raised in benediction, the other holding the infant Christ, and robed in darkest chocolate. And all around the dishes and jars were origami animals; little angular butterflies and cranes and fish and rabbits in multicolored paper. I detected the hand of Grandmother Li: imagined those clever old hands at work, folding the pretty papers.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Is that your dog?' He knelt to stroke Galipette, who growled, unused to attention.
'He doesn't like me,' said Loïc.
'He doesn't like anyone,' said Tonton.
Loïc stroked the dog again. 'You're a good dog,' he told Galipette. 'You just needed someone to tell you.' Galipette tried another growl, but it didn't sound convincing. Rolling over, he licked Loïc's hand. 'I knew you were a good dog!”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“It works on almost any dish; its influence can be subtle or strong, savory or bittersweet, depending on its companions. In this dish it would be smoky, I thought; woodsmoke and paprika. Herbs to heal a troubled heart. A welcoming smile from Marguerite.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Imagine a neon sign, right there, a bowl of noodles in flashing red. Imagine the scent of roasted pork, and garlic, and sizzling vegetables. Imagine the customers crowding the street; faces rosy in the glow of many lights. Imagine the money coming in; the luck of the family turning.
Madame Li's face opened up like a flower in a glass of tea. 'Luck,' she said.
I nodded. 'Here. I made these for you.'
I pulled out one of my little sample boxes from my bag. Green tea truffles, with darkest chocolate and fleur de sel: a flavor that reminds me somewhat of the rising tide in Normandy, where Maman and I spent a summer once, and where I ate crêpes wrapped in paper, with butter and fried sausages, while the waves crept closer and the gulls circled hopefully overhead.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“The scent from the open box was starting to come alive now. It is a scent I have come to know well; the dusty scent of cacao beans hoarded in cedarwood caskets; the spicy scent of cacao liqueur whisked to a froth in an abalone cup; the hot scent of chilies, and cumin, and mace; the sweet and rich vanilla scent of innocence and childhood. Chocolate is like wine, I think. Like wine, it unleashes the tongue. Like wine, it has its rituals. Like wine, it opens the mind to different possibilities.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“I pack the chocolates into boxes and sachets as well as making my own new creations: mendiants, painted with gold leaf and jeweled with Malaga raisins and Seville orange peel; strawberry violet fondant, caramel, with pink peppercorns; green tea truffles, with sea salt.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“I want to put joy into the world. I want to help my friends, to build a future for my daughter. This is the time to put aside those things that try to hold us down. Time to say goodbye to the dead, and to celebrate the living. Everything is ready now: candles from the market, lined up in wine-bottle holders; incense from my own supply, ready to sweeten the troubled air. My mother's cards in their sandalwood box. And a dozen little red sachets, made from scavenged scarlet silk, one for every month in the year, and filled with a combination of herbs: lavender for peace of mind; marigold, for friendship; strawberry leaf for good fortune; hawthorn for protection; mandrake for power; cedar for strength; and in each, a scrap of paper with a secret invocation to the dead: a prayer for future prosperity; a light against the darkness.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Food engages sight and sound and texture, not just scent and taste. And food is the most elementary expression of human connection; love without complications. Traveling with my mother has taught me the value of perspective. A simple dish can become ridiculously elevated by an elegant turn of phrase. Bread with a square of chocolate inside becomes a pâtissier's chocolatine; two dozen snails from a woodpile become escargots en persillade.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Rose fondants, made with Turkish rosewater; coated in 70 per cent couverture chocolate from hand-sorted Porcelana beans. I remove the embryo myself in order to limit the bitterness. Eighty-five hours conching; then tempered on marble, my favorite way, then dip the fondant, leave to set and add a crystallized rose petal on top. The result smells like roses; chocolate-red; full-throated; the petals like the bloom of a grape.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“There's a comfort to be found in this most elementary of rituals: the heating of the whole milk in a copper saucepan; the adding of the nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, chili powder. Guy has taught me that chili was what the Mayans used in chocolate; that cold and bitter forerunner of the drink we enjoy today. Chili has special properties; it's a powerful antioxidant with antibiotic properties, and like Theobroma cacao, it boosts the immune system, lifts the mood and makes the senses more alert. Chili and chocolate are soulmates, just as some people are soulmates, bound together for centuries. Heat the milk to a shiver, then add the grated chocolate: Guy only uses the darkest kind, but I prefer something sweeter. Brown sugar to combat the heat, and cardamom, for freshness.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“It is the simplest of recipes, after pralines and chocolate ganache. He calls them mendiants, those chocolate discs studded with raisins, and almonds and candied lemon peel. He tells me they're named after the mendicant orders of monks, who used to sell them door-to-door during the Middle Ages. It's a word I have heard before, though never in this context; instead, I remember it flung like stones in our wake as we passed through some long-ago village. It's a surprise to find this word-- this slur-- thus sweetened by circumstance, harmlessly translated into the language of chocolate.
First, melt the chocolate in a bain-marie. Strange, how the Virgin seems to bless even this most secular of baptisms. Then, on greaseproof paper, place tablespoons of the chocolate to make round discs, the size of the Host. On this still-cooling chocolate, add the traditional dried fruits and nuts that symbolize the Orders. Fat raisins; yellow sultanas; cherries; toasted almonds; pistachios and hazelnuts, like jewels on a medallion.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“I lost my mother. You lost your child. But love-- love finds a way to stay. To shine, and to remember.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“I am already vaguely aware of the concept of sanctuary. To me, it sounds like a distant land, like Faërie or Shambhala. And it smells of autumn sunshine and caramel apples and Christmas Eve, and it looks like a palace of candles and smoke and colored statues and jeweled glass.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Slow-ccoked regional dishes like this often improve with re-heating. The scent was rich and flavorsome; the meat perfectly silky; the tender beans infused with the flavors of bay, and clove, and rosemary.
Louis tasted a forkful. I waited for his verdict.
'Heh. Not bad.'
I smiled. Not bad is Louis' highest accolade. Louis Martin is not a man given to lavish compliments. But I could see his colors through the rising steam from the old cassole; the lightning grey of that morning giving way to softer, warmer hues; the pastels of childhood; the palette of hope; the rosy, sunrise tint of love.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“So simple in concept, ratatouille exists in many variants. Like a folk song, it has crossed continents, and found its way into a hundred different traditions. Marguerite's recipe calls for tomatoes, sweet red peppers, aubergines, onions, garlic, all combined with bay and seasonings, and a good splash of olive oil. Served with grilled red mullet, it makes a simple, wholesome dish, a dish that comes with a line of verse from Margot's favorite poet: The greatest love can only grow beside a dream of equal size. Food is love in Margot's world: simple, warm and constant.
As for myself, I am almost two thirds of the way through her book of recipes. I can make madeleines, brioche, pieds paquets, pomponettes, leblebi, chickpea stew with merguez, Marseille-style pizza, aioli, navettes, and fiadoni, the Corsican cheesecake so beloved by Louis' regulars. I know the difference between pâte brisée and pâte feuilletée, fougasse and pissaladière. I know how to fillet rockfish; how to keep the heads for stock; how to stir red saffron through rice to make the most luscious risotto. Cooking has become a joy, an unexpected talent. Domestic magic is humbler, perhaps, than my mother's glamours and tricks, and yet it makes a difference.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“I opened the jar. Guy's xocolatl smells of the ground after a short, hot fall of rain; of spices ground by hand in the dirt; of perfumes known to me only from stories. Here was vanilla, silphium, cardamom, ginger, and saffron. Here was cassia, star anise, fennel, mace and turmeric. But here too were stories of the great chocolate kings: Montezuma, Moctezuma, Itzcoatl, and Tizoc.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“I am re-inventing myself, writing my own story; changing my name to fit the course that I have chosen for myself. The old woman called me Vianne Rocher. Not Rochas, but Rocher, like the chocolate. This seems meaningful, somehow. As if that village on the Baïse and the chocolaterie on Allée du Pieu might both be part of my future. And before I settle anywhere, I need to learn how to be Vianne.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“She lives, but is not lively; awaiting the change of the seasons. A summer child, the old lady said. Summer children are filled with light. But my child will be born in March. A windswept, change-of-the-seasons child; sunny one day, in darkness the next. I feel that in her; that fugitive gleam, like sunlight on the ocean. And in my dreams I see her; always at five or six years old. Her hair is a tumbled candyfloss cloud. Her name comes in endless variants of my mother's name, Jeanne: Anne, Annette, Jeanette, Johanne, Jolène, Annie--- Anouk.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“From the trolley, he picked up a chocolate, rolled in cacao powder. 'These are ganache truffles,' he said. 'The easiest chocolates to make. Even a child can make them. Even Mahmed could, probably.'
I took one. It smelt of darkness infused with gold; a scent that both drew and repelled me.
'I don't really like dark chocolate,' I said.
'Just try one. I made them myself, from bean to bar. Nothing artificial.'
I bit a piece from the chocolate. It was bitter and powdery, but there were other flavors there, struggling to be released.
'Rest it on your tongue for a while. Eyes closed. Mouth half open.'
I did as he said. The bitter scent started to intensify. It's odd; I didn't quite like it, and yet it was evocative. I can taste charcoal, and nutmeg, and salt, and olive, and strong wild honey. It makes me think of incense, and woodsmoke on a frosty night, and the scent of fallen leaves in the rain, and the memory of that night in the church, the warmth of the confessional.
I thought I didn't like chocolate. In fact, I never knew it. Those little squares of chocolate I'd had as a child were nothing like this.
'I know. It's different,' he said. 'It's eighty per cent cacao. It might taste a little bitter to you, but that's the nature of cacao: the stuff you get in the shops here is really mostly sugar and palm oil and fat. But this is the soul of the cacao bean. This strength. This bitter potency. And in this form, it has a kick. It sharpens the mind. Gives energy.'
I put the rest of the chocolate aside. My mouth was furred with darkness.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Panisses, those chickpea fritters sold by vendors on every street corner, and served with harissa, tomatoes, or roasted halloumi, or grilled sardines; navettes, the little orange-flower biscuits Louis serves with coffee; fougasse, that crispy Provençal bread, enriched with olive oil and herbs; pieds paquets in spicy tomato sauce; olive tapenade with salt lemon confit.It feels good to learn, and Louis admits that I may have an aptitude. He has grown warmer towards me. The customers are happy. I am even allowed officially to handle the book of recipes.
Each one has a story. This tapenade is the first thing she made, when she was only eight years old, in her grandmother's kitchen. This is her mother's clafoutis, made with the fat yellow cherries from the tree at the back of the garden. And these pomponettes are what she made for the guests on her wedding day; scented with orange blossom and sprinkled with nuts and sugar. Orange is the scent of hope, she writes in hasty handwriting. A promise of something small and sweet. A vow, built from spun sugar and dreams, melting in the sunlight.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“First, the aromatics.
Soon the kitchen was filled with the scent of freshly chopped fennel, garlic, herbs, orange peel, thyme, and aniseed. At least it smelt like food now. I felt a little better.
Next, the chopped tomatoes.
The Marmande tomatoes are beefy and large, with flesh that yields mostly texture, and few seeds. Their scent is deep and fruity, like damsons steeped in rich red wine.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“The inside of the van was warm, and I could smell the heat of it, mingled with that sweetness I could not quite identify; a sweetness like a childhood I only ever knew from books, a scent of vanilla and spices and cream, of bedclothes dried in the sunshine. And beneath it, a more complex scent of autumn leaves and petrichor, of forests that never see daylight, of sunken ships and pirate gold and fireworks and woodsmoke.
'What is that?' I said, looking back at the pile of boxes at the back of the van.
Guy smiled. 'What do you think?'
'I can't quite place what it is,' I said. 'But it smells almost familiar. Is it some kind of spice?'
'Not quite.' He paused, almost reverently. 'These are roasted Porcelana beans, from Peru; a sub variant of the Criollo bean, maybe the best-- and the rarest-- cacao beans in existence.'
'Cacao,' I said. 'You mean---?'
'Chocolate.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“Secretly I collected menus, stolen from tables. Recipes, clipped from magazines, dishes I would never make. As we travelled, the dishes changed. I whispered their names like magic spells. Milan was mondeghili, served in a twist of paper, and machetes, those puffy rolls that look like blowsy roses. Naples was pasta alla Genovese, and pizza with olives and anchovies, and Rome was artichokes in oil, and cicoria, with garlic and chili, and twenty kinds of pasta. Berlin was Currywurst and beer, and blueberry pancakes, and sauerkraut. And New York was pieces of everything, brought over by generations of immigrants to remind themselves of home.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“The owner saw the way I ate and refilled my bowl without asking: the stew was rich with saffron and oil, and green anise, and orange. It's a cheap dish to make in Marseille: rockfish costs almost nothing. Mussels, too, are cheap, and squid, and the rock crabs that cost so much in elegant Paris restaurants are vermin here, good for nothing but stew. Food has a strange way of leaving home as a beggar and coming back a rich man, so the things we used to forage for free-- wild greens, razor clams, wild garlic, herbs, shellfish, rock crabs, even snails-- have been made into elegant dishes by chefs attempting to pique the jaded palates of those who lack nothing.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne

“...I already know that this child will be the centre of my world. I feel that already, even though they are no more than a heartbeat. Just as I know that they will need a place to grow away from me.”
― Joanne Harris, Vianne