Recipes

Butter a cake tin and line with greaseproof paper.
To make the crust: put the biscuits in a freezer bag and bash with a rolling pin until they’re crumbs.
Melt the butter and mix it with the biscuit crumbs then press into the cake tin and smooth the mixture out to ensure it’s evenly distributed.
Put the cake tin in the freezer for about 10 minutes to firm up.
Meanwhile, make the lemon mousse and tip it on to the biscuit base. Freeze for about two hours.
Serve alone or with a raspberry coulis.

Miles smaller than Père Lachaise or Montparnasse, Montmartre Cemetery is the perfect “starter cemetery.”

Located near Pigalle and Place de Clichy, it opened in 1825 on the site of a former gypsum quarry which was used as a mass grave during the French Revolution.

Notable residents include leading names from French cinema such as actress Jeanne Moreau and new wave director François Truffaut. Also interred here are Russian dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky and 19^th-century Naturalist novelist Émile Zola. Zola was originally buried here but his remains were subsequently moved to the Panthéon; the family grave, however, is still in Montmartre.

Montmartre is also part of my Romantic tour of Paris, featuring as it does the final resting places of a number of leading musicians, writers and artists of the Romantic movement such as Ari Scheffer, Alexandre Dumas Fils, Alfred de Vigny, Théophile Gautier, Hector Berlioz, Léo Delibes and Jacques Offenbach.

Tucked away in a quiet, largely residential district in the 14^th arrondissement with the Montparnasse Tower rearing dramatically up in the background, Montparnasse is Paris’s second largest cemetery – but less than half the size of Père Lachaise, so you can easily do a tour of it in a couple of hours.
Built in 1824, it’s separated into two parts by the Rue Emile-Richard. Like Père Lachaise, it features a memorial to the victims of the communards killed during the Semaine Sanglante, as well as to those who died in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Another notable feature is the 17^th-century flour mill, the only vestige of the farm which previously stood here.

Man and woman of letters, fervent anti-conformists and tireless activists, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were King and Queen of the Left-bank intelligentsia. They were together for over half a century and lived and worked in the Montparnasse area, frequenting local cafés such as Le Dôme and Les Deux Magots: the house where Beauvoir spent the last thirty years of her life is a stone’s throw away in rue Victor Schoelcher. It is therefore entirely fitting that they be buried in this cemetery – and side by side. As you can see from the photo here, their tomb has had the Oscar Wilde treatment.

It’s a classic love story: Boy meets girl. Girls gets pregnant and gives birth. Boy and Girl marry in secret to avoid damaging Boy’s career in the church. Girl’s evil uncle finds out and has Boy castrated. Boy and Girl retire to a convent/monastery for the rest of their lives.

The 12^th-century blue stocking and nun Héloïse and her tutor-turned-lover-turned-husband, Pierre Abelard, a renowned and respected mathematician and theologian, were originally buried elsewhere but their remains were moved to Père Lachaise in 1817.

The cemetery is also the final resting place of many notable musicians including Rossini, Bellini (although strictly speaking, only their tombs are here: their remains were eventually transferred back to their native Italy) and Edith Piaf, who was born and spent the first few years of her life less than a kilometre away, as well as literary giants such as Molière, Balzac, Colette (right), Proust, Jean de la Fontaine – and of course, Oscar Wilde.

In addition to boasting the tombs of countless artists and writers, Père Lachaise is of considerable historical and political significance, with commemorations of some of the bleakest periods in history. The Communards’ Wall (Mur des Fédérés) honours the memory of the 147 soldiers of the Commune, the revolutionary government that seized power in Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871 (and, in Karl Marx’ opinion, the only example in the history of France of a dictatorship of the proletariat), which ended on May 28, 1871, during the aptly named Semaine Sanglante (“Bloody Week”). The soldiers, known as fédérés, were executed against a wall of the cemetery by the Versailles troops and buried in a mass grave at the foot of the wall.
There are also a number of harrowing memorials erected for the victims of the Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg Nazi concentration camps.

Aside from its countless famous (what do we call them: residents? Denizens? Tenants?), the cemetery features a number of curiosities in the form of some elaborate, eccentric, and, in some cases, downright macabre tombs and mausolea. The grave of Georges Rodenbach, (right), a Belgian Symbolist poet and novelist, for example, shows him emerging, Night of the Living Dead-like from his tomb, clutching a rose in his hand.

• Skin the mackerel fillets, put in a food processor with the other ingredients and whizz. Alternatively, if you prefer it chunkier and more textured, mash the fish manually with a fork then fold in the other ingredients.
• Chill for at least an hour and serve with crusty bread, crackers or crudités. There. Told you it was easy.
• I find the tartness of pickles – gherkins, red cabbage – is a perfect foil for the saltiness of smoked fish, so try a bit of that on the side.

• Remove the duck breasts from the fridge 30 mins before cooking time to bring them to room temperature.
• Season then score the skin of the duck through to the fat layer (but not to the meat) in a cross-hatch pattern and place skin-side down in a frying pan. Heat up the pan slowly so that the fat melts and becomes crispy without burning. Fry for about 10-15 mins (depending on how well cooked you like it – see below) until the skin is crisp and brown and the fat has melted out.
• Meanwhile, mix the honey and 3 tbsp of the soy sauce.
• Turn the breasts over and fry for about another 5 minutes. If you have a meat thermometer, it should be 54C for rare, 61C for medium and 65C for medium/well done. Just before the duck is ready, pour over the glaze. Remove from the heat and set aside.
• Meanwhile, put the cabbage, onion and chopped coriander in a large serving dish. Mix the sesame oil, vinegar and remaining soy sauce together, pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss.
• Slice up the duck breasts, place on top of the salad and drizzle over the remaining glaze from the pan. Sprinkle over the crushed peanuts and garnish with toasted sesame seeds and sprigs of coriander.