Master Crayfish Synopsis
In 1783, a Parisian townhouse seeped in unimaginable luxury and defined by sexual intrigue sets the stage for a series of food pranks, ones which set off a gastronomic revolution. When aristocratic pride separates a mother from her handicapped son, elaborate choreographed meals become a means to work out their strained bonds and to undermine the already crumbling social hierarchy.
Balthazar, a young man with hands shaped like lobster claws, dreams of one day escaping the blue-blooded convention of his upbringing. He yearns to receive recognition for his witticism and food criticism, but most of all, he is aching for his mother’s affection.
When his mother’s lover undermines his authority in his own house and thwarts his efforts at marrying for love, he decides to create his own home at the center of Paris, surrounded by an eccentric group of well-known actors (Dugazon and Dazincourt) and experimental writers eager to ridicule and rectify social injustice. With their help, he secretly plans to seek revenge at his mother’s snobbery and flagrant infidelity by organizing a culinary prank in her notorious salon.
However, the death of celebrated actress Jeanne Quinault plunges Balthazar into a state of depression. She was like a surrogate mother to him and was one of the few members of his mother’s milieu that didn’t make him feel like a monster. She helped him overcome his handicap through theater. He copes with his grief by organizing a mock funerary feast that simultaneously pays tribute to Quinault and shames his mother. The meal is a succès de scandale before it even takes place thanks to the invitations circulating Paris. Even Marie-Antoinette acquires one and has it framed. The meal turns Balthazar into a celebrity overnight and he reenacts it due to popular demand.
The mock funerary meal sets off a series of “philosophical luncheons” attended by the likes of the Marquis de Sade. Balthazar merges the culinary arts with the performance arts in entirely new ways by collaborating with chefs and Italian puppeteer Castanio. During the weekly luncheons, the guests taste dishes from traiteurs, precursors of restaurants, and form an unofficial tasting jury.
Balthazar’s fame from those themed meals humiliates his mother, and when he gets himself involved in a literary scandal, she jumps at the opportunity to have him legally banished from Paris and sent to a monastery. Balthazar claims that he learns the art of gluttony from the monks and when he leaves the monastery he opens a wholesale food business in Lyon, very much to the chagrin of his mother who looks down upon commerce as middle-class.
Once Balthazar sets up shop in Lyon, he falls in love with an actress who he marries without his parents’ consent. Revolution suddenly breaks out in France, and Balthazar’s parents are sent to prison. His mother’s lover abandons her and escapes to London. After Balthazar’s father dies in prison, he becomes vehemently opposed to the excesses of the Revolution, the hypocrisy of its leaders, and the ostentatious “uncultured” wealth of newly enriched bureaucrats. The Revolution leaves Balthazar and his mother penniless. His revolutionary friends abandon him, feeling betrayed by his anti-Republican ideals. Balthazar again overcomes adversary through culinary mockery. He writes the Almanach des Gourmands, a condescending restaurant guide to improve the taste of the nouveaux riches and turn them into refined voluptuaries. To his astonishment, his readers are not insulted by the disparaging comparison to them as money grubbing beasts that must be tamed. On the contrary, they find his cynicism to be hilarious. The success of the Almanach (8 volumes and translations in German) lead to the creation of an official tasting jury. The mother begrudgingly lives off her son’s earnings as a writer, deluding herself into believing that her lover will return from London and once again sweep her off her feet. She nevertheless learns to live peacefully with her son and daughter-in-law.
The mother finds out that her lover has died of syphilis and heartache leads to her ultimate demise. During her sickness, she comes to appreciate her son’s eccentricities and culinary theatrics. They bond over their nostalgia for pre-revolutionary Paris. She can finally identify with his feeling of being an outsider. Her last wish before she dies is for Balthazar to transform her funeral service into a decadent death-themed feast. She orders him to have her stuffed like a doll and operated like an automaton in front of the funeral’s attendees. After fulfilling her request, Balthazar retires with his wife to the country, a house nicknamed “the fiefdom,” where they host themed-dinners reenacting scenes from antiquity. He installs hidden rooms, secret passageways, traps in the floors, and mechanisms to astonish and overwhelm his guests at any moment. Those meals prove to be too morbid and frightening. He scares off his remaining friends and retires from entertaining.
The last ten years of Balthazar’s life, people believe that he is dead as his only line of contact outside his house is with his friend the Marquis de Cussy. Though he reconciles with his mother, he regrets lost time and is melancholic. He spends his last years writing letters to the Marquis, speaking about his mortality and the enduring fame of his meals. The Marquis proposes capitalizing on the recent publication of books fictionalizing Balthazar as the ultimate gourmand dandy. He suggests launching a daily food publication called La Gastronomie. Balthazar believes if he reemerges onto the food scene, he will no longer be perceived as mythic. He dies reading a letter to his mother.