When a friend telephoned Pol Martin in the middle of her dinner party to lament the failed meal she was preparing, he told his panic-stricken friend to leave the back door open. He hurried over to her house, swept in unnoticed and deftly rescued the feast she had been attempting to orchestrate. The dinner party was a hit and none of the guests had the slightest clue that the meal had been created by one of North America's most celebrated chefs.
Although Mr. Martin could not make house calls to every cook in a crisis, he was welcomed into kitchens across North America, via his culinary television shows and the more than 30 cookbooks he authored. His sage advice about meal preparation centred on the basics. With proper guidance, good cooking is very simple, he said. "The more fun you have in the kitchen, the more you will want to try."
Born Pol Halna du Fretay in Brittany, he was the son of an aristocratic French military officer. He grew up in a castle which he once almost set ablaze through an early attempt at cooking. He studied to become a chef at the École hôtelière de Paris and emigrated to Canada in 1954. He crossed the country working in the kitchens of the Canadian Pacific Hotel chain, before he was hired as a saucier at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan. In 1967, he moved to Montreal where he managed the once chic and now-defunct restaurant, Mother Martin's. It was during his tenure there that he came to be known as Pol Martin. He said that his new name suited his adopted country, noting that Halna du Fretay was too high-brow for Canadian tastes.
In 1970, he began focusing on culinary education. He opened his Montreal cooking school, L'Ecole Culinaire Pol Martin, and began making appearances on French television in Quebec. In 1973, he published his first book The Art of Cooking and also hosted The Art of Cooking, a nationally broadcast CTV television program. Lighthearted, and blessed with an infectious sense of humour, his personality was a perfect fit for the small screen. In 1981, three years after the show went off the air, Mr. Martin closed his cooking school and moved to Port Credit, Ont. There, he devoted himself to writing such books as Love at First Bite and Smart and Simple Cooking while simultaneously managing two French-language culinary magazines, Télé-cuisine and Santé menu.
Mr. Martin remained a much sought-after guest on television and radio talk shows across North America. He was a huge hit on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee and is remembered today by the producer, Victoria Lang, as one of funniest chefs to appear on the show. She also liked his recipes. "Anybody can look at Easy Cooking and complete a recipe successfully. I have a lot of cookbooks, but I especially like this one."
What made his cookbooks so successful was a culinary philosophy that centred around the idea that should be mere starting points. They were not meant to be followed religiously. Mr. Martin described his recipes as dependable, simple dishes that allow cooks to improvise, so that it can be made by everyone, not just gourmets. "I have vulgarized French food," he once said during an interview.
His daughter, Melissa Halna du Fretay, said that, as a child, the kitchen had been the centre of family life. "My brother and I served the multi-course dinners that my father and mother would host at our family home in Pointe Claire. We learned early about table etiquette and hospitality. Those dinners were always joyous events in an era when a five-hour dinner was normal. Or at least it was at our house."
POL MARTIN
Pol Martin was born in Nantes, France, on Aug. 3, 1929. He died of cancer at home in Carlisle, Ont., on Sept. 16, 2007. He was 78. He is survived by his second wife, Suzanne, and by three children from a previous marriage, Melissa, Brett and Abigail.
