Just as black is the colour of mourning and of death, white is
the cast of fear. Ghosts, faces white with terror, the plumage
of predatory birds, the flesh of the deadly fungi Death Cap and
Destroying Angel. A white feast, the table decorated with pallid
sugar sculptures modelled on funerary monuments, illuminated by
dim light from pewter candelabra, lilies and waxen magnolia exuding
their heavy scent, would surely include white truffles, pale asparagus,
sole Véronique, pellucid whitecurrants, soft fleshy Brillat-Savarin—undoubtedly
the aesthete's cheese par excellence—and the nectareous
wine Château d'Yquem, its flavour the result of the mould
allowed to form on the grapes, the very essence of pourriture
noble.
