If the French housewife is in a hurry, she will cut up a roasting chicken into joints, fry them gently in butter or oil, add stock or wine, perhaps vegetables and little cubes of salt pork as well, and the result will be the poulet sauté which, in a restaurant, will be glorified with some classic or regional label, or named after a minister or a famous writer or actress.
Parmentier it will be if there are little bits of potato; provençale if there are tomatoes; chasseur or forestière if there are mushrooms; Poincaré if there are asparagus tips; Mistral if there are aubergines; Célestine if there are tomatoes and wine and mushrooms and cream altogether. (Célestine was one of the Emperor Louis Napoleon's cooks, and he came from the Ardèche, but the dish became celebrated at a Lyon restaurant so whether Célestine invented it or not I do not know nor, I suppose, does anybody else.)
