I was watching the movie(s) that inspired the Mike Myers series of Austin Powers flicks, that being the first Spoof of any-and-all James Bond Movies titled, Our Man Flint.
The basic premise is … the World is flung into a crisis that every 1960ish computer determines that ONLY Derek Flint (James Coburn) can win. Of course, Derek Flint is an international playboy surrounded by wine, women, song, women, every extravagance, women, and last but not least, women. He is, naturally, aloof to the pleas of the World Governments to take up their cause, but is compelled to do so when an attempt on his life is made. (by a bald-headed guy, who, so far, hasn’t done the “finger-to-the-side-of-the-mouth” bit yet)
Anyway, the attempt on Flint’s life was foiled by the bad aim of the ever-so-lovely assassin who hit Flint’s soon-to-be Boss with a poison dart.
Flint discovers that, along with the poison, the dart has chemical traces of garlic, saffron and fennel on it. Evidently, the flinger of the dart was recently involved in making and-or eating bouillabaisse. This MUST mean that it is from the region of Marceilles, France, because the normal proportions for that small region of France is two cloves of garlic to a pinch of butter saffron to a dash of fennel, the same proportions found on the dart. One would be hard pressed these days to pin-down a cooking style chemically by region in the US, or I daresay in France, due to the popularity of taking a cuisine and putting a “spin” on it, for instance, Russian Tex-Mex. These days, it could be Marceilles, or Emeril Live. And, by the way, would a chemical analysis present the proportions of foodstuffs in such a precise manner as to allow one such as Flint to inspect it and come to the conclusion that two cloves of garlic were used in the recipe? … and for that matter, a pinch and a dash?
