The Way we eat: Bleu-Plate Special By Amanda Hesser
I enjoyed the article overall, it skims the surface of alot of elements that I want to comment on with more depth.
Cammas and Rubin say that the codification of French cuisine--the very reason it was easy to export around the world--has kept chefs on a short leash. Many chefs, cooking teachers and critics, Cammas said, "have forgotten that Brillat-Savarin and Escoffier were very modern in their time." Cammas said they like for today's chefs to stop giving "the Americans and Japanese tourists what they want and expect when they come to France.
I'm not quite sure what Cammas means by chefs and cooking teachers having "forgotten that Brillat Savarin and Escoffier were very modern in their time." I wonder if he attended culinary school, taught at a culinary school or ever worked as a chef? I have done all three. I started apprenticing the old guard way when I was fourteen, then went on to culinary school in Paris, worked for years as a chef and now I teach at a professional culinary school.
Of course there have been changes in France since Escoffier. Have these journalists not heard of nouvelle cuisine? Years ago while I was working at Le Bouchon aux Vins , one of Jean-Paul LaCombe's restaurants, the plates went from generous, rustic Lyon style to "two peas on an oversized plate." The term Nouvelle Cuisine has of course fallen out of favor, but the principles of using fresh, seasonal and local produce still inform the dining world.
French culinary schools are hardly dinosaurs teaching heavy roux and cream based sauces with plating fit for kings and queens from two centuries ago. The curriculums teach codified techniques as they apply to classic and contemporary dishes, as well as modern technological advances.
The French chef occassionally refers to Escoffier like an encylopedia. We don't actually cook from it or follow the recipes. And in school we learn French culinary history. I advise French journalists who comment on chefs and schools to do the same.
Another point made in the article by Hesser, Susan Herrmann Loomis and Cammas is about the face of French cuisine as represented in the restaurant scene and cookbooks differing from what French people actually eat. Loomis writes, "The cooking of Southeast Asia and the Maghreb has melded with traditional French home cooking. Dishes like couscous, tagine and nems are now near-standard French fare."
I think it's an overstatement to say that the French are struggling with our culinary identity or tussling about it. There are greater culinary dramas in other parts of the world. But the French chef and dining scene is under greater scrutiny. It's not news that the Guide Michelin creates undue stress that many French chefs are refusing to engage in.
The younger generation of chefs and their customers are more than disillusioned with the old guard, they are bored by it. I think that's what Cammas means by saying that today's French chefs should stop giving "the Americans and Japanese tourists what they want and expect when they come to France." It looks like stiff old fashioned theatrics to us with marionettes in penguin suits swinging from crystal chandeliers staged by powerful critics.
Michelin recognition is not as seen as being necessary for brand name building by younger chefs as it was for older chefs. Even Senderens is quoted in Hesser's article as saying, "When I thought about what the two stars represented, I realized they were really just supporting my ego, and that was stupid."
There are less stressful, less risky and less expensive ways for chefs to build their names such as TV appearances, magazine and newspaper articles, writing cookbooks and of course the internet. It seems that savvy journalists such as Cammas and Rubin are capitalizing on the general malaise the French dining public has with old fashioned protocal by organizing highly successful Le Fooding events.
It's refreshing to hear about young chefs abandoning the fetters and acroutements of the old guard to focus more on the food, food with soul and passion. I don't see the techniques of cuisine gastronomique as falling out of favor, rather haute cuisine dining is simply evolving and being recontextualized to suit a younger, more casual generation that wants the focus to be more on the food than the interior design.
France is not an immoveable, impermeable monument. Change may seem slow from an American perspective, but from the French side change happens too fast in America with trends shooting like stars into the sky and just as quickly burning out and falling.
(to be continued)
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