guygateau

Thank you JD and Moby for this great and inspiring work. I am surprised to find an apparently very "simple guy"and I rest unsatisfied because he hasn't come out of his outershell. But I am all "psyched up" for my soon to come trip to spain. I agree with Jackal 10 for the need of some recipes And the reference on cooking and feeding merits to be developped some time. GG

We are entering the zone of the cuisine of the extreme... Balmagowry wrote: "Escoffier did not spring full-blown from the void" It is of course true, but he is the one that offers in fact the most codification of the Art of cooking, this way HE is the guide... In my early career, I used and was inspired by the work of Careme and Urbain Dubois, but mostly for the "artistic" side, decoration, etc. And,on this I would also say that when we were referring earlier about the degenerating work of the "brigades de cuisine" for palaces which was "pre-nouvelle" cuisine, these chefs at the time were more influenced by Careme than by Escoffier. I hope this is clear. But another note for "Commander" regarding his earlier post on what Robert had suggested: I would have loved to have been able to have written this myself, as it is exactly what I was thinking. Count me in for any further development. And a word for "Pan" Michael A.Landerman, FYI: Alain Chapel ,who is in fact at the center of all this, attended religiously the festival of Beyrut and was a fan of Bernstein.

It is a good presentation. It is curious that we have a different point of view on a few points and a slight divergence as far as some T° We do advise 70°C for "pasteurization" (20mn) In the article the appliance of science (Guardian) Hester Blumenthal makes reference to a computer program at Reading University, do you know more about this? I do mostly the same presentation but with vaccum pack cooking and a particular type of micro wave oven. Waves & steam cooking. I 'll come back...

Robyn This is very true with regard to bureaucracy. Concerning the starches from GM corn, it is not available in any store (to my knowledge) but accessible to industry and restaurant business as it is sold only in large quantities. We are talking about it's impact on changing the way we cook. This is in opposition of the respect to cooking in a "traditional" way. Thanks to science, in either method, we should know and understand what is going on in the casserole.

Thank you Miguel. Commander, I am proud of you. Excellent. Right on. Make Pesto in a "Pestel" and a basil sauce in a food processor... Always have sharp clean tools & knives is the sign of a good "worker"

Thank you Miguel. Commander, I am proud of you. Excellent. Right on. Make Pesto in a "Pestel" and a basil sauce in a food processor... Always have sharp clean tools & knives is the sign of a good "worker"

I am sharing your views Pumpernickel. Impressions, moods,happiness, everything as an impact on what we do when we cook. Here & there...

So this leads me to a few questions: 1) Why simply rub the carrots, why not peel them? You peel a large,older carrot. The ones I am talking are not babies but smaller, tender and the woody part in the middle hasn't had time to develop. Vitamines and part of a stronger taste is in the peel- so we need tp preserve this. 2) Why cook the carrots in a small amount of water, only adding more when the existing water has evaporated? Again, this is done to not wash away anything from the ingredient. To concentrate the taste. Basically no need to strain and dry. 3) Does it make that much difference that they were rubbed through a sieve rather than mashed, or, as we would today, put through a robot-coupe? If you don't put it through this process, it is always possible to have a larger part of the carrot mixed with the rest and that different texture would change the general impression and taste. I fyou use a robot-coupe you may experience a runnier mixture, so you would still have to use the sieve afterwards. Furthermore the tamis de soie is the perfect hole size for a delicate puree, and the consistency therefore is ideal.

Robyn : About the roux and the starches I am referring to an already not so new variety of corn called MAÏS CIREUX in French. It comes from the US and it is a corn that was genetically modified. (If you need references, I can dig out info) The main advantage of the starch made by chemically processing this corn is a very low percentage of “reticularite” (French term) Reticularite means that once the granules or starch cells get waterlogged, they will stay that way no matter what. It means they have a very high capacity of viscosity. For example, if you make a traditional “Bechamel sauce” [which is a sauce made of white wheat flour, butter and milk (or let’s say fish or chicken broth)] after keeping it a day or two in the refrigerator, you are going to see that your sauce is starting to separate (to break) and liquid (water) is coming to the surface or in between the cracks. Of course, water will accelerate the degradation process and you will have to re-cook or boil the sauce again. If your dish comes out of the freezer the process will be more noticeable. These starches are very practical, they don’t require a long time to cook, they can fix a sauce going bad on you for some reason, they also have a great texture and color. The fact that they freeze well and that they will also absorb residual humidity is also a plus. For instance, in some circumstances you could use a cold- ready sauce over a raw piece of fish, to be able to cook it at the last minute. There is a good chance that the fish will release some water, from broken cells or from the marinade… These starches will absorb that excess of liquid without changing the texture of the sauce. (Magic) You can obtain a similar result with a well made roux, it will eventually resist freezing but will not reabsorb any excess liquid. I am not condemning these new starches, science had to genetically change the nature of traditional corn to come to that result, and I just hope that there is no problem with doing so. On a purely gastronomical point of view, I am making a point that using flour to thicken a sauce is very good and can be very dietetic, assuming that it is made in the “règles de l’art”. Let's consider the example of an old recipe: Sea bass wrapped in lettuce leaves, with a vermouth sauce. The whole sea bass is cooked in the oven on a tray brushed with butter, seasoned and sprinkled with chopped shallots. In the bottom of the tray you put ½ glass of white vermouth. Once the fish is cooked, it has certainly released some water. Remove the fish and keep it warm. Pour the liquid in a copper pot and reduce the liquid to the quantity you need, thicken at this point with just a teaspoon or tablespoon of your base sauce (béchamel made with the fish stock for this one) Boil slowly and bring to the proper consistency and finish the sauce by adding a gobb of a very good “crème fraîche” a couple drops of lemon juice perhaps a hint of salted butter from Brittany, and keep stirring the sauce. It seems complicated but in fact very simple, and now with technology of vacuum-packing we have a lot more solutions than in the past. No cooked fat, fresh cream is not over cooked or reduced, no undercooked flour or residual starches. Very dietetic in my opinion and the taste of a sauce made this way is very distinct and I would say “distinguished” (elegant). When I was a young chef we rarely used this base sauce for the fishes, we used to cook it in the oven covered, for 7 hours, until all the butter which was used to make the roux would be rejected by the starch. By cooking your roux before- hand at a T° of 120°C you can make up some time in the process. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my point about roux, and also thank you for the web address geo-pie.cornell…

This is to answer Owen, Phaelon 56 The "Tamis de soie" (silk sieve in French) was a classic tool. I think that a fine mesh like the one for a StainlessSteel strainer (chinois) would be too fine and retain too much of the pulp needed for the puree. The tamis de soie is the last grading in size one can find to pass solids and the SS strainer is used for liquid to retain the maximum of particules for limpidity.

Robert : It would be desirable that someone should come up a kind of “Library type gourmet selection”: Old & new classics, great hits, public favorites. But will certainly be objections to this based on subjectivity. Who is going to make or who made the first best duck and peaches? … It should be the work of an historian. In France, everything revolving around food has been controlled more or less by Paul Bocuse and his close buddies for 25 years now. Add to this the French mania to create an Ecole or Institut Superieur de cuisine trying to keep control (again) when the situation seems to slip away from their hands. This is the case for example for the creation of that Institut Superieur de Cuisine, whose headquarters is in Reims (President Remi Krug) recently created with some funding and the benediction of the state. Once again, the French have done us in: hiding behind the guise of big structures, having all revolve around the fluff of luxury. But, I have hopes that it will get better. Ducasse is present (and he should be) but I didn’t see Paul Bocuse on the list of names. Some years ago "Le Club des Amateurs de Chocolat" was created, and the president was the mayor of the city of Tours. Once again, funded with state funds, we heard of the never-ending misuse of funds, use of cars and chauffeurs for the wrong reasons, etc. Nothing ever came out except of this but a few brochures. The reproach I am making is denouncing this chronic French “navel gazing” centralized self-satisfaction around the few with a lack of a global and united view. To date, many books have already been written in an effort to provide an inventory of all the gastronomic riches (dishes) of this country. Escoffier's method being the uniting factor of all this for training purposes (as for young chefs in training for their CAP). But, a very positive note here is that in the great culinary challenges like the “Bocuse d’Or” and all MOF competitions, we see that the creativity factor is vital and the judges are the men from the trade. This is a remnant of corporatism. It could be a good idea to ask an international jury of recognized gastronomes to organize such event. What do you think?

Thank you for taking the time to be with me today. I only know Adria by what I was able to read or hear about him. He appears to be for me, more like an artist who is taking food to carve, to melt, to "defragment" "destructure" almost in a mystical calling to destroy it ,in order to rebuild it...better. It is an artistic approach. I was trained a long time ago. What was important at that time was the satisfaction of the client, and the respect of what we cooked. Do everything with respect. Cooking a partridge, roasting a suckling pig was our goal, but before you could put your hands on such products, you had to demonstrate your character and prove that you could be trusted. This was, I suppose, the necessary learning process to appreciate our legacy, our culinary heritage. This is the way we were trained. Then, thank to the nouvelle cuisine mouvement of the 70's 80's, we learned that we could be creative again. Some of us did anything and everything. But it was a blessing, the rigidity of the old school was coming to an end because if a chef isn't creating he consumes himself and cannot regenerate. As a chef I have always been very "traditional" because of my training, curious by nature and creative by love of cooking. So, I would say, YES, one can be a great chef, even innovating only in a narrow range. (But again, conditions need to be explained in more detail) There are after all so many ways to be creative, but always in respect of the tradition. It makes it harder!

I 'd like to answer "Phaelon 56". Regarding my remark about the connection I made with the Tobacco Industry. Taste is becoming on a large scale, standardized. We are entering "global" eating habits, finding the same food everywhere, and industrial processes are also becoming global, the same guy making the same thing but in a different box. Aperitif biscuits, breads, cereals etc... But more important and more significant is the content of salt and sugar in any processed food. Volontarily or not, it could result in my opinion, in the "addiction" to sugar & salt--the same as we know holds true with nicotin. Add to this a great deal of marketing/promotion and for me the connection is quite clear.

I 'd like to answer "Phaelon 56". Regarding my remark about the connection I made with the Tobacco Industry. Taste is becoming on a large scale, standardized. We are entering "global" eating habits, finding the same food everywhere, and industrial processes are also becoming global, the same guy making the same thing but in a different box. Aperitif biscuits, breads, cereals etc... But more important and more significant is the content of salt and sugar in any processed food. Volontarily or not, it could result in my opinion, in the "addiction" to sugar & salt--the same as we know holds true with nicotin. Add to this a great deal of marketing/promotion and for me the connection is quite clear.

The carrot story… This is close to what happened to Robert in Mionnay. Once upon the time, I had a restaurant in VICHY, France. It was called “Le Relais des Parcs” located in the Grand Casino. Vichy was the capital of France during the German occupation (1940/1945) So, some not so great souvenirs are attached to the name, but it is a great little town. Situated in the center of France, it is a city-- in a country setting. Rolling hills, grazing cattle, forests and creeks. I haven’t been back there for some time but the local market is remarkably authentic as concerns the quality of the produce. There are small vegetable producers, fantastic herbs, plenty of wild mushrooms, and in springtime, wild salmon are caught from the River Allier. You can see them jumping the “echelle” (some passages which were made for them on the side of the river so they can pass the cascades, this just in the middle of the town). I cannot resist telling you that this where the salmon are the best, because when they leave the Atlantic ocean, some 650 miles away, they are fat, and if caught at this point, would not be very good. When they arrive in Vichy they have lost all the fat but haven’t yet started to lose weight, the right moment to catch them. In fact, the Troisgros brothers and father became famous with the “Saumon à l’oseille”. (Salmon escallop with a sorrel sauce). Sorrel (Green flat leaf resembling spinach but more delicate with a distinctive acidic taste, goes well with fish and white meat) is very prolific around Vichy and Roanne, with enough acidity to decompose all the small bones in fish. Back to the carrots. This prolific land, which reminds me of Virginia, produces succulent carrots and the town of Vichy is well known for its thermal cures because of its very specific springs. The two best known spring bottled waters being, “Vichy Celestins” and “Vichy St Yorre”. The town has been made famous for the “Carottes à la Vichy” which is a carrot (which are here plentiful) cooked in water and served for all our curists who came here easer to lose weight or to ease their tired livers… Carrots Vichy were not on my menu. But at lunchtime one day, I had the pleasure of welcoming an older gentleman in my restaurant, who wanted a quiet seat. After looking at the menu, he made a comment that he was surprised not to find “Carrots Vichy” on the menu, and that he has heard so much about this dish, that he was curious to find out what was so special. I told him that if he could come back the following I would be pleased to accommodate his wish. The day after, I went to the market early and bought the best carrots I could possibly find. The type of carrots that are like candied strawberries, if you start eating them, you can’t stop. At lunchtime, the old gentleman was there and asked for one last favor, he wanted a puree rather than just the plain, sliced Carrots Vichy. I proceeded to prepare that dish for him. First cleaning the carrots by just rubbing the skin with a clean cloth and rinsing them quickly under running water. Then I cooked them in a copper pan, barely covered with the spring water from the Celestins spring which was in the park across from the restaurant. It was essential to constantly check them for doneness. Once the water was gone, if they still needed a few minutes more of cooking time, I would add a couple tablespoons of the water recovered from the pan and so on, until they were just right. For for the sliced Carrots Vichy or served whole, it would alright to serve it a little firm, not even “aldente” but firm, but now for the puree I needed a soft carrot but not over cooked. Ready to go through a sieve made of silk, then to gently recuperate the puree, warm it up mixing it with a nut of spring butter from a small dairyman (resisting already at this time, against all odds, to continue to produce a fabulous butter made mechanically but in small batches) and a cream that reminded me of the cream we were using at Chapel’s. When I reached the right texture and consistency, mixing it with a wooden spoon, no salt of course (the salt was in the water) just a dab of superb thick “crème fraîche” and a sprinkle of fresh ground white pepper. I was not really waiting for any praise, but I was summoned into the dining room. The old gentleman told me that of all the carrots and puree of carrots that he had eaten in his entire life, these were certainly the greatest of all. Needless to say, I was very pleased. He introduced himself as being M. James De Coquet, famous food writer and food critic from the newspaper “Le Figaro”. He wrote a nice article in his next column…The chef was proud and compensate for his efforts with the unsolicited publicity it earned. I think a story like this one is a pertinent one due to the topic and discussion centering around the premise that it is indeed the product which makes the difference.

Commander wrote "Memories are the image of representation" It is so true. 25 years ago we had a menu called "Image de Mionnay". Chapel & I would decide which dishes were going to stay on, dishes of inspiration that we loved ourselves, or some of our clients' favorites. It was painful to take them away to be replaced by others, because we were executing these dishes to perfection. It would sometimes take several months of training before achieving this level of perfection for a dish. But some of them would never change, like the sublissime "Ragout de coquille St Jacques aux poireaux, truffes noires du Tricastin et huîtres plates de pleine mer" Every year it was coming back, and we were waiting for it as much as the clients were. So it is the case, I suppose, for "La gargouille de jeunes légumes" de Michel Bras or Passart's "Homard au vin jaune". The absolute truth of a dish is in making it with the perfect authenticity of the products, this is grand Art, striving everday to be better, or at least as good as the day before...

I must say, this is very exciting. I think that at this point, it is difficult to separate the general populace and the top, “crème de la crème”. I think that things have changed in both worlds (or fields, if you prefer) For the general populace, it is a matter of industrial impact on food stuffs bought by consumers, and on that issue, I am ready to say that we are entering the same chain reaction as holds true for the tobacco industry. For the top world of gastronomy, crème de la crème, we are faced with the “legacy of the nouvelle movement”, over reduced glazes for instance. And I am in total agreement with Jonathan Day on his remarks for understanding food chemistry and physics. There is now a great deal of conversation about it because of the “disclosure” of Mr. Hervé This. What was confidential information for the curious and the tenacious has now become public. I was personally reading scientific reviews on the subject in the 70’s & 80’s. Reseach was conducted for the industry and it is a great thing that finally all this information is coming out. It will take a while for the chefs’ community to catch up with it. At my own level ,I try to do it in all my training courses. What will be the outcome of it, we have to wait a bit to see. One of the reasons that the “Nouvelle Cuisine” movement of the 70’s ended was because of it’s flaws, like everything blended up into mousses and doing new things at all costs. For the trend we are seeing and focusing on (90’s to now) the fact that we now know best to extract “gelatin” from food ,because we master the cooking temperature of proteins, collagen and the , has given the idea that extracting these substances from food would permit to discover new taste, give more taste to a dish or complement (exhausting) the main ingredient. It doesn’t give off anything more, taste isn’t trapped by gelatin, it is just another “matter” or texture to experiment with in cooking. Let’s say for the sake of argument, that in Vietnamese cooking they are familiar with this type of preparation using agar-agar, and already for some time… Personally I think that one can still enjoy going to a great restaurant, creativity is there, some great chef can still surprise you. But for me it falls short somewhere. There is no message. There is NO excuse for any chef, no matter how great he may be (or thinks he is) to not be in the kitchen during the service. Ducasse has been mentioned by another member of the group. His great commercial success cannot shadow the fact that he is a gifted cook he brought up in his first books all the quintessence of what Alain Chapel transmitted to us. Ducasse was able to carry on and “destructure” (term use by Adria) that message and translate it to other concepts but always keeping the fundamentals. We can elaborate later. Now, on ROUX: I am afraid to be a little on the edge of disagreement with Mr. Escoffier on this one, although I think that he might eventually agree with me. Yes, once again he was right in foreseeing the use of “pure” starch. But one can start to ask, raise questions when some of those starches (the best ones as far as culinary needs) are made from genetically modified corn. Particularly when the good all ROUX remains the best with its particular taste. The problem was and still is that very few chefs know how or take the time to make it well. I’ll come back on that. GG

We are entering, no doubt, a new era in the gastronomic age. What was introduced to us by the earlier Golden Age that you refer to, is history because it was new at the time---but it is not "old news" because it refers to fundamental values. The question could be: Was the new approach of cooking represented by the "nouvelle cuisine" and everything that followed, as important as the technical approach created by a better knowledge of matter, rules and contol of temperature that we have experienced in the last ten years? Is the control of that knowledge and its mastery by the chefs in general, going to influence gastronomy and change our eating habits? GG