Ptipois

The first time I went to Gérard Besson, with Julot, we were thus warned by the waiter: "The gentlemen at the large table over there will be a little noisy, we'd like to apologize in advance." Indeed there was an oval table of 12-15 seatings nearby, still empty, but soon two or three of the chairs were occupied by gentlemen, including novelist Yann Queffélec. I should have known: Queffélec is not only a gourmand (he can often be seen eating at the Constant places), he is also a close friend of Jean-Luc Petitrenaud's. Sure enough Jean-Luc arrived soon afterwards, while a magnum of a bright straw-colored liquid was circulating and other men were sitting down. Indeed the atmosphere quickly became joyful and noisy. Jean-Luc Petitrenaud visibly had had a few apéritifs before entering the restaurant and looked a little spaced out. His complexion was quite rosy to begin with and was turning gradually to bordeaux red. When we left our table and took a better look at him while walking to the door, he had reached the beet-purple stage and had a sweet, dreamy look in his eyes. I looked at him steadily and said hi, he nodded but did not recognize me. He no longer could. I refrained from shouting at him: "Hey buddy, I wrote a whole book for you, remember?" — I think he wouldn't have heard me at all. What were they eating, those guys? Oh it was marvellous. Small cocottes of Dombes quail birds with black truffles. The smell was intoxicating. One thing with Petitrenaud is that you can always trust him for good, reliable addresses.

Some evenings, in some restaurants that have been the talk of the town for a few days, you can enter the dining-room and see critics and food journalists seated at five or six different tables, looking a little awkward and extremely disappointed to be gathered in the same place for no special reason — a phenomenon akin to ladies going to a party and discovering other ladies wearing the same dress. This is by no means intentional, they just happen to have had the same idea all at the same time, following a press article or, um, a blog post. I have been in that situation twice and I think it is a lot of fun, especially since the restaurateurs and waiters do not always know everbody's faces but all journalists know each other at least by sight.

I find it very interesting that a waiter gave you Laurence's card. I have never seen that sort of thing before. They must be desperate for positive reviews and this is not the first time I've noticed that they are watching anxiously for any journalist that flutters by. Meanwhile they must be having fun at the Bistrot Paul-Bert...

I find a bit of a puzzle here. Laurence Mentil is not the waiter and, besides, not a he. She is a tall blonde, and Cyril Lignac's assistant, and in some ways his manager, and she is usually in their office in the Champs-Elysées. Whose card did you really get? As for Simon, he and Cyril Lignac are both employed by the same TV channel, M6. You have the key to the riddle.

Just don't use green (immature) ginger but mature ginger.

Not unless Michelin, as a star dispenser, change their criteria. Since the criteria are not very transparent to begin with, that might happen, who knows. During the second half of the 1970s, following the first oil crisis, things changed pretty much the way Roosterchef is describing. Of course cheap restauration was still alive but it was not concerned by the crisis. Upper-end or mid-range dining was. Then Guy Savoy came along with his chef bistrots and gave new nobility to cheap fishes, petit salé aux lentilles, stuffed tomatoes and green bean salad. (Some say he was not the first and Michel Rostang was. I will not go into that.) But the late 70s were the time when an additional step was placed on the restaurant ladder, between true bistrots/brasseries and bourgeois/high-end restaurants. Truly moderately-priced at the time, these new bistrots (the term néobistrot had not been invented yet) were the first examples of the bistrot such as it is known today. I think it likely that the times we are into now will generate similar transformations. Not only in the restaurant scene, but in home cooking as well. Cooking courses have become a craze, they are certainly a fad in some ways, but they are the answer to a need.

The situation has been degrading steadily since the mid-1980s (roughly) but I'd say the replacement of the Franc with the Euro, which made prices rocket, had been the real turning point. Other more technical or cultural reasons have been helping but I think the main problem lies in 1) quality-price ratio and 2) the way bistrots and restaurants are now managed, how much of the classic bistrot savoir-faire they still hold and are able to get through. Bistrot fare in the 70s and bistrot fare in the 00s are totally different foods, in the same way as what is called "baguette de tradition" has nothing to do with traditional baguette. While that process was going on, "ethnic" restaurants have been improving in number and, for some, in quality, at least in consistency - most of them remaining reasonably cheap. It's not that the modern bistrots are "aspiring wannabees", it is just that times have changed and the priorities put forward in today's society are not what they still were 25 years ago. Giving simple good-quality food to the largest number of people is no longer part of the culture. While a good street corner couscous restaurant will not be concerned by the zeitgeist and will hold on to its natural function, which is to cook decent couscous and not charge an arm and a leg, continuing to play the social role that Parisian bistrots and troquets used to play. To answer your other questions in order: - What are those Louvre bistrots you're referring to? - Yes, butchers still roast chickens, especially on markets, but volailliers have almost disappeared. - Okay for having a picnic in the park, but not with the pigeons please. - There has not been an explosion of fast-food places, at least not much more than 10 years ago. Fast food in France is a long story, the first "Wimpy" dating back to the early 70s. If fast-food has a responsibility in the current situation I think it is limited, and not the main factor, but anyone holding more precise data on that may prove me wrong because I am only speaking from what I see.

Indeed, that is the point: is it really that simple? Judging by your and your wife's comments it sounds like it has been much longer than three years since you were last in Paris. I do not know what exactly you mean by "common people" but the thought of not being just that never occurred to me. So if Mrs. Swiss Chef could tell me where I should go eat, I'd be delighted. Because it has become much more complicated than it was a few years ago. To make a long story short, and to sum up what I have written extensively elsewhere and perhaps even in this very thread, the "common people" restaurant has vanished long ago. Now "common people" who cannot necessarily afford an overpriced néobistrot on a regular basis - but used to be able to afford lunch a regular bistrot on a daily basis when there was such a thing as a regular bistrot - eat lunch at their company's restaurant when that is available - and however common I am I cannot share that with them -; or ruin their health eating sandwiches hastily, or go to the MacDonald's or the like; or go to cheap, bad cafeterias; but the days when they were able to lunch on a navarin d'agneau at the corner bistrot for 50 francs, quart de vin rouge included, is long gone. Now this kind of fare is for the "bobos" and it costs 50 euros. The answer is no. The common restaurants in Paris, or those that can be thus designated, no longer sell cassoulets and daubes, and cassoulets and daubes, when they are at all served, are no longer served in common restaurants. Now that you mention it, I am not even sure where a daube may be found in Paris except in my kitchen when I decide to cook one. Cassoulet is less hard to come by (but seldom stellar. Paris never was the capital of cassoulet anyway.) I hope the gods hear you. To quote Mrs. Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, "let us hope all this lunacy is just a trend". But you're actually spot on when you mention the couscous restaurants. They are still there allright, fortunately. By the way they are not a fad but a permanent feature, being part of the French culture and related to the part of the French population (nationals or not) of Maghrebi descent, which whom France shares history as well as food. Although not so many of them are really good (but many are decent), they are the last refuge of "common" cooking (common being understood as "meant to be shared by everyone", "for the people"), together with many cheap, good Asian (I am not meaning the disastrous "take-away Chinese" places that have replaced charcuteries), African places, etc. As a matter or fact, the best quality-price ratio in Paris and in many large cities is still intact at non-French restaurants. For 60 euro you order 6 dishes for 2 and have a scrumptious Cantonese feast at Likafo (a Teochew/Cantonese restaurant on avenue de Choisy); when the dishes arrive you never think you will finish them and you soon find out that you have wiped out every one of them. You leave the table contented, happy and not much poorer. This no longer happens in Paris bistrots, but it used to be common.

Stating that I could express a love of traditionalism versus innovation in such a binary way would be misreading me not a little. I am by no means a traditionalist. For instance, I am of the mind that Ferran Adria is one of the two or three greatest chefs alive (reasons would be too long and complex to write here). However, though I do not worship tradition, I do know the exact value of some of it, as compared to the pointless fuite en avant (blind rush forward) that the stress on systematic innovation has brought into French restaurant cooking. And the latter, indeed, may be hype, or an economic asset, or just plain conformism (a little-studied fact), or just the paradoxical but very real notion that everybody should be original in the very same manner, but it may by no means be considered a need. Unlike the actual, natural process of innovation in cooking which is merely its evolution process. Not to mention, of course, a large number of absurd, unbalanced, self-conscious, gimmicky, overpriced and sloppy restaurant meals where "la forme" has been preferred to "le fond". This number is rising and yes, I am worried about that I respect innovation as it should be respected — as a phenomenon that has always been part of the history of cooking. I think I made that quite clear. The distinction between innovation in itself - which is a permanent element of cooking throughout the ages - and the contemporary worship of innovation eclipsing other more essential qualities - which is, as I wrote, a dated phenomenon and one that will probably not last forever -, is essential. It is the frenzy of innovation for innovation's sake, throwing back values like taste, coherence, and pleasure into secondary status, that I think is dangerous and might well, at length, harm the very practice of cooking, period. When innovation is considered the first, or even one, valuable criteria, yes, that is harmful and the effects are visible everywhere, from the dreadful display meals prepared by écoles hôtelières for journalists, all verrines (anything served in a glass), sophisticated plating, and botched up tastes and textures, to the totally boring "performance" cooking put forward by some young French chefs who openly declare working only for the Michelin stars (I met some), not forgetting innumerable, tasteless, perfectly plated, perfectly glassed, and perfectly insipid dishes that have invaded the mainstream food landscape, in collective catering for instance.

I did the editing on PH10 and I can answer a few questions (but please bear in mind that the job feels pretty remote in time to me now, that I don't have a copy at home - or none that I can locate - and it might be tricky to search for the original texts I worked on in my computer files). You're right for Végétaline (I am not sure it is hydrogenated though, but I haven't checked). Edit: okay, it is hydrogenated. It is, indeed, used for french fries (and makes the best french fries beside animal fat) but I suppose it is used in the chocolate bonbons for its texture and hypersaturation which makes it solidify in the cold. Beurre de La Viette used by Pierre Hermé, unless mentioned otherwise, is not demi-sel but sweet (doux). There is no mention of that because butter in French pastry is nearly always sweet. La Viette is a brand of Charentes butter (very dry and pure, quite tasteless IMO). Demi-sel is not "demi" as in "un demi de bière" but means that the butter is lightly salted. There used to be "beurre salé" (salted butter) and beurre demi-sel (less salted). Now only demi-sel remains aside from doux. The practice of salting butter heavily to preserve it has disappeared long ago. Hermé uses two different pectins, Ruban Jaune and NH. Ruban Jaune is said "irréversible" and NH is "thermo-réversible". Thermo-réversible means that the pectin may be reheated again and will solidify. Irréversible means that once solidified, it cannot be melted and solidifed one more time. Thus I am not sure Ruban Jaune, being a brand name, means "yellow pectin".

And, frankly, who needs more than that? Experimentation/innovation is fun and exciting; some of it does find a way into mainstream practice on a larger scale and the best of that lives on, and becomes part of the history of cooking — which is a long steady line of innovations; for instance puff pastry and beurre blanc were innovations once. But innovation for innovation's sake - a recent, and IMO dated, phenomenon - is a different matter: one may wish for it, one may desire it, feel excited by it, but who really needs it in the way one needs good food to keep living a balanced life? Also - a much overlooked point I believe - the ability to innovate is a rare human quality. It is a form of talent. Not everyone has that talent. You can prize innovation, admire it, but you can't institutionalize it and make it mandatory for everybody. Now, everybody is expected to innovate and the fact that very few actually can never seems to be recalled. But institutional innovation becomes boring academism even before you've had the time to breathe, while a good traditional dish in its best expression is never boring or academic. Some restaurant critics will dismiss a good table with the condescending words "zero innovation", or rather will excuse themselves for having had a great time while the food was not particularly creative. But it is like expecting everybody to be Picasso when being a very good construction painter is no less noble and useful, and in its own way generates as much happiness for mankind.

Lovely article

I beg to differ, John. This has nothing to do with loving morosité and making general comments about "the French" leads nowhere. It's about refusing morosité, and there is indeed nothing to be cheerful about in today's French restaurant scene. This decrease in overall quality and disappearance of the truly reasonable and palatable meal is unfortunately very real. And I need not mention how prices have rocketed. Bistrots, not so long ago, weren't hip, overpriced places which critics and bloggers hunt down and pounce on as soon as they appear — they were unpretentious, cheap or at least moderate places cooking real food for working people having lunch. Ironically, places like that have gradually disappeared as the "bistrot" hype was rising. Even today's "bon rapport qualité-prix" is hardly as honest and functional as it was then. There is a restaurant problem in France nowadays and I believe the author of the article speaks honestly of it, though I can't verify how his comparison with French chefs in the New World is justified.

For once, I think the article is spot on. Not very well written perhaps, but not worse and certainly better than dozens of IHT or NYT articles that have been linked here in the past, either romanticizing the French dining scene, or gaping in amazement at the so-called "French paradox" (since when has eating normally been a paradox?), or speculating on why (affluent) French women (from the cities) don't get fat, etc. This one, at least, has the virtue of concision and certainly hits the nail. It is true that the quality of mid-range and everyday dining in France and particularly Paris (which is the place I know best) has decreased spectacularly in the last years. Finding a reasonably priced, above-average meal has become an exception. The "je m'en foutisme" and "c'est pas ma faute" syndrom is a true fact, and three of us diners - all egulleters - experienced it again four times in Paris in the last 48 hours. One of us named "je m'en foutisme" as an explanation even before any of us had read the article. This is spot on too, and too rarely acknowledged. The pursuit of creativity has been steadily killing French cooking for some time, throwing into oblivion many of the tours de main, techniques and recipes that have made French cuisine one of the tastiest, smartest and most civilized in the world. And sent many young cooks and chefs scratching their heads on how to secure three slices of zucchini on a swing on top of a slate cube in order to attract Michelin attention instead of mastering the art of jus, fonds, feuilletages, proper roasting of meat, cooking vegetables right, using cream, mixing tastes artfully, making a blanquette or a miroton — simply, cooking food for people to eat. What is called in French faire à manger. It grieves me to say so because it might be fuel for outside reactions of the "France is through" type which personally I don't agree with, but I completely agree with the author of the article, although I would like to point out that it is still possible to find good food. But it is no longer as common and cheap as it used to be, and worse: it is no longer obvious, and is less and less part of our culture.

It is Monsieur Paul's version, according to the topic. Otherwise I'd have mentioned it was a reconstruction or my own version.

In my experience there is often less than meets the eyes. Simplicity is the mark of a great chef. The important part here is to get the ingredients right. Bocuse insists on mountain hay. I think foin de Crau, which is used by some chefs and can be bought as an ingredient, would be perfectly suited. Here is the recipe: 1 ham on the bone, half-cooked (<--- hence already brined, but partially debrined by first cooking) Hay (no quantities, enough to copiously line the pan and copiously cover the ham Water In a large saucepan or cocotte, put a thick layer of hay, put ham on top, cover with a thick layer of hay. Cover with water. Boil. Lower heat, cover and cook at a bare simmer for 20 minutes per pound of ham. Let cool in cooking water until serving time.

I strongly recommend Pébeyre, Mr. Truffle Man. I don't think anyone knows more about truffle in Europe than he does.

Of course, but beaujolais nouveau is not exactly wine. There's a joke going in France: "A glass of beaujolais nouveau? — No, thanks, I prefer wine." Sorry I have no examples of prices at the moment. Will look around.

Those prices — from nakji and jsmeeker's posts — are outrageous. Definitely insane for what is honestly, most of the time, average wine at best and utter plonk at worst.

Besides, buying at Lalbenque is risky because you're likely to get a good proportion of Tuber brumale along with the melanospora and thus waste a lot of cash. There's no way to tell when you buy, you don't cut each truffle open before you pay for it.

Granted , they (French critics) know something, but after reading Demorand's typically hip (read semi-incomprehensible to a non-native) rave over Chamarré Montmartre followed by Rubin's broken-hearted slam of the same spot within hours of each other, one wonders what ← Demorand was very enthusiastic about Le Chamarré, perhaps a tad too much so IMO, and Rubin much too harsh in my opinion. I tend to lean in Sébastien's direction, and Emmanuel's conclusion "tristes Caraïbes" when it's all about the Indian ocean left me a bit puzzled. Products are good if not magnificent, preparations a bit too complicated and redundant but it wouldn't take much for this chef to serve really amazing food. A bit of streamlining would do it. No reason to jump to the ceiling but no reason to blow your brains out either. A shared experience cinematographed by François-Régis Gaudry from L'Express led us halfway between the two extremes; I suppose his review of the restaurant in the magazine will reflect this more temperate appreciation.

La Maison de la Truffe, place de la Madeleine. At least you should find the first truffles there. The season is beginning BTW.

Funny — I met Jérôme Moreau at Le Grand Tasting last Saturday; he immediately opened a bottle of BN and poured me a glass. From anyone else I think I'd have shrunk away... But when this man says "drink", you drink. That beaujolais nouveau was perfectly drinkable. It was really wine. Wonder why they're being so discrete about it. Not enough overripe banana? Not enough Haribo strawberry perhaps? There was a hint of candy, but good candy: Framboises de La Vosgienne, the little rasperry candy one used to find at automatic vendor machines in the métro, or pâtes de fruits à la framboise. Really nice this year. I suppose it also depends on the producer.

They're closed on weekends but open on Mondays, which for some reason feels very 2009 to me.

L'Ecailler du Bistrot (Paul Bert), rue Paul-Bert, is worth mentioning. Julot did you mean Bofinger?