Traditional vs contemporary French cooking/cuisine

[John Talbott]

There has been an intriguing topic running on the Italy Forum that I think could be mirrored/echoed here. We’ve discussed haute cuisine, products and chefs but I’m not sure we’ve tackled in France some of the issues mentioned in Italy. And while some of the folk contributing to the discussion there are active here (FatGuy, Swisschef, docsconz, Markk, etc), this may be new to others.

Hathor started it out by saying:

We veered off topic on another thread, and wound up discussing something that has much wider implications.

When does one cross the line from traditional regional cooking to non-traditional? How do you serve very traditional dishes and still push the flavor envelope? Is there any reason to cook totally traditional dishes, if you want to be a cut above a trattoria? Can a restaurant attain and/or maintain "stars" cooking completely traditional, regional foods?

Rather than quote more quotations, take a look at it and see if it stimulates ideas about traditional vs. contemporary French cooking/cuisine. I think it does.

[Ptipois]

I'll take a closer look at it but right after reading it diagonally I feel very much in harmony with Swiss Chef's posts.

Interesting topic, with something of a "fly-paper" dimension though. Some questions need to be answered very cautiously, especially when it comes to interpreting the origins and consequences of introducing new ingredients and/or cooking techniques at different periods of history. The social resonance is the first thing to consider (who introduces the stuff, why, in what circumstances, and for whom). In that respect, the introduction of tomatoes in Italy (or France) centuries ago cannot be interpreted similarly as the introduction of freeze-dried prosciutto powders, deconstructed sardines in test tubes and virtual lasagna in the late 20th c. The meaning behind things, their social dimension, is not the same.

For a start, I'll stick to two main principles:

- I do not think "traditional cooking" and "non-traditional" cooking should be opposed as concepts, not only because cooking is part of a time continuum but also because, whenever the opposition is justified, it means that there is something wrong with one or the other. The only gap between those two styles, IMO, has to do with sociology and politics and not with cooking itself, which at the bottom is one skill.

- It is, IMO again, sterile to oppose "traditional-style" cuisine and the new test-tube/freeze-dried/espuma trend because each one of them has a tendency to live on its own distinct plane of existence.

The latter, at its worst, is to be thrown into the "boys with toys" category and left there.

At its best (Adria the only example that comes to my mind), it is not really cooking, it is a highly mental art form that uses the sense of taste to manifest itself, and in that respect it should not be defined in terms of "good" or "not good". (The reluctance of many to accept that is merely a reluctance to allow their sense of taste to convey ideas and sensations that they accept from their sense of sight and hearing in the context of modern and contemporary art. In simpler terms, they think it is perfectly OK to have your mind blown and your sensorial feathers ruffled through your eyes and ears, even if the experience is not pleasing to the senses, but it is not OK to let your palate bring you a similar experience.)

In-between, at its acceptable professional level (i.e. Jean-François Piège's deconstructed "endive au jambon"), it is only well-made cooking cleverly arranged and it implies the same skill and talent as would a perfect, non-deconstructed endive au jambon.

[John Talbott]

Let me stretch you a little Pti. You've begun a series on regional cooking/cuisine and no one is more equipped to do this than you. So, let's take Breton or Normand cuisine; is there room and committment to both traditional + contemporary stuff in these very regional cuisines?

The whole tomato thing, I also find fascinating. Felice and I were just discussing access to varieties of tomatoes here and in the US and (since I was just there) in Italy.

I don't want to get to into Herve This/Ferran/etc too much here, I think we should amplify prior or develop another topic on it (we could start with Ratatouille's deconstructed ratatouille).

[Ptipois]

Let me stretch you a little Pti.  You've begun a series on regional cooking/cuisine and no one is more equipped to do this than you.  So, let's take Breton or Normand cuisine; is there room and committment to both traditional + contemporary stuff in these very regional cuisines?

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Again, I'm not sure I know what that means. Or more clearly: I do not think there is an opposition between traditional and contemporary. The concepts are too messed-up. To me, the word "contemporary" only evokes time, not style, and what is described as traditional today is, more often than not, updated to suit contemporary tastes and regulations. So I prefer not to venture into that subject for lack of a possibility to define its elements properly.

A typical example: recently we did a "baguette de tradition" tasting. The one that nearly nobody liked (except me) was the only one that really tasted traditional, i.e. whose taste, texture and smell were similar to the traditional baguette such as it used to be still available in the early 60s in some regions. "Baguette de tradition" is a good product but it was created recently and is by no means traditional (and does not actually try to be). Its taste and texture are adapted to contemporary tastes, while real traditional-style baguette, whenever it appears, is judged less interesting.

But if your question is "can those regional cuisines absorb new ingredients and techniques", I'll answer "sure, why couldn't they?" — why today less than yesterday? That is what they have been doing since they began existing. Regional cuisines are like all other types of cuisines, they evolve constantly.

I brought up the molecular element into the topic because it has been brought up in the other topic and it remains, in many minds, the most characteristic aspect of contemporary cuisine. At some point, you are bound to find it on your way if you want to discuss traditional vs. contemporary cooking (not that I think it is necessarily interesting or pertinent to do so, as I wrote in my first post in the thread, but that's the way things are right now).

Edited September 7, 2007 by Ptipois (log)

[Pontormo]

How would you all feel were I to add lard to the butter while putting together pastry for a quiche?

[Ptipois]

I'd feel fine.

[BigboyDan]

Traditional cuisine is local cuisine. That's it.

[John Whiting]

I stay with my definition of an authentic recipe in my paper on Authenticity for the Oxford Food Symposium:

Even a genuinely authentic recipe is only a freeze-frame, a snapshot taken at an arbitrarily chosen moment in a spatial/temporal continuum.

[Ptipois]

Okay, I think we're heading to a dead end (edit: whoops John I wrote that before seeing your post). To revive the topic, let me go back to Hathor's initial questions. I'll give my short answers (short enough, hopefully, to provoke debate) and we may go back from there.

When does one cross the line from traditional regional cooking to non-traditional?

Because traditional recipes exist through local and individual variations set on a few basic principles, it is difficult to see the line. However I believe it has to do with respecting the basic elements that define the recipe, regardless of local/individual variations. Once you mess with the baselines, you get something else, not the traditional recipe. For instance no European chef has ever created a "Thai curry paste" that is really a Thai curry paste (and, for one thing, that tastes good).

How do you serve very traditional dishes and still push the flavor envelope?

In my experience you just don't. Because there is no way to improve on the flavor of well-made traditional dishes. Their greatest achievement is precisely on flavor, and flavor is the very reason why they have endured over time. Slow cooking; sensible spicing; crispy roasting; strong, uncensored tastes; simmering that concentrates the taste; well of course you may have the illusion that you can improve on that but really, you can't. Or you create something truly dazzling in another way (again, Jean-François Piège's marvellous endive au jambon) but then that is no longer traditional cooking.

Is there any reason to cook totally traditional dishes, if you want to be a cut above a trattoria?

I'm not sure this question really makes sense. I understand it as "is there any reason to cook totally traditional dishes if you want to be a cut above traditional cooking?" If a trattoria is a place where traditional dishes are made, and where traditional dishes find their greatest expression, then if you want to be a cut above that, well, do not cook any traditional dishes. Go into a different culinary research.

Or if I understand the question differently: take a starred chef (for instance Ducasse) who wants to serve a traditional, auberge-type dish and improve it by refining it, making it more "respectable", and charge more for it: it is very unlikely that he really manages to improve on the original; he'll be much better off respecting it. And if he respects it, he will not have improved on it.

Can a restaurant attain and/or maintain "stars" cooking completely traditional, regional foods?

That does not depend on the restaurant but on who awards the stars, and for what reasons.

Edited September 11, 2007 by Ptipois (log)

[John Whiting]

. . . there is no way to improve on the flavor of well-made traditional dishes. Their greatest achievement is precisely on flavor, and flavor is the very reason why they have endured over time.

Simple traditional dishes have variety built into them by the fact that the ingredients, if locally and artisanally grown, will vary in flavor from season to season and even from farm to farm. It takes industrial food manufacture to ensure that food will always taste exactly (and boringly) the same.

[Dave Hatfield]

I stay with my definition of an authentic recipe in my paper on Authenticity for the Oxford Food Symposium:

Even a genuinely authentic recipe is only a freeze-frame, a snapshot taken at an arbitrarily chosen moment in a spatial/temporal continuum.

←

John, I absolutely agree, but would add "and as interpreted by a specific cook."

We all are familiar with the ferocious arguments even within small villages about who makes the true version of XXXX. But, Madame X's pot au feu may well taste better than Madam Z's. Both are 'authentic', but one is a better cook than the other.

To carry the argument further it follows that even in 'modern' cuisine the only authentic version of a dish is the one created by its originator. Everything else is a copy or a variation until eventually a sort of common recipe emerges and it then becomes 'traditional'.