Pierre Gagnaire Defends French Cuisine

[fresh_a]

Here's a an English language reference to the original article from gastronomie.com.

For copyright reasons, we had to remove the translated text posted here.

http://www.whatiscopyright.org/

I thank Peter for the above mentioned reference site. Members with question may want to follow that link. Edited September 15, 2003 by Bux (log)

[enthusiast]

not much argument there is there? and certainly no evidence.

[Gerry Dawes]

Here's a rough translation of the original article from gastronomie.com :

"It is customary to find one's bearings in citing nouvelle cuisine", retorts Gagnaire, who speaks up only on rare occasions, "but the considerable developements of the last few years, in so many directions, reveal the unequalled vigor of French cuisine".

"This apparent packaging of the french culinary family is proof of its vitality. It does not look to create sensations with media events, or have the need to seduce by brutality.."

"Modern, dynamic and open to the world, she keeps, nevertheless, memory of her tradition, guarantees her authenticity, her creativity, and her longevity. We are perhaps living in the greatest culinary period ever!"

Sounds like an Arnold Schwarzenegger sound bite. Surely, the very talented M. Gagnaire could give us a little more substance. ;-)

[fresh_a]

Being the cerebral chef that he is, I expected more as well.... I'm sure this isn't the end of it, though!

[Bux]

I would certainly agree with the last sentence--"We are perhaps seeing the epitome of culinary art."--but "we" in my book would be a much larger community than France and it appears as if Gagnaire is trying to support France here.

On the other hand, a perfectly good argument could be made that this is the greatest culinary period in French history, but that the bar for culinary achievement has been raised all over the world. There was a time when a return from a trip to France was a traumatic experience for a New Yorker. It no longer is. Professional cooking has achieved a status in many parts of the western world, that had heretofore been reserved for French restaurants.

French cooking has lost its monopoly and "trained in France" no longer has the cachet it once had. At the moment, Spain appears to be the dynamic leader, but as Catalunya and the Pais Vasco joust for attention, the center of interest in Spain could easily move south or west and the center of international interest could move again.

I'm not sure what he finds as proof of vitality, but Gagnaire's need to defend French cuisine appears to have manifested itself as a media event. Understand that I am a fan of Gagnaire's cooking and returned to dine in his restaurant in spite of the fact that the desserts I had the first time were brutally unseductive.

Edited September 15, 2003 by Bux (log)

[vserna]

There's an added little twist here. Gagnaire knows current Spanish cuisine rather well and is a close friend of Madrid's Sergi Arola, who considers Adrià and Gagnaire as his two mentors. Indeed, if there's a style in France that has some kinship with Adrià's, it might be Pierre's. So maybe a little bit of jealousy that someone with a similar philosophy to his own is getting more recognition than himself? Just speculating here, of course.

[John Whiting]

It can be argued that the food cooked in expensive restaurants, though interesting in itself, is no more representative of the standards enjoyed by the great mass of the food-loving populace -- and there are indeed many such people -- than the haute couture of the fashion shows is representative of the quality of dress one sees on the street.

In both cases, the latter can be either high or low without reference to those tastes which only the well-off can afford to indulge. The relative standards of highly competitive celebrity chefs are hardly to be taken as a guide to the quality of food one might obtain in a good local restaurant.

Edit: Please note that this is not a condemnation of expensive restaurants. It is merely a reminder that generalizations about the quality of a country's cuisine should not be based entirely on its upper echelons.

Edited September 3, 2003 by John Whiting (log)

[Jonathan Day]

My reading of the penultimate paragraph is that Gagnaire is accusing Adria and the Spanish chefs of being sensationalist. French cooking is extremely varied, says Gagnaire (parcellisation here refers to breaking up) and doesn't need the shock tactics or obscure ideas (propos abscons) that the Spanish chefs rely on.

This does sound like the pot calling the kettle black!

[fresh_a]

Strange, how much he seems to be refering to the Spanish chefs, when I get the idea that he's refering to the culinary world in general.

[paulbrussel]

It is a very short and quick statement he made, I think, perhaps based on a very quick and in a way superficial interview.

I don't believe BTW in jealousy for Mr Gagnaire - which doesn't seem to me to be in his character. And I do think that there has been a change in France. It can't beat Spain, I think, but you can't blame him to be a bit chauvinistic.

Also at eGullet, I think, there are traces of young chefs in France that try to do their best to change to a new cuisine.

I still think that in general it is far behind what happens in Spain, but I think Gagnaire is right in the statement that history and tradition in France will matter too. Also Adrià and Arzak believe in tradition, and since culinary haute cuisine in France has longer history, there is an advantage not to be forgotten.

[Lesley C]

When I interviewed Spanish pastry chef Jordi Butron earlier this year, he told me his mentor was NOT Ferran Adria but Pierre Gagnaire.

Butron worked for Gagnaire as a stagiaire in St-Etienne.

[Bux]

Tradition has its down side as well as its benefits. For all that, I wouldn't spend too much time analyzing this interview. I don't know what else Gagnaire could have done under the cirucumstances, except to support the troops. It was his duty and he did it.

[Pan]

For the journalist, the most emblematic chef of the Spanish domination is Catalan Ferran Adria, whose spectacular cuisine is based on deconstruction of the produce

Pour le journaliste, le chef le plus emblématique de la domination espagnole est le Catalan Ferran Adria, dont la cuisine spectaculaire basée sur la déconstruction des aliments[...]

I always thought <<aliments>> were "foodstuffs," and I just checked an online dictionary that confirmed that. But though this passage reads better in French, I still don't know what it means. Is Adria using essences of fruits and vegetables in season, as Jean-Georges Vongerichten and his staff used to do at JoJo in New York (and, for all I know, are still doing in one or more of his other restaurants)?

[skchai]

BTW, here is a link to the English version of the article.

And to the original french version.

Both out of AFP.

[fresh_a]

I did say it was a "rough" translation, didn't I?

[Bux]

The online English version appears to be rather condensed. My reaction is the same. France is seeing alltime highs in cuisine. The western world is seeing all time highs in cuisine, but today the peaks are no longer exclusively in France, not perhaps not even predominantly.

[Bux]

I always thought <<aliments>> were "foodstuffs," and I just checked an online dictionary that confirmed that.  But though this passage reads better in French, I still don't know what it means. Is Adria using essences of fruits and vegetables in season, as Jean-Georges Vongerichten and his staff used to do at JoJo in New York (and, for all I know, are still doing in one or more of his other restaurants)?

"Aliments" is a broader term than fresh_a's "produce," but essentially there's no importance to that in terms of what Ducasse is saying, or so I believe. Adria's food (and so much has been written about it here on eGullet as well as in the press, that I don't think it's very good for me to try and summarize it here) is not at all like what Vongerichten used to do. For one thing, I don't have the impression that Adria is very concerned about seasonal produce.

[John Whiting]

. . . I don't have the impression that Adria is very concerned about seasonal produce.

He couldn't be, when his researches are carried out in a lab in the winter and then served up to the public during the summer.

[Pan]

I did say it was a "rough" translation, didn't I?

Sure did! But my main point is that I don't understand what it means, even if <<aliments>> means something more than just produce.

[robert brown]

What about us poor suckers who have to pay $400.-$600. a couple to dine at one of the few remaining truly great restaurants in France? Or to take John Whiting’s perceptive observation, $100. a couple for barebones menus and wine lists, minimal service, and often uninspired cuisine. There was a time, and Pierre Gagnaire knows it well, when almost any large village had a serious and delicious restaurant and the “big boys” provided a real and honest bacchanalia. As one who dined twice in Gagnaire’s first restaurant ( a funky, tasteful former photographer’s loft), I can tell you that he ran wild in the kitchen in a way that I doubt he can do now (Not having ever been to his Paris restaurant, this is an educated guess, but one that I am sure of, from what I read and what I hear from my friends who have dined there). He also knew first-hand from his second restaurant in St.Etienne what happens when the traffic slows down. The trouble with France is that the chefs should be talking about GASTRONOMY, which is eating in all its aspects. In this regard, it has been a disastrous 13 years for dining in restaurants in France. It’s not just about where one finds the most innovative cooking, but the French-born chefs leaving for other countries; the lack of sacrifice and unwillingness to be happy with less; classic French arrogance, and a government and society that refuses to support France’s most noble and historic institution. Ferran Adria, by turning cuisine on its head, is doing for Spain what Escoffier did for France. Great military powers come and go: the same for culinary ones, I guess.

[Bux]

Great military powers come and go: the same for culinary ones, I guess.

And waning powers seem to spend too much of their energy defending their reputation rather than rebuilding it.

[Bux]

It appears that Gagnaire has become the spokesman for the defense of la cuisine francaise.

On the web page of Liberation.fr, Le chef Pierre Gagnaire prend la défense de la gastronomie française, mise en cause par un critique du New York Times. This interview is dated 05 September 2003. It is, of course, in French.

[fresh_a]

And I do think that there has been a change in France. It can't beat Spain

Huh?!?

In France, there are 35 3-star Michelin rated establishments. In Spain, there are what, 5?

Am I missing something here?

[Bux]

Am I missing something here?

Yes, it's that you can't allow the French to define what's best in cuisine any more. A charge that the French don't recognize great food when they see it, can't be answered by looking to the Michelin ratings. I've been in one star Spanish restaurants that compete favorably in terms of cuisine with two star restaurants in France. The charge has already been made that Michelin's ratings in Spain are not on par with those in France. It seems to take much longer for a restaurant in Spain to get attention in Michelin. It's not just nationalism, it's the conseravtism and taste of Michelin and Derek Brown that may not be serving us well.

Some users may be vulnerable to charges they have a vested interest, or that their personal tastes lead them to prefer dining in Spain, but I, Robert Brown and possibly paulbrussel, arrived in Spain with prejudices for French food, but now find Spain exciting and satisfying. It's also not something that can be quantified. There's a movement, not in the sense of style, but of curiosity about food, that's afoot in Spain and its drawing international focus in as many ways as France is losing that focus. The numbers of 3 star restaurants wouldn't count, even if they were an accurate portrayal of what's there.

France is hardly dead, nor is it dying, but the article in Libération, gives us a glimpse of a defensiveness, that doesn't send a healthy signal. Gagnaire speaks of the Lubow article in terms of being its being a superficial description of French cuisine. Perhaps it is, but that's not what I want to read after the interviewer opens with a misleading paragraph about the Lubow article that's full of factual errors as well as misinterpretation. For starters, Arthur Lubow is not the influential food critic of the NY Times. He's a freelance writer who sometimes writes about food. Whether anyone agrees with Christophe Alix, that Lubow delivered a complete assessment of French cuisine in that article is perhaps subject to opinion, but my opinion was that it was neither complete, nor meant to appear as such. There's enough in Lubow's article to incite defenders of the French faith without Alix's exaggeration.

It's interesting that Gagnaire defends French cooking by focusing on the need for the "yum yum" effect. (Miam-miam are Gagnaire's words and "yum-yum" is the immediate translation given me by two people, one of them a French born chef.) I mentioned desserts Gagnaire has served that brought vinegar and aluminum to my mind which were inedible as an intellectual experience and I remain a fan of Gagnaire's cooking. Many however fault him for the lack of "yum-yum" in his food. Gagnaire's answers aren't all that bad, but they are also superficial, make reference to token chefs, and end on the assumption that Adria's followers will not have his talent. They probably won't. Time will tell, but in my brief travels, I've already encountered a few young chefs who are not blindly following Adria. I don't know who or what they're following, but they're thinking and cooking some tasty food. Thus I have no reason to believe the trend in Spain is anything by just beginning.

[pirate]

Yes the enormous prejudice by Michelin for French restaurants in France and elsewhere.