French city food or country food excels?

Gifted Gourmet · July 23, 2004

article from the International Herald Tribune

Ian Kelly ("Vive la Révolution, et le bistro Américain!) claims to understand French gastronomy from his experience in the capital. Once again the city of Paris is said to be representative of all of France. .
Those of us who love America but live in "la France Profonde" know that Kelly is incorrect in saying that French cooking needs inspiration from the United States. French regional food can be superb. Outside the cities produce is fresh - it does not sit around for a day at Les Halles before being served, but is processed each morning by a farmer culling his geese or picking his fresh peaches. The cheese comes from the next valley, the wine from the next door vineyard and the care in the kitchen is more than equaled by friendly, polite service given with a smile rather than a snarl.

Any validity to Kelly's argument or just more grandstanding with his opinion?? :rolleyes:

Bux · July 23, 2004

I wish I'd read the original article. While I'd be the first to agree that you don't know France by knowing Paris, I also have to say that I don't know exactly what Kelly may have said by reading the letter to the editor from which you've quoted. Paris is not France. The comparison in the letter to the relationship of Washington, may not be as good as a comparison to NYC. Washington is a lot more "American."

It appears the letter writer doesn't know Paris. There's no food sitting around in Les Halles, at least not since the wholesale food market was moved well out of the city to Rungis. "Outside the cities produce is fresh - it does not sit around for a day at Les Halles before being served" "Yes and no," I'd say. More and more rural French people are doing most of their shopping at hypermarchés and often shopping by price rather than quality. At the same time, I will admit that many of the hypermarchés have a selection of artisanal products and fresh vegetables unheard of in the US. Still I don't believe it amounts to the bulk of the sales.

I've shopped with friends who live in la France profunde and had the cheesemonger select local cheeses for us after asking it it will be for lunch or dinner today or tomorrow to pick the one at the proper ripeness. At the butcher next door, we talk about how we will cook the chicken and whether we'll want lardons for the coq au vin. The patrons waiting quietly will contribute oral recipes rather than complain about the time it takes us to make a selection. If I'm not mistaken, both these shops are scheduled to close this year, or have closed. The supermarket in town has expanded. People, even people living in France can have a romanticized image of France. The real France profunde is more often found in black and white movies. Times change. I wish I could lay my hands on my copy of Mort Rosenblum's A Goose in Toulouse. In it, he gives figures about the turn around of France from a rural agricultural nation to an industrialized urban society. The move from agriculture to city work has revolutionized the relationship of the French with their food.

Nevertheless, I don't know what points Kelly tried to make, what restaurants he used as examples and what he thought America had to offer. I'd far rather have to find a meal in the middle of France than the middle of The US any day of the week. I eat much better on a road trip to France than I do on the road in the US, but in France I don't eat as well in the middle range as I did forty years ago, while I eat much better in the US than I used to. We've still got a ways to go and show no sign of wanting to eat that well. If we cross levels with France, it will be their own fault. For all that, there's a lot the French can learn from our cooking and, in fact, I think American cooking has been influential in France in the last third of the 20th century. The influences have been both good and bad. For all that, I'm finding Spain very interesting at both the creative level and the traditional rustic and rural level. All the hip writers are writing about Spain and French chefs are up in arms about that, not articles about American cooking.

Bux · July 23, 2004

Somewhere along the way, I forgot to throw in a reference to the conversation I had with a chef in St. Jean-de-Luz in the Basque Coast. He was a Frenchman who studied the culinary arts in France and came to the US to do a stage at Daniel in NY which is how I got my introduction to him and why we ate at his restaurant. Two of his telling comments to me were about his American experiences and how they affected his thinking about food. One was that he had never tasted fruits and vegetables so fresh as those he found at Daniel. While I'll admit that Daniel Boulud has his own sources and that not all of them sell at the Greenmarket, this was quite a statement about attention to raw materials. The second thing that struck me was about how he was influenced by Francois Payard, the pastry chef at Daniel while he was there. Most of the restaurants in St. Jean-de-Luz offer the same traditional desserts and by and large, they outsource these desserts from a central source. My chef, made all his desserts in house. They were original and his clients wanted to know where he bought his desserts. They didn't believe a small restaurant would bother to make their own desserts. That's where the state of the art is now in France and one example of how American cooking has inspired French food. I suppose there's some irony that the American inspiration came from a French chef working in America, but Daniel Boulud's tradition is French, but his sources and clients are largely American.

Louisa Chu · July 23, 2004

Here's a link to the original article - Vive la Révolution, et le bistro Américain! by Ian Kelly.

Bux · July 23, 2004

Here's a link to the original article - Vive la Révolution, et le bistro Américain! by Ian Kelly.

Merci beaucoup. I just found that myself by Googling. I couldn't find it by searching on the IHT site. What's most remarkable is that I read that piece when it originally appeared on the op-ed page of the NY Times. I didn't think much of it then and was surprised to find it the subject of Brian Priestman's letter to the IHT. We have put the cart before the horse here though or so it seems. Kelly's point is that French cooking, and by that perhaps he means haute cuisine, has become international. When he speaks of American influence, he says "in part."

When he speaks of Parisian bistros being influenced by "the ascendancy of bistros and brasseries over starchier French restaurants," he's on the wrong foot by naming three places that arrived in NY long after Constant and his group, including Camdeborde at la Régalade, left their jobs in fancy two and three star restaurants and began opening bistros designed to turn heads by not garner stars in Paris. I'm sorry, but Kelly seems to have it backwards. Why does he find it revolutionary that the chefs in some of the most formal restaurants have worked in bistros. Young cooks have always taken whatever jobs they could get as apprentices.

Kelly's comment about "This showbiz element of New York food culture is still viewed with suspicion." seems less true today than ever before. I don't frequent these joints for the most part either here or in Paris, but Fresh_a has given us posts that contradict this statement. About the only thing in his article I can't refute is the idea that formal restaurants may not be as profitable as bistros. I just don't know, although they obviously take less money to start up and therefore present less risk. I think he missed the mark and the article says very little. Can someone put a better spin on it and tell me what I've missed.

I also feel the letter to the editor hardly addressed the article except to relay the news that people in the provinces eat more simply than those in Paris. That's obvious, or would be if in fact, most Parisians ate haute cuisine with any regularity. They don't and Priestman ignores the decline in the standards of French cuisine nationwide in recent generations as well as the move from the farm. His talk of food from neighboring farms flies in the face of the fact that France imports foie gras and frog's legs and that les gros escargots de bourgogne have almost been wiped out as a commercial food source, but is this line of thought relevant to Kelly's article anyway.

marlena spieler · July 24, 2004

ate at Mon Veil Amie yesterday on ile st louis--wonderful : very clean flavours, vegetables of gorgeous freshness and stimulating combinations, and strikingly delish desserts: vervaine ice cream, and roasted pineapple with pineapple sorbet, two standouts.....

anyhow, spent some time chatting in kitchen, with smiling chef antony, and the other chef whose name i forget. anyhow, both worked together in washington DC, and that was the connection and inspiration for their venture in paris.

the contemporary american influence, in the best sense, was very evident.

anyhow, a perfect place for a summer lunch. closed for first two weeks of august, will reopen in later august when they think it will be cooler. meanwhile i think they are open this coming week,. as always. monday through friday.

x marlena

Gifted Gourmet · July 24, 2004

the contemporary american influence, in the best sense, was very evident.

Marlena,

Thanks for confirming what I had already come to believe about "influences" ... does this mean that the French will someday be able to recreate our vibrant California cuisine and New Orleans lagniappe that we have grown to treasure right here in America? Hopefully ... :biggrin: and le barbecue du sud? c'est possible? :rolleyes:

Bux · July 24, 2004

the contemporary american influence, in the best sense, was very evident.

Marlena,
Thanks for confirming what I had already come to believe about "influences" ... does this mean that the French will someday be able to recreate our vibrant California cuisine and New Orleans lagniappe that we have grown to treasure right here in America? Hopefully ... and le barbecue du sud? c'est possible?

I am sure they were always able to recreate our cuisine, I'm not so sure they will ever want to recreate any of it. Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part as I'd like to enjoy the regional differences in cuisine as I travel, but it's also based on what I see as a spiritual or conceptual influence rather than an interest in doing any literal copying. Picaman's illustrated description of his dinner at Mon Vieil Ami shows it as a distinctly French restaurant. There's no recreation of anything one might describe as American. I think what Marlena describes as an evident "contemporary american influence" has little to do with specific dishes but is part of the cross pollination of ideas and philosophies that has allowed the French to refresh their own cooking at a time when it's become a bit stale or stagnant.

I'm also reminded that much of thinking behind these ideas started in France. Alice Waters who's credited for revolutionizing California cuisine came back from France wanting to recreate what she found there--fabulously fresh vegetables grown for their taste, not for shipping.

marlena spieler · July 24, 2004

Oh, yeah, meant to include that the other chef whose name i didn't remember, not the smiling antony--i don't know if they are chef-partners, co-chefs, co-owners or what, but definately its a joint project--anyhow he is American.

x marlena

ps the biiggest american influence i see at the moment is le brunch (i'm purposefully ignoring fast food etc). There was a big cajun thing for awhile, and there is a lot of really bad mexican food, but that is the same all over europe. europe loves its mexican restaurants and they are uniformly terrible. anyhow, i digress. many of the brunches in paris at the moment are wonderful. i like coup de fou wine bar for brunch.

Gifted Gourmet · July 24, 2004

there is a lot of really bad mexican food, but that is the same all over europe. europe loves its mexican restaurants and they are uniformly terrible.

:laugh: :laugh:

marlena spieler · July 25, 2004

the contemporary american influence, in the best sense, was very evident.

Marlena,
Thanks for confirming what I had already come to believe about "influences" ... does this mean that the French will someday be able to recreate our vibrant California cuisine and New Orleans lagniappe that we have grown to treasure right here in America? Hopefully ... and le barbecue du sud? c'est possible?
I am sure they were always able to recreate our cuisine, I'm not so sure they will ever want to recreate any of it. Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part as I'd like to enjoy the regional differences in cuisine as I travel, but it's also based on what I see as a spiritual or conceptual influence rather than an interest in doing any literal copying. Picaman's illustrated description of his dinner at Mon Vieil Ami shows it as a distinctly French restaurant. There's no recreation of anything one might describe as American. I think what Marlena describes as an evident "contemporary american influence" has little to do with specific dishes but is part of the cross pollination of ideas and philosophies that has allowed the French to refresh their own cooking at a time when it's become a bit stale or stagnant.

chef antony and co-chef whose name i don't remember (it must have been the wine with lunch) told me that working in washington d.c. was their inspiration for mon vieil ami, and chef antony especially was very happy to tell of the american inspiration.

i thought the other chef was less pleased and proud, though i might have only been interpreting as he was quieter and shy.

and he is american.

anyhow, definately american is their inspiration! from the horse's mouth so to speak.

x marlena

pim · July 25, 2004

I’m another one who’s been to Mon Viel Ami and have seen no “American” influence in anything there.

Can someone enlighten me of the “evident American influence”? If it was indeed there, I somehow missed the giant pink elephant in the room.

When I was at Le Buerehiesel, the people there made it clear that the new place in Paris, Mon Viel Ami, was chef Westermann and his ex-sous chef Antony Clémot’s joint project. In fact, if I remember correctly, the menu even spelled out that it was réalisée par Antoine Westermann et Antony Clémot. There was no mention of the American “co-chef”. My impression was that he was simply chef Clémot’s sous chef.

The culinary nods and influences clearly seen there were from chef Westermann’s origin in the Alsace and from his flagship Le Buerehiesel. The pineapple dessert that Marlena liked so much is also on the menu at Le Buerehiesel. The complimentary aperitif served at the restaurant when I was there was a Pinot Blanc from Alsace--not to mention the wine list and the cheese selection.

American? I think not.

Edited July 25, 2004 by pim (log)

marlena spieler · July 25, 2004

two things:

1. perhaps modern european cuisine is very international and there are qualities that go over the border from one country to the next? i felt without a doubt that mon viele ami had an influence from america in the same way chez panisse et co have the other way around.

2. fine if you don't want to believe my impression, we all have our own. however, chef-antony himself and collaegue told me two days ago that they were inspired to open mon vieil ami, by working in america. full stop.

also, is american influence a bad thing? after speaking with many french chefs behind the scenes at so many of the multi-starred restaurants, i really don't think its a bad thing at all. we're talking really good american food etc.

btw: my british husband thought we were in san francisco at our lunch chez mon viele ami. and, i might add, coming from him, this is not a bad thing at all.

John Whiting · July 25, 2004

Marlena's point, if I understand it, is that there is now such close communication among international chefs that one is free to trace lines of mutual "influence" without searching for a pointless precedence as to who was first. Forget the verbiage -- I can only say that half-a-dozen years ago at Beurehiesel and a week ago at Mon Vieil Ami the food "talked to me" the way it did at Chez Panisse. Marlena's husband Alan's instinctive response is, for me, a reenforcement.

pim · July 25, 2004

ps the biiggest american influence i see at the moment is le brunch.

You missed another big one "le weekend". :raz:

John Whiting · July 25, 2004

Marlena and I wrote up Mon Vieil Ami in much the same way without having compared notes, which we haven't for several months. It is the same recognition of creative communication between France and America which inspired Raymond Bland to devote an entire week to exploring its ramifications in "The American Food Revolution", which has been examined in some detail here on eGullet.

We're well past the point of establishing precedence. We have always lived in a world of "fusion", and it now takes place with such rapidity that we can't even write as fast as it happens.

marlena spieler · July 25, 2004

ps the biiggest american influence i see at the moment is le brunch.
You missed another big one "le weekend".

Pim:

I thought we were speaking of influences about food when I said the biggest american influence at the moment...........

and if we weren't and our american influence category was extended to le weekend, then why speak of the ' le weekend' as a big influence right now? I mean, "le weekend" was a big concept and influence when i was growing up!

hope this clarifies.

marlena

pim · July 25, 2004

1. perhaps modern european cuisine is very international and there are qualities that go over the border from one country to the next? i felt without a doubt that mon viele ami had an influence from america in the same way chez panisse et co have the other way around.

No, Marlena and John, I do not doubt the way that ideas and influences are shared across the world. We are living in the proverbial Global Village after all.

But when Marlena claimed,

the contemporary american influence, in the best sense, was very evident.

I was rather curious to see specifically what she referred to. As I said before, from what I could see (and pointed out) the major influences are from the Alsace.

2. fine if you don't want to believe my impression, we all have our own. however, chef-antony himself and collaegue told me two days ago that they were inspired to open mon vieil ami, by working in america. full stop.

a few impressions on this point:

- perhaps he was being polite, you know, while talking to an American journalist and all.

- is it possible that he was referring to the inspiration for working together came from when they worked together in Washington DC?

Oh, yeah, meant to include that the other chef whose name i didn't remember, not the smiling antony--i don't know if they are chef-partners, co-chefs, co-owners or what, but definately its a joint project--anyhow he is American.

Hmm…It is quite clear that Mon Viel Ami is a joint project between Antoine Westermann and Antony Clémot. The menu has both their names on it (this I am sure of now, just checked the menu from two months ago).

also, is american influence a bad thing? after speaking with many french chefs behind the scenes at so many of the multi-starred restaurants, i really don't think its a bad thing at all. we're talking really good american food etc.

No, not always. It wasn’t a value judgment when I said that I saw no American influence there. I didn’t mean to say whether it was good or bad, I just didn’t see it.

Edited July 25, 2004 by pim (log)

Bux · July 25, 2004

american is their inspiration! from the horse's mouth so to speak.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that the chefs at Mon Vieil Ami were not inspired by America only that I don't see any attempt to copy the food they cooked in the US. Perhaps they are cooking a very similar menu, but I suspect that in DC, that menu would have seemed very French to an American clientele.

I understand the point and noted my own conversation with a French chef several years ago whose own greatest inspiration was from his stint in the US.

two things:
1. perhaps modern european cuisine is very international and there are qualities that go over the border from one country to the next? i felt without a doubt that mon viele ami had an influence from america in the same way chez panisse et co have the other way around.
2. fine if you don't want to believe my impression, we all have our own. however, chef-antony himself and collaegue told me two days ago that they were inspired to open mon vieil ami, by working in america. full stop.
also, is american influence a bad thing? after speaking with many french chefs behind the scenes at so many of the multi-starred restaurants, i really don't think its a bad thing at all. we're talking really good american food etc.
btw: my british husband thought we were in san francisco at our lunch chez mon viele ami. and, i might add, coming from him, this is not a bad thing at all.

1. Modern western cuisine is very international these days and at levels far simpler than haute cuisine. There are any number of menus in little restaurants in Paris that would not seem unusual in restaurants in NY or SF--or even in American cities with less of a history of French restaurants.

2. I see no discrepancy between this and the fact that the menus may have been worked out in Alsace with Antoine Westermann.

Let me thrown in another story I've told here before. About nine years ago, I met a young French cuisiner working in NY. He had been here a year or two as line chef and then sous chef at one of NY's best restaurants. I asked him how his work here would be regarded when he returned to France, specifically how it would look when stacked against working at Georges Blanc, his last employer in France. He said it would be as if he stopped cooking for a few years. No one would care at all where he worked or what he did in the states. New York was no place. Not so many years later the same chef and I were discussing his recent trip to Europe and the meals he had eaten there. It quickly became obvious to me that because of his position as sous chef in one of NY's best French restaurants he was getting VIP treatment right and left in both France and Spain. Much of the attention was coming from chefs who had eaten his food and who had met him in NY. I reminded him of our earlier conversation and his reply was that things have changed drastically in just a few years and that was several years ago. French chefs are aware of what's cooking here and are being influenced by it.

marlena spieler · July 25, 2004

But when Marlena claimed,
the contemporary american influence, in the best sense, was very evident.
I was rather curious to see specifically what she referred to. As I said before, from what I could see (and pointed out) the major influences are from the Alsace.
2. fine if you don't want to believe my impression, we all have our own. however, chef-antony himself and collaegue told me two days ago that they were inspired to open mon vieil ami, by working in america. full stop.
a few impressions on this point:
- perhaps he was being polite, you know, while talking to an American journalist and all.
- is it possible that he was referring to the inspiration of working together came from when they worked together in Washington DC?
Oh, yeah, meant to include that the other chef whose name i didn't remember, not the smiling antony--i don't know if they are chef-partners, co-chefs, co-owners or what, but definately its a joint project--anyhow he is American.
Hmm…It is quite clear that Mon Viel Ami is a joint project between Antoine Westermann and Antony Clémot. The menu has both their names on it (this I am sure of now, just checked the menu from two months ago).

1. I am specifically referring to the abundance of fresh vegetables, especially in the starters, the utter freshness and connection to the garden. and while this is not necessarily limited to San Francisco Bay Area or New York City, I felt that almost every dish we ate on the menu could have come from a high quality usa restaurant. It was a certain clarity and straighforward flavour quality. i'm sure it is the case in alsace as well, but it is also the case in certain american dishes/restaurants. rare, yes, but rare in other places too. Simple food. simple presentation. rusitc bread. no towers. i mean, we couldn't have been in london thats for sure.

2. actually chef antony was very emphatic about the american influence, and said that the american chef was the one responsible for the brillliant vegetable quality. he didn't seem to be being polite or worrying about impressing me, just a big smiling wanting to chat about the whole place, the dishes, etc.

i doubt that chef antony was only being polite about my being an american journalist as he got into a discussion, had invited us into the kitchen (okay he did know i was a journalist but no word was said about my nationality, he assumed i was english because of something that was said, anyhow, he began speaking about the menu etc, with my british companions before i even trotted over the restaurant and before he heard my pearly vowels.

so i say i see the american influence. my dining companions notice it. the chef says iit is the case, two days ago, when i lunched there on friday

and the thing is this: I don't care. good food is good food. influences and stimulation as in art, only make the subject more interesting.

Marlena

ps: the raspberry sign you posted on your response to me isn't very nice in this context.

John Whiting · July 25, 2004

There are at least two levels going here. One is the commercial; i.e. what can one claim to have invented in order to promote one's restaurant to the press. The other is the level at which chefs -- or at the deeper level, cooks as a whole -- take advantage of the same world-wide communication that prevails in every discipline. It was at this elemental level, if I understood correctly, that Marlena was observing a simple but also profound correspondence.

Many European chefs have now spent time at Chez Panisse, for example, and have taken what they experienced home with them. They haven't stolen or even borrowed secrets, they have only added to their knowlege in ways which are subsequently incorporated into what they do in the kitchen.

EDIT This was written without having read Marlena's previous posting. The fact that we're saying much the same thing without communicating may have some small significance.

Edited July 25, 2004 by John Whiting (log)

John Whiting · July 25, 2004

I am specifically referring to the abundance of fresh vegetables, especially in the starters ...

From my own review:

If further proof were needed, it came in Mary’s first dish, Légumes printaniers en salade tiède, máche et petites girolles poêlées. This contained so many lightly poached, perfectly blended vegetables that she set out to list them. They included yellow carrots, courgettes, yellow squash, green beans, green onions, peas, cauliflower, mange toute, asparagus, celery, fennel, bibb lettuce, alfalfa and two kinds of mushrooms, served in their own vegetable jus. Like a well-made ratatouille, each was cooked to the proper degree, suggesting that they had been added successively, each at the crucial moment.

marlena spieler · July 25, 2004

The culinary nods and influences clearly seen there were from chef Westermann’s origin in the Alsace and from his flagship Le Buerehiesel. The pineapple dessert that Marlena liked so much is also on the menu at Le Buerehiesel.

i wrote about and developed a recipe for grilling pineapple and serving it with its own fresh pineapple sorbet ten years ago. i felt it was very original, as i just looked at a pineapple and came up with the thought. but at the same time how many chefs were looking at a nice juicy pineapple with the same thought? great minds at the same times and all that........ now many people do this combination, as when i spoke with chef who said: well, it is a great combination. i wholeheartedly agree, (and i concur, a delicious combination! whether you are in alsace, paris, london, california. or wherever).

marlena

Bux · July 25, 2004

But when Marlena claimed,
the contemporary american influence, in the best sense, was very evident.
I was rather curious to see specifically what she referred to. As I said before, from what I could see (and pointed out) the major influences are from the Alsace.
.

1. I am specifically referring to the abundance of fresh vegetables, especially in the starters, the utter freshness and connection to the garden. and while this is not necessarily limited to San Francisco Bay Area or New York City, I felt that almost every dish we ate on the menu could have come from a high quality usa restaurant.

Seeing similar food in San Francisco, New York, Pairs and Strabourg would not enable the diner to determine which way the influences went. That Antoine Westermann is Alsatian, or that he has a restaurant in Alsace, is not proof that his food is Alasatian or that if it is, he's not also inflluenced by American restaurants. The fact that he's a Michelin three star chef is all the more reason to suspect he's been subject to international culinary influences. Pim may have seen the Alsatian influences at Mon Vieil Ami, and I have not doubt they are there, but none have been noted in this thread. Pineapple is certainly not a traditional Alsatian fruit and that Westermann uses it in a dessert, doesn't make that recipe Alsatian. Unless someone can make a strong case that Marlena is mistaken about "the abundance of fresh vegetables, especially in the starters, the utter freshness and connection to the garden," I'd have to say that this is distinctly not the mark of an Alsatian restaurant and it's not particulalry representative of traditional Alsatian restaurant cooking. It can only result in an Alsatian restaurant from an outside influence. It's a lot easier to look at the influences by being inclusive rather than exclusive.

John Whiting · July 25, 2004

It's a lot easier to look at the influences by being inclusive rather than exclusive.

This is crucial, and it's central to the history of "fusion" throughout the ages.

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