French Haute Cuisine: Dead or Alive?

[BigboyDan]

Much of French technique was devised to make the unedible, edible. The sum can be greater than its parts in the food business... although, the better the raw ingredients, the less one should do to with it.

[vmilor]

I'd give a whole dinner at Le Crillon for a dinner on perfect Ibérico ham, fresh ripe tomatoes with garlic, olive oil and jerez fino. I mean, if this kind of decadent French cooking were to die, I don't think I'd shed a tear. It can only die from its excesses and errors. Let it die.

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I too am in agreement with your preference structure.

The problem is that top notch ingredients are harder to get then ever, given escalating costs.

My own experience is that, one is still more likely to eat top notch ingredients at the pinnacle to the established hierarchy, but not exclusively. And I had my share of nice surprises more in Italy than anywhere else. To me the litmus test of a serious gourmet is how one approaches Italy as a serious gourmet destination.

Not all HC restaurants give top notch ingedients though. Luxurious, yes. Top notch, NO. It is better to eat good pumpkin than bad caviar (please see the Ltx post responding to my Gastronomical Basque country trip---holding the quality of caviar offered in top gastronomical temples to close scrutiny). On the other hand, I would still expect a HC place to give me a pumpkin soup in season with Alba truffles in season. This will be a case of the sum greater than the parts as both ingredients belong to the same season and they complement each other perfectly.

MobyP, yes, I had "escalopines de bar a l'emincee d'artichaut, beurre leger au caviar" at L'Ambroisie. Apparently on 29 November, 2002 as I found the menu. I put a star which, in my lexicon, means, an orgasmic experience. What else can I say? OK. I can say one more thing. Adria's tuetano con caviar, bone marrow with caviar, was the only other dish with caviar(as a secondary element)that made me dizzy from pleasure. But now Adria is making his caviar from apple...perhaps a realistic response to cost structure and people's expectations as there are not too many ltx's around.

[Ptipois]

Up to this point, I've just been watching this discussion on the sidelines, because I haven't felt I had much to contribute to it. But on this point, I imagine a different translation: "Cuisine is when the ingredients [things] have the taste of what they are." In other words, it seems to me that the meaning of this statement is that true cuisine is not artifice that makes things taste like something other than what they are, but a type of cooking in which the result is that everything tastes like what it is -- fish should taste like fish, chicken like chicken, spinach like spinach, etc.

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The French saying was meant to be somewhat ambiguous. It may be translated your way, or my way. "Les choses" may mean "ingredients", it may refer to more elaborate preparations. That fish should taste like fish, etc., is the fundamental truism of cuisine, though it has to be reminded many times. It is not a negation of artifice, it is an affirmation of honesty. The chefs who make things taste of what they are most are, paradoxically, the most innovative, but not those who believe they're bound to innovate for marketing reasons. In the hands of true cooking artists like Adria or Bras, things taste more of what they are than in the hands of anyone else. They sublimate the natural state of things, focus our attention on simple sensations that are only a hint in other circumstances, they turn a tiny tinge on the tongue into a long orgasm. I believe they do honor the old French saying, also because they bring playful happiness to a meal and not pompous, intimidating, overcomplicated virtuosity.

To answer briefly, "cuisine is when things taste as they should" is one possible translation of the saying. Not the only possible one, but the one I chose to adopt at this very moment.

Do you disagree with my interpretation of the statement? Because if my translation is accurate, it brings in a whole other interesting topic, which is whether haute cuisine started off with an ethos similar to the Italian emphasis on fresh ingredients largely standing on their own and ended up giving way to artifice. I don't have an opinion on that but would be interested in watching that debate from the sidelines, as well. 

The history of French haute cuisine has some very definite roots, and to understand its main features one has to understand the value of spices and seasonings in the French tradition.

The French tradition was born when the French, in the 16th century, discovered that they no longer needed loads of spices, salts and natural preservatives to enjoy food. Medieval food, like Roman food, was heavily flavoured, briny, vinegary and spicy. And yes, this revolution took place under Italian influence, when Italian cooks brought by Catherine de Medicis put an emphasis on fresh produce, fresh vegetables and simple tastes without the help of a heavy dose of spice. The spiciness and vinegariness never really disappeared, though it constantly waned until the second half of the 20th century, but French gastronomie was born from the rejection of spices, only keeping the strict minimum: salt, pepper, and to a lesser extent nutmeg, cloves and allspice. What was aimed at was the natural taste of things, discreetly enhanced by fines herbes: parsley, chives, pimpernel and chervil. All very mild-tasted and unlikely to compete with the taste of the food. Stronger bay, thyme and tarragon were there as a support but in no way should they be allowed to overpower other tastes. Roughly, these are the basic principles of French gastronomy as it evolved from the 17th century to Nouvelle Cuisine. And this relative blandness, allowing the natural flavors of all ingredients to come through, is the backbone of French refined gastronomy.

One important point in this flavor-switching phenomenon is the rising importance of truffles, from the 17th century on: they were known before, but not much esteemed. In national cuisines, all tastes must be present in varying proportions, but there always has to be an element of spiciness and an element of stinkiness. It is true all over the world; many tastes have to be balanced by a stinking element, like musk in a perfume. In India they have asafetida, in Asia there is fish sauce and salted fish or shrimp pastes, in various places there is smoked fish, in Antique cuisine they had silphium (close to asafetida), fish sauce and rue. In Medieval Europe, they used spices and cured food extensively, fish sauce (garum) did not entirely disappear, but truffles were underused. After the Renaissance and the quasi-total disappearance of strong flavoring elements in French cuisine, truffles rose to an incredible height, providing some of the strong flavor and even stinkiness that spices and cured fish (herring, anchovy) had been providing.

This long description is only there to help define what really makes up French gastronomie. It is not a cuisine of bland tastes, really, it is a cuisine that makes clever use of blandness in order to enhance the true taste of ingredients. A cassoulet is a tasty dish, but what is put forward is the natural taste of each ingredient: confit de canard is an enhancement of the taste of canard, slow-roasted bacon is like concentrated bacon taste, beans gloriously taste like beans, and the sauce contains the best of all elements. "La cuisine, c'est quand les choses ont le goût de ce qu'elles sont" is easy to understand once you've understood these principles. However, I wouldn't consider Italy the absolute origin of this tendency, for French gastronomy has evolved in a totally original way and I suspect that its main lines must have been present in the country long before Italian cooks came over to pull the trigger.

[Ptipois]

What else can I say? OK. I can say one more thing. Adria's tuetano con caviar, bone marrow with caviar, was the only other dish with caviar(as a secondary element)that made me dizzy from pleasure.  But now Adria is making his caviar from apple...perhaps a realistic response to cost structure and people's expectations as there are not too many ltx's around.

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One of the most sensuous, miraculous, orgasmic dishes I've ever tasted was the "ventrèche de thon" (tuna belly) cured like ibérico ham, served at El Bulli a couple of years ago. Like many Adria preparations, this really blew your mind, your tastebuds, your erotic system, your nervous system, everything. And yet so simple. To me, that's not the absolute pattern of what chefs should all do nowadays, but it is definitely a good lesson. That's how I consider Adria in the context of modern cuisine: not someone who teaches, not someone who should be imitated, but someone who gives hints, who speaks in parables like Christ.

Edited December 16, 2004 by Ptipois (log)

[Ptipois]

Much of French technique was devised to make the unedible, edible.

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All culinary techniques in the world were devised to do just that.

[Ptipois]

Spain does indeed have exellent food (la comida del pueblo) JUST NOT ENOUGH at the haute cusine level, still too raw in developement to make a determination of her grander value to technique.

I may be totally wrong. Actually I'm hoping to be. But in my experience — and that's what seems to be happening in France — the development of a "haute cuisine" and, moreover, its development through the media as the culinary norm (food articles relying on chefs in popular women's press, food TV chock full of chefs, chefs being asked their version of scrambled eggs or tomato salad all over the place, in one word: chef dictatorship), means the gradual disappearance of any comida del pueblo sooner or later. Here in France, now that the word "cuisine" immediately summons the image of a standing male with crossed arms and a white toque, "la cuisine populaire", whether family cooking or cheap bistrot cooking, is a thing of the past.

So I wouldn't be in such a hurry to see anything "high" becoming the norm in any place that has still an everyday practice of cooking amongst the people. But that probably can't be avoided.

Don't get me wrong, there always has been a haute cuisine in France and it hasn't always been endangering the French people's ordinary notion of cooking. There even used to be a friendly, subtle network of interaction between the two. But now this interaction has died to the detriment of popular cuisine, because for decades the media have been presenting "le chef" as the only culinary reference worthy of respect, and enlightenment is supposed to come from the top, only from the top.

Edited December 16, 2004 by Ptipois (log)

[Pan]

Ptipois, your last few posts have been inspiring. Thank you very much.

[lxt]

Vmilor, thank you for a wonderful and provocative post. There are several factors that have been suggested as potential contributors to the demise of French cuisine: the cynicism and complacency that you described of top chefs interested in cashing in on their reputations; the effects of globalization; the urge to incorporate new techniques; and current economic pressures on restaurateurs.

The cynicism and complacency are generally taken care automatically by market forces, and the arrival of a new generation of educated gastronomic consumers, though in the short term there may be an adequate supply of the wealthy and uncritical.

As to globalization, there is a concern that the phenomenon of universalization, while being an advancement of mankind, at the same time constitutes a sort of subtle destruction of great traditional cultures, the creative core on the basis of which we interpret our lives. There is the feeling that this single world civilization at the same time exerts an attrition at the expense of the cultural resources that have made the great cuisines of the past. It seems as if mankind by approaching en masse a basic consumer culture, was also stopped en masse at a subcultural level. However, even though continuing traditions and rooting in the soil of its past is important to ensure the survival of spiritual and cultural revendication before, so to speak, a world colonization, in order to take part in modern civilization, it is necessary at the same time to take part in scientific, technical and creative rationality, which very often requires pure and simple abandonment or adjustment of a whole or partial cultural past. Passard (as you mentioned) is indeed the best example. His innovative concept, spotlighting the most vulnerable and shy ingredients (legume) that were never given solos previously in the opera of haute cuisine, resulting in tremendous clarity, rendering such complex tastes in such a simple, minimalist form is not only a living proof of “survival,” but has been thriving uncontested for years now. In other words, the contradiction is by no means an inconsistency.

…Or take L’Atelier de Robuchon (from the perspective of concept not necessarily delivery). I think that the original shock that his reentrance to the French culinary scene made was related not so much to the fact that some of the legendary dishes became somewhat obsolete to our tastes, since a buttery potato mousse (his mashed potatoes) was no longer a novelty, whereas the textural elegance of his preparation of this rustic vegetable was revolutionary at the time of its original creation, as the horror the public felt toward the “eccentricity” with which Robuchon decided to reappear, or, in other words, toward that which violated the current code of the “sanctity” of the existing status and pattern. Had he reentered the culinary world with a classical version of a potentially three-star establishment from the beginning, he would’ve been applauded and honored, instead of being treated with suspicion. When I asked the owner of our charming hotel on Saint-Germain, an intelligent woman, sufficiently sophisticated in matters of cuisine, why she thought that Robuchon’s place was filled 90% with Americans, she responded that Parisians didn’t understand his new concept and that she personally preferred to patronize young and unknown chefs in ventures of this nature. Because of her traditional preconceptions, she failed to recognize that what Robuchon had created was a completely new genre, a new movement that could only be compared to a “common-sense school,” or in theatrical terms, “théâtre utile,” whose definition became haute cuisine in a common-sense environment. In other words, Robuchon transformed the whole concept of high-end dining, bringing it one step down to the masses, which puzzled some French critics, who simply didn’t know how to categorize his new establishment, which on top of everything started serving haut dishes in the form of “tapas.” (By the way, the first sip of Arzak’s gazpacho amuse brought out memories of Robuchon’s gazpacho. In fact, the similarity in taste [the level of acidity, concentration of flavors, and texture] was striking.) A movement toward modernizing some areas of French cuisine had already begun with “modern bistro” newcomers, but their concept differs from Robuchon’s drastically in that they attempt to refine and elevate bourgeois cuisine, which sounds more rational to the French public, whereas Robuchon touched the untouchable without any warning. I wonder whether his new, more formal establishments, in which he serves almost identical food to L’Atelier, like La Table (which I haven’t visited yet, nor do I feel a need), are to some extent a simple reaction to the French public’s confusion, but I truly hope that this new genre will succeed. This would be an interesting and positive effect of globalization.

What about technical innovations? Could it be that the popularity of technical innovation in Spain led to the “contamination” of French haute cuisine and the minds of French chefs, so that technical proficiency is applied not so much to advance great ingredients, as to show off, often resulting in technically proficient eccentricities? (This question is somewhat similar to the question you posted for Adria.) Sure, but it is a natural reaction to innovation in any sphere of human activity, not only in gastronomy, and as much as I wish that those with lesser talent would cool their temperament and concentrate on what they do best, I also understand that time will eventually wash off the noise, leaving only those chefs who produce the signal.

Indeed, one of the greatest draftsmen of his days, Alfred Stevens, who sought to emulate the masters of the High Renaissance and attempted to “clean Michelangelo up” by implementing a superior technique, produced nothing but self-conscious imitation of outward form and “language.” How many people have even heard of Alfred Stevens today? William Blake, on the other hand, pursuing the same goal, failed to achieve Stevens’s mastery, but managed to find his own means of expression that was at one with his ideas so that, paradoxically, an awkward drawing by Blake is of a finer quality as a work of art than a brilliant drawing by Stevens. Draftsmanship alone is not sufficient to produce a work of art, and time will inevitably pronounce its verdict. Take classical music, for example. I can’t even start describing all the shocks and dislocations to which the nineteenth-century framework of values had been subjected in the first quarter of the twentieth century, provoking constant raves about mediocre composers who were finally washed out by time, leaving behind such giants as Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Scriabin, Bartok and Prokofiev despite the pessimism of high-end musical critics such as Henderson, who wrote to his friend, Richard Aldrich (for many years, music critic of the New York Times):

“…I feel it my sacred duty in these, my closing years, to stand up for the spiritual quality of music, its soul, its imagination, its poignant emotion. That means I am bound to oppose all this formation of methods first and writing according to them afterward. Even Wagner discovered his new paths before he tried to sell maps of them to the world. Chopin and Mozart just wrote as their spirits compelled them to. I’m fighting materialism and its close associate, sensationalism….”

Henderson committed suicide several days after writing this letter. I feel more optimistic. The problem is that the current world of gastronomy has been attacked by innovations with such a force that it overwhelmed the “market,” which will inevitably lead to a “market” correction over time.

Similarly, I don’t believe that French haute cuisine is going to be permanently crippled by the intrusions of globalization and technical experimentation. However, I wonder whether the current decline in quality isn’t in part due to the hostile economic environment (labor regulations, taxation, etc.), which, if uncorrected, will adversely affect the French restaurant industry long-term.

Edited December 16, 2004 by lxt (log)

[vserna]

One of the most sensuous, miraculous, orgasmic dishes I've ever tasted was the "ventrèche de thon" (tuna belly) cured like ibérico ham, served at El Bulli a couple of years ago.

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In Catalan, this is called 'tonyina', and Ferran didn't invent it - it's been for centuries one of the highlights of that great Spanish trasure trove, particularly from the Alicante and Cádiz coasts, 'salazones' (salt-dried fish). Hugely popular with modern chefs - there's much to exploit in 'tonyina', in 'hueva' (dried roe, often tuna, sometimes more exotic stuff like maruca hake or grey mullet) and in the other classic dried-fish specialties. (See how Santi Santamaria of Can Fabes uses dried tuna guts in stews!)

[vserna]

1975 is when Spain was opened to the world; before, she was as isolated as any country behind the Iron Curtain (Miro, Picasso, or Calder: offered the Spanish as devastated, scared, lonely, angry, confused). -- Spain does indeed have exellent food (la comida del pueblo) JUST NOT ENOUGH at the haute cusine level, still too raw in developement to make a determination of her grander value to technique.

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I dunno, BigboyDan - I sort of have the nagging suspicion that I knew Spain better than you pre-1975, and that I know it better than you post-1975. I don't think you're going to get much mileage out of those "as isolated as any country behind the Iron Curtain" theories. Least of all culinarily.

Do you know who got the National Gastronomy Award in 1974 (yes, 1974) as the top chef in Spain? A guy named Juan Mari Arzak. Not exactly a cabbage-and-pork cook in Brezhnev's Kremlin.

[bleudauvergne]

The first post of this thread sure hits the nail. "La cuisine, c'est quand les choses ont le goût de ce qu'elles sont." "Cuisine is when food tastes as it should." This sentence is the basis of the French art of cooking. You may wonder whatever happened to this basis in a recipe like this one (second recipe, scroll down) from Ducasse's latest book. Who really needs such sophistication? More important: who will make it at home? (because if a recipe in a book is not intended to be made at home, then it's only show-off). Who is chronically bored to the point of needing so much complication in their food? Where do you draw the line between the refinement inherited from an age-old civilization and nouveau riche show-off?

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I have just had the chance to look over the recipe that you mention, Ptpois, and I really have to say I'm very sorry but it is not a complicated recipe, nor is it overly sophisticated. This recipe is no more complicated than the chapon that Mamie would prepare at Christmas. And I believe that this is a recipe just for that. It involves steps, as many dishes of any quality do. And the recipe covers every one of them, as it should. This is a good working recipe.

Step 1 is the preparation of the bird, explained in detail. This is done in every kitchen that prepares a christmas bird, the world over. What's nice is that this time, you're going to make sausages with the leg meat. Clean the bird. remove the legs, because they will be used for another part of the recipe. Wash and slice your truffle (well that's fancy but not unheard of nor overly complicated), and slide it under the skin (as many housewives do with herbs for a regular roasted chicken for Sunday dinner!)

Step 2 is the preparation of a lovely variation on a sausage, using the dark meat of the legs. It's quite simple. There is nothing complicated about slicing a mirepoix, putting together a bouquet garni, and pre-cooking by infusion with the herbs that which will be mixed with the dark meat, which is ground like for sausage. Looks easy and looks like something I would do, and have done many times just that for regular sausage stuffings for vegetables I put together at home. My instinct would be to add fat of some kind instead of the egg, perhaps from the jar of duck fat I keep...

Step 3 the cream sauce incorporating the truffle whipped thick for the sausage - enriched with cognac, port, and the juice from the truffle. All steps involved in doing this are mentioned and do not require much sophistication or skill. In reading the recipe, I see that this is the most time consuming step, but not in any case complicated, and it sounds just delicious. The steps are straightforward and I find them interesting. This step also includes stuffing the sausage and parboiling them to give them body. Simple enough.

Step 4 is roasting the bird with a bouquet garni, herbed butter, and some root vegetables, removing it from the pan, and making a sauce with the deglazed juices. Nothing out of the norm about that.

Step 5 is just finishing the sausages you have just made in a frying pan by frying them up in butter, and suggestions on how to plate the dish, which are pretty straightforward to me.

This is not a complicated recipe for a Christmas bird. The title of the recipe with my interpretation is:

Chapon de Bresse = Festive Bird for a Gathering

la poitrine truffée sous la peau la veille = truffles slid under the skin of the breast the day before

puis cuite longuement au four, = then roasted in the oven

les cuisses en boudin de Noël = the legs made into Christmas sausage.

A recipe I can visualize easily in my mind, and no more complicated than any other holiday centerpiece served at tables all over France.

I am really very sorry about that but you'll have to come up with a better recipe to show that French cooking has become overly complicated. The thing about cooking at home in a proper working ktichen is that many of these steps that seem complicated when written out in a recipe that are simply natural normal steps that are simply completed from day to day. There is nothing out of the ordinary in this recipe save perhaps the cost of the ingredients (the chapon is always pricey, and also the truffle), and stuffing your own boudin (sausage) de Noel. The use of truffles is not every day, but I do have to say that truffles and chapon do make an appearance in our family meals here in France around holiday time. A big deal is made about them.

Note: If I were to execute the recipe myself and then make notes for future reference, I certainly would not use the formal language - the word "confectionner" to describe the process of tying a bouquet garni together, for instance. I think this recipe uses language that may complicate things in the mind of someone without much experience cooking. That would be my only critique. But this is a recipe from Ducasse, a recipe for a holiday dish, presented in a an approrpiately ceremonious way. Perhaps the debate should be : Has the way we have come to discuss and phrase our references to food become overly complicated?

[Ptipois]

True, this is a festive recipe, still I find it much too complicated, too long and too fussy for a "normal" kitchen. Not impossible to do, and as you say, the fact that it's a Christmas recipe is a good excuse, but to me it is still a good example of how out-of-reach and show-offy chef cooking has become. This is just a recipe for professionals that has entered a book for commercial and publicity reasons, with no special effort to adapt it to the skill and capacity of an average reader in an average kitchen.

If someone wants to make it at home, why not? Personally I'm not going to try, but I could. I can understand all the culinary terms and can (these days) devote a whole day and a half to preparing one dish. There is nothing wrong with that.

But if someone less knowledgeable than us reads it, I doubt he or she will feel at ease with the terms "fourchette", "bateau", "salpicon" (how small, by the way?). How many of us use a poche a douille? (I do, but I know very few people do). Why a "poêle noire" in the last part? Any small frying-pan will do, because not everybody has a "poêle noire". Finally, what is a Bamix and who has one at home? The recipe, though detailed, is regrettably unwritten and unedited, though it is perfectly acceptable as a professional recipe. It doesn't make it as a recipe for the "grand public", which its presence on a website is supposed to make it. For instance, the word "préalablement" is repeated three times in the recipe, which is three times too much. As long as this remains restaurant cooking, it is perfectly fine. Delivered to the readers/web surfers in this way, I cannot help but feeling that it is, somewhat, thrown in their face without much consideration.

I am opinionated, I know. I think I have seen and tasted too much of that stuff and have realized that, after all, it doesn't taste better that dishes made with less protocol. I confess: I am getting tired of that kind of French "cuisine gastronomique" and how "high" it has become. It doesn't always unnerve me in a restaurant, but it always does in a book. I am tired of all those stages, protocol, cryptic language, snotty styling and crystal chandeliers. I admire creativity in cooking (which is why I have so much admiration for Adria, who combines invention and simplicity, forcing us to go back to the root of the act of eating and tasting without the help of a crystal chandelier), I also admire just as well non-creativity with a humble, careful execution of the classics. But see what happens when someone launches the subject of defining "haute cuisine": automatically, people propose lists based on setting, service, number of courses, colors of the waiters' suits, wine lists and sommeliers, etc., with cooking and produce not being listed as the only determining elements, which they truly are. This is not an isolated phenomenon, it is a type of answer I regularly get to the same question. There is a problem there. Do you see what I mean? Now maybe Ducasse's innocent chapon and its cute boudin blanc thighs got more blame than they deserved from me, but they did manage to trigger my lowest instincts

[bleudauvergne]

...to me it is still a good example of how out-of-reach and show-offy chef cooking has become. This is just a recipe for professionals that has entered a book for commercial and publicity reasons, with no special effort to adapt it to the skill and capacity of an average reader in an average kitchen.

Oh no, I can't stand it when a recipe has been dumbed down for what they perceive to be the lack of sophistication for the "grand public" - because the product of a dumbed down recipe is never as good as the original recipe. It seems ironic that when we discuss the "grand public". The idea of the "grand surface" comes to my mind. And these chefs are not presenting recipes for grand consumption from the supermarket shelves for their ease and instant gratification. They are presenting recipes that reflect the history and the respect for each and every step in creating a magnificent dish that realistically is called for in its preparation. They don't pretend that there are any shortcuts. And I contest that anyone who is familiar with the basics of home cooking can execute this recipe if they do it with care.

It doesn't always unnerve me in a restaurant, but it always does in a book. I am tired of all those stages, protocol, cryptic language, snotty styling and crystal chandeliers. I admire creativity in cooking (which is why I have so much admiration for Adria, who combines invention and simplicity, forcing us to go back to the root of the act of eating and tasting without the help of a crystal chandelier), I also admire just as well non-creativity with a humble, careful execution of the classics.

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I completely agree with you that the language is overly flowery for the recipe, and that this is a fault in the style of the writing. Chefs are not professional food writers and this one evidently cannot craft the text to adapt to the "grand public". I think that if Ducasse had found someone who could write about the processes in a more accessible way, the book and even this recipe as a product would be much less disturbing to you. But don't you think that serious home cooks want to be treated with the respect of getting the original recipe with all of the ingredients and steps, instead of a "show" recipe that makes it look simple as any instant supermarket product, and will not render the final result which could be possible if they had taken the care to express it correctly? When given a choice, is it better to make it look easier to the grand public, or to present the authentic recipe?

French Haute Cuisine : Dead or Alive?

The question that Ptpois within raises in this discussion stands out to me: Should we be so brazen as to claim it's possible to execute these recipes at home, and if not, why are these chefs coming out with cookbooks? What is their intention? What is the point? Does this have anything to do with what one is served in a restaurant?

I perceive a direct line to grandmother's kitchen in the writing and the philosophies behind so many great chefs in France. They are reminiscing about their childhood experiences and influences, and in modest ways allude to these images. The popular press instantly picks up on this and we see cooking shows, showy coffee table books and little tomes from the chefs recalling their earliest childhood memories as they experienced the kitchen from the level of the skirts of their grandmothers. Ptpois is pointing out that this popular culture marriage between home cooking and the great chefs so prevalent now is not resulting in any improvement anywhere. Especially since right now in France the chefs are reasserting themselves - the complex way Ducasse presents his Christmas Chapon a case in point. Does this arise in light of challenges coming from other countries?

[fresh_a]

Frogs, snails, horse, etc at the time of the Commune?

[Ptipois]

Oh no, I can't stand it when a recipe has been dumbed down for what they perceive to be the lack of sophistication for the "grand public" - because the product of a dumbed down recipe is never as good as the original recipe.

In years of food writing and recipe editing, I have yet to see a grand chef's recipe that gets "dumbed down" in a book. This simply, in my experience, doesn't exist. A professional kitchen is not an individual or family kitchen. Much less so is the kitchen of a grand restaurant like the Lutetia's or Ducasse's. The alternative is simple: there are books for professionals and books for non-professionals, however skilled. If one wants to publish a book of luxurious chef's recipes for non-professionals, then a great deal of adaptation is required so that it is just possible to make the recipes. If it is not provided, the book is useless. It may be considered some sort of monument, a museum, which to me is the category that Ducasse's books fall into (his first ambition was to become the Escoffier of our times), but then it has no use as a cookbook. To every purpose its means. There is a choice to be made. It is not a judgement in value or quality, it is a distinction in purpose. The problem with Ducasse books is that, originally, they weren't meant to be sold to the general public, they were meant to be sold to professionals. At some point it was decided, for financial reasons, that they would enter the public market as well. But no special effort was made to make the contents accessible (which doesn't mean "dumbed down" at all). I believe the books are much dumber as they are, neither here nor there, than if there had been a true effort to edit them according to their purpose.

As for what chefs perceive to be "the lack of sophistication of the grand public", I believe that they don't perceive it at all. Indeed, most of the time, they have little or no perception of the "public". Many chefs I've met have a very unclear idea of what it is to cook alone in one's small kitchen, or to cook for one's family. Most of the need for recipe editing comes from this.

Example: I mentioned the use of "préalablement", which should be avoided in a recipe. "Préalablement" only means one thing: that you are taking hold of a preparation that one of your assistant cooks has made and stored somewhere for you or another cook. Thus, the chronological order of a recipe is different for professional cooks and for cookbook readers. When "préalablement" appears, it describes something that should have been done before, and therefore its preparation should be placed previously in the recipe. This sounds simple, but you'd be surprised at how few professional cooks are aware of this.

They are presenting recipes that reflect the history and the respect for each and every step in creating a magnificent dish that realistically is called for in its preparation.  They don't pretend that there are any shortcuts.  And I contest that anyone who is familiar with the basics of home cooking can execute this recipe if they do it with care.

You are perfectly right. But I never wrote that there should be oversimplification and shortcuts. Only that the recipe should contain exactly the sort of precision that nonprofessionals can understand. And this recipe does have elements that need extra explanation.

I completely agree with you that the language is overly flowery for the recipe, and that this is a fault in the style of the writing.  Chefs are not professional food writers and this one evidently cannot craft the text to adapt to the "grand public".

This, by all means, wasn't written by a chef. Very probably, it was based on some computer recipe file typed for the cooking school, dug out, printed or given out on a floppy, and then re-written and edited by someone hired by the publisher for this particular job. It may have been lightly edited or heavily edited, I don't know. Chances are that the editor had to communicate many times with some of the chefs and cooks to gather missing information, unmatching elements, etc., and maybe the editor got them — maybe didn't. At any rate the person who edited this has very little experience of recipe editing. The overflowery language doesn't disturb me as long as the recipe is understandable, clear and coherent. As it is, it is OK (I've seen much worse) but it sure could be improved.

I think that if Ducasse had found someone who could write about the processes in a more accessible way, the book and even this recipe as a product would be much less disturbing to you.  But don't you think that serious home cooks want to be treated with the respect of getting the original recipe with all of the ingredients and steps, instead of a "show" recipe that makes it look simple as any instant supermarket product, and will not render the final result which could be possible if they had taken the care to express it correctly?  When given a choice, is it better to make it look easier to the grand public, or to present the authentic recipe?

Serious home cooks would be delighted to get the original recipe, as long as all the necessary explanations meant for them are there. If these are not there, I believe they could feel baffled by what amounts to a lack of respect... I think it is very important to deliver the original recipe in its complexity. And that it is just as important to help the reader, let's say a serious home cook, benefit from the whole experience by grasping this complexity with the right kind of recipe writing. Please understand that I am not asking for a roughing up. Quite the contrary: I am asking for more complexity, but the right one. My message to big chefs should be: you want to make and publish books on your own? Fine, do it. But don't stop halfway. Do the whole thing. The problem with self-published chefs is that they never have anybody in their surroundings to remind them that publishing for unprofessional people is a special job and that they weren't necessarily born knowing its rules.

The question that Ptpois within raises in this discussion stands out to me:  Should we be so brazen as to claim it's possible to execute these recipes at home, and if not, why are these chefs coming out with cookbooks?  What is their intention?  What is the point?  Does this have anything to do with what one is served in a restaurant?

I think you're seeing my point there. Now I do believe it's possible to execute these recipes at home (I'm not saying it's easy, or quick, or even reasonable) provided that the printed recipe allows the reader to do it. But one should remember that this is primarily restaurant cuisine meant to be executed by a brigade of several cooks with the special organization that this involves and that it was in no way adapted to an individual kitchen. What is the intention? What is the point? Why are these chefs coming out with "cookbooks" (that aren't really cookbooks)? Answer: I don't know. I've wondered, but I have never found the answer. Actually, I have a few ideas but I find they very unsatisfactory. After all, the reason may be that they just like to make books.

Ptpois is pointing out that this popular culture marriage between home cooking and the great chefs so prevalent now is not resulting in any improvement anywhere.  Especially since right now in France the chefs are reasserting themselves - the complex way Ducasse presents his Christmas Chapon a case in point.  Does this arise in light of challenges coming from other countries?

Sometimes in the recent past I have wondered whether there was a secret wish by some top professional chefs to eradicate simple home cooking from every home in France. The less practical knowledge in the homes, the more power and influence for the chefs. But I know this is only my own, desperate brand of paranoia created by too many attempts to convice some "grands toqués" that there actually was a life and real people outside of their kitchens. I am ready to confess that my perceptions are quite exaggerated. However, I cannot deny that the psychology of some grands chefs includes a hint of contempt towards the aspects of cooking that are related to the home, the family, women, even if they love to recall their own family/grandmother mythology.

[lxt]

Not exactly a cabbage-and-pork cook in Brezhnev's Kremlin.

Aside from your main point…

Actually, among all the rulers of post-revolutionary Russia, Brezhnev was the only one who was warmly enthusiastic about food, and was quite known for his gluttony. As the Kremlin chef Mikhail Zhukov admits, “[the kitchen staff] worked like crazy under Brezhnev: we cooked for congresses, for meetings, we cooked for him at his private residence, we literally worked non stop.” For all I know, his cuisine may have blended parody of serious gastronomy with outright “buffa” frivolity, but I can assure you that while Brezhnev’s citizens were proudly strolling the streets of Moscow, carrying garlands of toilet paper rolls, gently gathered on ropes around their necks like leis, with a sense of glory and victory, after spending hours in line to get this precious essential only to come home to face a partially defeathered chicken of unknown provenance, of a color, suggesting that it was either born dead or “aged” for months, Brezhnev was enjoying whole sturgeons, partridges, suckling pigs, crabs, cured fish, and caviar of excellent quality. In fact, the Kremlin kitchen in those days used to be similar to Adria’s laboratory, with each new dish to be created by a team of technical specialists, doctors and a crew of chefs.

Edited December 18, 2004 by lxt (log)

[Bux]

True, this is a festive recipe, still I find it much too complicated, too long and too fussy for a "normal" kitchen.

←

I can attest to the fact that Lucy's kitchen is not a normal kitchen. By American standards it is small and might even be considered small by NUC apartment standards. Neither is Lucy a normal cook, but she is also not an abnormal cook by any stretch of the term. I believe much of this side discussion on Ducasse's recipe for a festive Christmas bird and on cookbooks in general centers on the individual perspectives of those involved. A good part of those differences may well be culturally induced. Lucy is an American. My perception is that there's a far wider range in the interests, skills and abilities of American home cooks than of their counterparts in France. I am well aware of the American range, unfortunately my comments on the range in France are based more on hearsay, so I am prepared to be corrected.

I'd like to comment on a story I read in spite of the fact that it's credence will be limited as I don't recall when or where I read it, or even the chef's name. It was about the reaction of a chef to a complaint about the American translation of one of his books. He was rather put off about having to explain why a recipe didn't work. What he said was that he was surprised anyone would actually work from his cookbook. In France a housewife wouldn't think of cooking from the cookbook of a famous chef. The implication was that it was a souvenir to remind you of the food you might have loved in the restaurant at best. That's not the case here in the US where there's an army of dedicated amateurs who will reproduce the most sophisticated recipes at home in their spare time. They will shop all week, or order rare ingredients by mail and cook for days. I recall our own youth, Mrs. B and I, of spending three or four days preparing for a dinner party. The first time we made an aspic, it had to be made from calves bones, not powder or sheets. From what I've seen here and in her house, Lucy has a much deeper understanding of food at her age, than we do now. She deserves to have cookbooks written and published for her level of involvement. I am all too aware that the industry itself is dumbed down when if comes to publishing cookbooks.

While I am aware that we were not the norm in terms of talent or interest in cooking, I have been humbled by what I've seen and read of the output by non-professionals here on the eG forums. Still, I'm reminded of when our daughter brought home her French chef boyfriend for dinner the first time. Later we learned that he told her she won't eat like this at his home in France and that the term in France for the meal we cooked was "restaurant food."

I'm not sure how this all relates to the larger topic about the life or death of French Haute Cuisine. Perhaps more relevant is that it's been a long time since the French were the majority diners in many of the two and three star restaurants in France. In Spain, once you leave the Pais Vasco and Catalunya, the majority of cars in front of the top restaurants have Spanish, and most likely local license plates. The food is not a gastrotourist commodity. In France, there was a post war generation of chefs whose dependence on their grandmother's cooking was obvious and credited at every opportunity. There's a disconnect today between the people and haute cuisine in France. I'm not sure if it's due to more sophisticated chefs, or a less interested citizenry. I'm always amazed by the French cooks have would have me believe we've exported a lower standard by introducing MacDonald's as if their countrymen weren't voting for it with their francs and euros.

[vserna]

In fact, the Kremlin kitchen in those days used to be similar to Adria’s laboratory, with each new dish to be created by a team of technical specialists, doctors and a crew of chefs.

←

OK, I'll admit it - Brezhnev was a sybarite himself, while the USSR's people ate cabbage. The big difference of course was that Arzak didn't cook for Franco - he cooked for the general public in a restaurant open to any and all who could afford it. BTW, I am skeptical about the resemblance between those kitchens where they prepared Brezhnev's feasts in porno-gastronomy and Adrià's 'taller'. I think those doctors and technicians were used basically as food tasters were in the Medici court - to make sure that the Secretary General wasn't poisoned...

[Ptipois]

Bux, I absolutely agree with you in every detail. And your post confirms what my experience has taught me. I lived in the US for a couple of years and I am well aware of the special level of culinary consciousness that one can find there. Now this makes my French countrymen gag and choke when I say so, but indeed I got the determination to devote my life to cooking more from my living in the US than from being French. I often notice that French people around me sometimes express utter amazement and excessive admiration about my culinary skills, which they wouldn't express if cooking at home were more widespread in France nowadays (I consider my technical cooking skills just a little above average; my food writing and editing skills are a different subject), while they raise no special admiration from American people, only sympathy. Culinary curiosity, which is the basis of culinary talent and culture, seems lower in France than it is in other countries — the US, Britain, Japan, etc. I definitely fear that many urban French people (the country has been mostly spared so far) have regressed as a gourmet people; I mean as individually responsible for the quality of their food. When culinary knowledge in France is supposed to be held only by chefs, the mere mortals stand stiff, intimidated, unable to cook because they have been persuaded that cooking is highly technical, precise and difficult. I hear that all the time. People who claim they can't cook an egg have become alarmingly numerous. There may be other reasons: shifts in society and the role of women, work hours, the devaluation of the general image of the housewife, the size of kitchens, but there you have it, the simple art of cooking is gradually abandoned in France, left to those-in-the-know.

I'd like to comment on a story I read in spite of the fact that it's credence will be limited as I don't recall when or where I read it, or even the chef's name. It was about the reaction of a chef to a complaint about the American translation of one of his books. He was rather put off about having to explain why a recipe didn't work. What he said was that he was surprised anyone would actually work from his cookbook. In France a housewife wouldn't think of cooking from the cookbook of a famous chef.

I confirm. Confronted to a particularly abstract or complex, or even wrong recipe, I have often heard the comment: "Who cares? Nobody will try this anyway." It is only partly true, though. Some chefs (i.e. Georges Blanc, Bocuse) take pride in delivering recipes that are genuine, detailed, clear and "executable", while remaining rich and sometimes complex. I find this admirable because it's quite rare. But these men have learned their skill from "Mères", women, and perhaps for this reason their work always keeps its feet on the ground and never forgets the human dimension (I am not uttering sexist considerations here, only taking into account the indiscutably macho nature of French professional cuisine). By comparison, I see these examples as another reminder that French gastronomie has, in recent years, gone astray in trying to shut itself hermetically into its hyper-professional, hypersophisticated, hyperelitist bubble. Chefs have become living gods, but people cook less and less.

I'm not sure how this all relates to the larger topic about the life or death of French Haute Cuisine. Perhaps more relevant is that it's been a long time since the French were the majority diners in many of the two and three star restaurants in France. In Spain, once you leave the Pais Vasco and Catalunya, the majority of cars in front of the top restaurants have Spanish, and most likely local license plates. The food is not a gastrotourist commodity. In France, there was a post war generation of chefs whose dependence on their grandmother's cooking was obvious and credited at every opportunity. There's a disconnect today between the people and haute cuisine in France. I'm not sure if it's due to more sophisticated chefs, or a less interested citizenry.

I do believe it's due not precisely to chefs, but to an excess of sophistication for sure. The disconnect is very deep and severe. Haute Cuisine seems to try always harder to differentiate itself from home or bourgeois cooking. It strikes me, when I see dishes by modern Spanish or US chefs, how they get their inspiration from various sources without making a big fuss of it. I wonder at Adria's ability to interpret classics and regional preparations in a playful, admiring way. I have a book by him, in Spanish, where he teaches how to make great little dishes in a few minutes from very banal produce bought in any supermarket. I have been writing a lot here. But I can sum up everything I've written so far with this simple sentence: French Haute Cuisine takes itself much too seriously (and many chefs take themselves far too seriously too).

I'm always amazed by the French cooks have would have me believe we've exported a lower standard by introducing MacDonald's as if their countrymen weren't voting for it with their francs and euros.

Agreed. The abandonment of home cooking and gradual disappearance of individual culinary responsibility in France is a much worse problem than the introduction of MacDonald's.

[lxt]

A recent discussion of L'Ambroisie with a friend encouraged me to put together a couple of thoughts on the restaurant recounting my past experience there in late May.

----------------------------------

Perhaps it is just an old habit of mine to attempt to characterize all establishments through a prism of current and historical stylistic influences, interweaving threads of commonality among the arts, music, and food, or perhaps style is what defines any creation, and it, or rather its presence is not only a hallmark, an imprint of imagination, but a clear representation of a personal expression and philosophy, but I’m not generally settled until I identify a chef’s style. For instance, Passard is the most vivid representative of Minimalism in food, while his former student Barbot (L'Astrance) is primitivist. While Berasategui’s cuisine gives the impression of a French contemporary influence with his overuse of quiet, cautious flavors, Gagnaire’s contemporary style is more vocal and is closer to Glen Brown’s approach (not Kandinsky’s, as Beaugé suggested in Francois Simon’s “Pierre Gagnaire: Reflections on Culinary Artistry” nor is it minimalist as stated in the same book) in how he treats “savage” recipes and ingredients (the beef aspic dish), eliminating the element of “rough brushstrokes” while introducing a gracious refinement of “lines,” and in how both of them use the historical context (e.g. Gagnaire’s classic turbot in buttery cream turned modernistic with a spike of African melegueta pepper). Piege seemed to be struggling to stray away from the Baroque of Ducasse’s style on my visit to Les Ambassadeurs, and Senderens (Lucas Carton), the father of minimalism, aside from an occasional tiredness, maintains some elements of restrained Art Nouveau, just like the décor of the restaurant itself.

L’Ambroisie, however, seemed to be the hardest one to “file” not due to its lack of style – to the contrary, there was something very personal and expressive in Pacaud’s cooking – but because it didn’t seem to fall under any of the existing categories of predefined stylistic formulations. His cuisine doesn’t posses that indefinable “animalism” that cannot be resolved intellectually because it is addressed not to our intelligence but to our senses only, nor does it rely on a theme and thirty variations, with set forms and complicated constructions built on key relations and symbolism, nourishing our curiosity more than our senses. Neither conservative (with classical grandeur and heaviness of individual dishes) nor avant-garde (gathering together smaller, interlocking units [dishes] of shorter breath while corresponding more closely to the overall tasting flow), with a good instinct to weave all components of an individual dish into an enjoyable unity, his style seemed to represent a work of “realism” composed by a romantic whose imagination and invention were accompanied by the supervision of an alert critical mind.

There are two features characterizing Pacaud’s cuisine:

1) Pacaud is the chef for whom the inner intricacies of ingredients determine the form, gait, and tone of his composition to such a degree that dishes with the identical main ingredient form separate, very unique sub-styles. For instance, in two different versions of the fillet de bar dish, the fish would be cooked and presented in a similar manner (hence his “sea bass style”), while still lending a different output of flavors, reflecting the accompaniments with which the fish was enhanced. Therefore, it becomes apparent why Pacaud can apprehend with infinite responsiveness individual dishes, but he cannot summon the force of multi-course flow: Such an ultra-refined approach of hanging on details of individual ingredients is typical of miniaturists.

2) The second characteristic is that Pacaud’s cuisine, conveying relaxed mood, exemplified by modest presentation (which still carries a residue of the conventional, but with polished simplicity and pictorial effort) is so complete, that the real marvel is that while the most finicky connoisseur has a chance to rejoice in the quality of the ingredients, the untutored still have a chance to absorb freely the highly artistic and subtle elements without being aware of their nature. Pacaud provides consistency, which can never disappoint to the extent some of Gagnaire’s dishes can.

However, not always does the excellence of ingredients guarantee the same esthetic virtue to the dish, and considering that the course of the meal generally includes no more than three or four dishes, it is possible that at L’Ambroisie, an overall meal, though steady, may turn modest and somewhat lacking a thrilling element. Mousseline de céleri aux écrevisses, jus de presse à l’huile de noix– six crayfish out of their shells, with firm, yet tender meat, placed side by side, as if building a tunnel over the off-white celery purée, whose buttery taste consumed any celeriac freshness, and surrounded by a thin yet very strong sauce, based on walnut oil and crayfish stock – was a less successful dish, ordered by my husband. The delicately pronounced sweetness of the crayfish was overpowered by the very distinct, almost throat-scratching walnut oil, whose undiluted toasty taste was almost savagery, so that even the neutral-tasting celery purée failed to offset the oil’s strong characteristics, becoming somewhat superfluous. Perhaps diluting the walnut oil with a lighter oil (a common practice) or offsetting it with sherry vinegar (though the vinegar acidity might’ve compromised the purity of the crayfish taste) would’ve helped, but this dish didn’t possess the necessary articulation, using rather incomplete and strong language that threatened to drown the main theme in undulating words. This was the only disappointing dish, which followed the exceptional amuse.

Morels were blooming on the menus of nearly every respectable and less so restaurant last May, having pleased us with a variety of concentrated and light flavors from such dishes as a decent chicken with peas and morels at Mon Vieil Ami, an excellent l’oeuf cocotte a la crème légere de morille at Atelier de Joel Robuchon and at Les Ambassadeurs, a very good morel and asparagus appetizer of morel consommé that continued gaining concentration from a cheese-cloth bag filled with dry morels, infusing the liquid with earthy intensity, as the mushrooms gradually re-hydrated.

L’Ambroisie was our last meal in Paris, and, after a two-week gastronomic marathon, we desired nothing more elaborate than just to have a decent meal while maintaining quantity control, so that when our Mâitre d' hinted that Monsieur Pacaud would be able to cook for us, but that the dinner would consist of four or five dishes, we had to respectfully decline, restricting our choices to a conventional three-course meal. In other words, a muse of adventure has already left us…until a fantastic amuse of morel consommé with foie gras awakened our senses again.

What made this dish special is the skill with which luxury ingredients were applied. Pacaud didn’t simply combine the immaculate morels and foie gras, but manipulated these ingredients in front of the diner, turning them into marionettes at the end of a string, which he pulled with marvelous virtuosity, adding a touch of designated light and perhaps even satirical chansons, as the dish kept altering its appearance and taste, as if mixing different paints on a palette to create a completely unique color. The dish first made its appearance as a dark-brown consommé with a piece of steamed foie gras in the center, allowing us to acquaint our palates with the most intense morel flavor. After a second spoonful, however, the elaborate “coloratura” started unwrapping as the steamed foie gras began melting in the consommé, forming white foam and thickening the liquid with a buttery richness while taming and smoothing the sharp and concentrated angles of morel taste. A final touch of counterpoint sweetness, in the form of fresh (perhaps slightly blanched) peas, whose clean, delicate flavors were stressed by the foie gras richness, enveloped the somewhat forceful mood of the dish in mysterious and muted tones, capturing the unparalleled sensuality of this pale and amusingly decadent world of luxury – a truly spectacular dish.

There is one more dish that I’d like to mention.

It was almost touching to see a young French couple, modestly dressed, sitting at the right-hand corner of the room, pet each others’ hands and whisper gently, as if their souls have immersed in the happy melodic world of their French song, with its joyous abandon, and their desires, memories and passions fainted into a cheerful intoxication. Their language could’ve been gauche and blustery, for all I knew, but French, with its suave curves, can be deceiving to the untrained ear, and I simply observed the scene until the motion at the next table was interrupted when sea bass with butter sauce and caviar arrived at their table. The fish, its black skin attached, was glowing and the caviar seemed of good quality from the distance, so that the growing temptation to try this dish forced me to inquire of our Mâitre d’ whether Escalopines de bar à l'émincé d'artichaut, beurre léger au caviar,” would add harmony to my order. His concern was that the buttery sauce on sea bass would echo the sauce in the frog legs appetizer, Royale d’oignons doux, cominee de cuisses de grenouilles (frog legs with sweet onions, butter and watercress sauce) I had already ordered,

…and suggested that should my heart still desire sea bass, he’d arrange for a different, off-menu version, which would bring the necessary diversity and balance to my meal. Three small filets of line-caught sea bass in the center of the plate – hiding sweet and buttery carrot purée under their bodies, surrounded by a thinly carved crisp, fresh and almost sweet fennel and fish-fume based sauce, sparked with saffron – was a truly fantastic dish.

It is hard in general not to fall in love with this aristocratic and refined fish, whose tender meat seems to be pampered by nature as if only the best of two worlds – hermaphroditic, the fish produces eggs, claiming its female origin, until later in life its ovaries dry up and it switches hormones to produce sperm – can deliver this extraordinary softness and piquant, delicate taste, but when it is a line-caught specimen, delivered the same day and handled with extreme care, sea bass becomes a real treat. The extraordinary preparation of the sea bass at L’Ambroisie secured its fluffy texture – characteristic of extremely fresh fish, the flesh of which generally becomes slightly firmer the day after the catch, which is not always a negative, since its taste still remains superb, providing the fish was stored properly (another advantageous quality of sea bass compared to other no-less-glorious species like turbot, for instance, whose taste and texture deteriorate rapidly with time) -- and the skin tightly embraced the flesh so that every cell of its pattern was glittering in the artificial light almost decoratively, while the moist, tender and cushiony meat added a sensual legato to the tableau.

There is probably no other restaurant of this magnitude that provokes so many disparate opinions on service. From the perspective of some diners, the service at L’Ambroisie is not unacquainted with perplexities; others extend their praise for the restaurant’s professionalism.

One could say that L’Ambroisie epitomizes everything that is right or wrong with the French, depending on his individual perspective. Classicism and tradition assume a certain level of formality, which, while possibly viewed by some as buffoonish, cold, and impersonal, would be revered by others as courteous, professional and proper. To some extent, L’Ambroisie doesn’t adjust its culture to the needs of its customers as much as it attempts to adjust customers to the formal mores of the restaurant, which can create a conflict of different opinions. The Mâitre d’ would not be shy to insist on your changing your order to fit his own perception of your perfect meal, which could be construed by some as intrusiveness, while others would view it as professionalism and a welcomed enthusiasm. While the Mâitre d’s insistence on your practicing French at the restaurant could be viewed as nationalistic, others may perceive it as his tolerance and patience and appreciate the opportunity to rehearse their language skills. (Even having acknowledged my inability to communicate in French, our Mâitre d’ continued to insist that I try, as if testing the truthfulness of my admission. I laughed and suggested that I would rather take pleasure in his practicing his Russian with me, after which he conceded that unless I spoke Japanese, our only common means of communication had to be…oh well, English.)

L’Ambroisie allows one to experience time in its immobile state, having preserved that which has almost gone – a level of distant respect expressed in courteous but directive care with an element of theatricality obtained through rigorous training. For those whose temperament prevents them from being open-minded in accepting someone else’s authority over them, or those resenting taking their part in a “play” of predefined roles as set by the still life of the restaurant, going to L’Ambroisie may not provide an ideal experience. If one manages to become an integral part of the L’Ambroisie culture, however, then the reward may be significant.

[vmilor]

lxt:

what a pleasure to read your reports. In my coming 4 days trip to Paris I have one opening and was looking at different websites to find a recent report on Arpege(I am undecided whether to give it another chance--a restaurant I patronized when they had 2 stars but had been disappointed later). I found yours and, while sipping my cappucino which was not bad for Atlanta, I relished your extraordinary prose. I thought one intense pleasure is good enough on a daily basis before embarking on routine work--but now I am savoring a prolonged state of contentement after reading your last report and I have decided to forsake "work" for the rest of the day. I just can't change gears swiftly.

The thought of describing Pacaud's style often crosses my mind. With or without metaphors I can never achieve a level of precision here that I can share with fellow diners. Pacaud himself does not think that he has a style. He is not an introspective, self-conscious person. He does not have a "theory" and he comes across as perhaps the most humble of the great chefs. Your descriptions are very illuminating in that you delineate the basic parameters within which he operates and you are very precise about his dissimilarities with other prevailing styles or philosophies of cooking. In a way I don't want Pacaud to become more conscious about what he does as self-awareness here may be detrimental to whatever it is that innately and spontaneously and instinctively and naturally comes to him--or springing from him. But no, he is not animalistic or primitive either. He is restrained yet seething inside. Somehow his cooking reminds me the idol of my youth or the epitome of what I consider beauty incarnate(ice cold but also seething inside): Catherine Deneuve. Less subjectively, I think the flag of "haute cuisine francaise" has been passed on to Pacaud from its last holder:Robuchon(where I have been 30 times or so in the mid to late 80s and am refusing to visit L'Atelier not to spoil memories). This does not necessarily mean that he is the best chef in France--no such thing can be claimed for any mortal--nor I am saying that everybody will be equally pleased and rave about it as much as I and some others do. But what I am saying is that if we use "ideal type" concept in Weberian sense, a rough and imprecise approximation which nonetheless captures the spirit of the object, than Pacaud approximates the essence of contemporary haute cuisine which is unmistakeably French. Somehow I can never conceive of l'Ambroisie anywhere in the world but in France and in Paris, of all places. In a way what is quintessentially French is anathema to many Americans--and to me this is understandable given very different historical trajectories.

On a more concrete point: In my last meal there in December we also started with ecrevisses:"soupe cremeux d'ecrevisses au celeri, chutney de poivron et ananas".

This was the first time I had a course there with almost an Asian touch and a kind of sweet and sour theme. It was original and zesty and the sweetness of plump ecrevisses shined through. I suppose Pacaud did not find the same quality espelette pepper and ripe pineapple so he changed it this month.

I usually prefer fruit based desserts but should concede that Pacaud's "tarte fine sablee au chocolat"is ethereal. Have you had it to finish your meal? Have you had cheese? The cheese course there provides fewer choices than, say at Taillevent or Grand Vefour, but they only serve ripe cheeses in perfect state. Also I am curious about the wine(s) you have ordered--Monsieur Lemoullac is a very accomplished sommelier--besides being the maitre d'.

Hope you will write some more reports of your last trip lxt. Personally I will be curious about Passard and I have not yet tried ADPA under the new chef who came from Spoon. I am skeptical about the brasserie chef taking over from Piege but I may be wrong. Have you been there in this trip?

[lxt]

Vmilor, I can hardly express the thrill of my pampered ego, which hasn’t been showered with such gallantry for a while, though I’m relieved to know that the frequiency of my posts will not threaten your employment. On a more serious note, I’m sincerely flattered and happy that my notes are helpful, and my admission of enjoying reading your posts, which stimulate my thoughts beyond the life of your threads, is not the mere return of a compliment, but rather a truthful confession.

I find that the most interesting posts are not so much the ones that justify their existence by the conviction that they will contribute to the knowledge pool, as those that are written for their own sake, because ideas not collected into the written word are like the unburied; they can neither live nor die. In my case, I only hope that these sometimes disparate thoughts are shaped into a coherent whole.

Regarding L’Arpège, I am at the disadvantage of not being able to compare it in the past to its current embodiment, but my conclusions rely on objective analysis along with my personal preferences and a little curve based on the performance of other similar establishments. Let me give you heads up on what I mean.

1. The quality and refinement of ingredients are the foremost prerequisite and the basis of my assessment. No extravagant style or technique can substitute for this principal requirement, though, incidentally, a weak ingredient’s skillful integration into the composition may lift the overall assessment, if such an ingredient’s role is auxiliary and/or its use is intentional, as in the caviar in Passard’s Jerusalem artichoke velouté, or the out-of-season tomato in Gagnaire’s tomato and watercress amuse, whose modernized concept could become a textbook for defenders of unseasonable products and molecular gastronomy.

2. The next step is the application: a livening of an ingredient’s inherent intricacy in the dish. It is not even essential that the ingredient be preserved in its original physical state, which reflects a chef’s style rather than is indicative of a superior application, but it is imperative that an ingredient, in any incarnation, not be tarnished. The disrespect with which Gagnaire treated the most delicate, gentle, and regal ingredient – le gras du poisson, in his turbot (a magnificent specimen of no less than 9 kg, judging by the size of its fat deposits and the robust flavor of he tfillet) composition – drowning it in unpleasantly slimy and heavily spiced (with Madras curry) polenta, this violently and artificially contrived conflict robbed the dish of its potential significance.

3. Next comes measuring the achievement of the specific purpose against what the purpose was. In a well-designed dish, the way you come naturally to understanding the chef’s intention without threading a maze, the way you find the center of the dish without signs, should always be crystal clear. If it is not, the dish lacks, no matter how impressive it may be in other ways. The dish that is truly successful works with a certain inevitability, that is to say, that it doesn’t prompt you easily to conjecture as to how it might have worked better.

4. As much as technical proficiency and confidence in virtuosity are imperative in the final judgment, they should not merely be means to satisfy a chef’s ambitions and should be in total subordination to the taste. That is to say that even if technique rests on brilliant engineering, on the perfect knowing application of theory and practice, the technical implementation must be recognizable only in conjunction with the final presentation and only as a means to achieve superb textural and flavor balance.

5. The chef’s ability to build a successful flow of the meal is another important criterion. The chef’s talent to distinguish when in the course of the meal the application of light or heavy dishes would be better suited, when the dish would illuminate, cast shadows, create mood, stimulate overall progression, his ability to decide when a meal should come to fortissimo and when pianissimo is more appropriate, when he should embellish the dish with ornament and when leave it bare, when textures shall be rough, when smooth or when neutral and in what order is a great skill. Gagnaire’s inconsistency on my visit, for instance, bordered on what seemed to be a deliberate indifference, which sadly almost annulled his individual achievements in our meal, being a major turning point of our experience. This inconsistency didn’t comprise the whole, arching phrase, but represented rather dispersed motifs, whereas Passard’s tasting was exceedingly well made; the continuity was smooth, even though there were individual “numbers” imbedded in it.

6. There is one more consideration, which may be a part of the overall assessment: It is the chef’s “mobility,” his fertility and capacity to keep his menu fluid, and not only on a seasonal basis. However, as long as the cuisine maintains its spirit, a drive toward perfection without signs of tiredness, and is still fresh on the palate, this criterion plays a less significant role in my evaluation.

My evaluation of L’Arpège was not based on comparing L’Arpège today to L’Arpège yesterday, but rather on whether Passard was capable of revealing the train of thoughts and sentiments of his style through the prism of impeccable performance and whether his cuisine had an assurance of its living strength when compared to its competitors. Passard is straightforward in what he considers his own strengths and where his passion lies, which is a compass in building a meal at his restaurant. It is hard for me to say whether Passard has slowed down in his creative process, perhaps to avoid risk and to be able to maintain the same level of high prices, as well as to please his current clientele, but if this is the case, as some long-timers speculate, such an attitude, at the same time, provides a certain level of solidity and assurance of perfection. Interestingly, the world of performing arts is much more rigorous and less pardoning toward musicians, for instance, who can’t carry their work in one piece on stage than the arena of gastronomy is toward chefs whose meals are volatile. In my view, steady performance, such as Passard’s, is a skill that is not readily obtainable. I can give you countless examples of very talented pianists who were forced to retire or take a break from their performing careers because their talent was betrayed by their imperfect stage skills. The chef’s talent should be only a prerequisite to his good performance, which is to say that if the chef doesn’t deliver at the end, it doesn’t matter how talented or creative he is.

Other than the overpriced wine list, what did you find disappointing at L’Arpège and how would you compare its current performance to its past?

7. Finally comes the experience of composition, design as perceived through my own interpretation, which is a subjective factor. The expressiveness of a dish is bound to be somewhat personal since it builds on the accumulated experience of each individual. It is often quite subjective, depending on how the dish affects you, whether you are tired or rested, responsive or callous to its messages. Personal likes and dislikes are thus inevitable, but they should not be confused with the absolute merit of what is liked or disliked; thus, it is reasonable to say of a great restaurant that you dislike it, but unreasonable to call it bad merely because you dislike it. Whether it is good or bad transcends personal like and dislike and is subject to reasonably objective determination.

On a side note, I think that dissecting a dish, defining its essence, studying its transition need not destroy the experience as though we were pulling the petals from a flower. Instead, it may enrich it, and that is my prize.

I was interested by your statement that Pacaud “himself does not think that he has a style.” The fact that Pacaud is not self-conscious means that he develops an idea first and then the suitable means of expression or his own language is evolved from it, which is actually a standard protocol of creativity. His cuisine is French, undoubtedly; feminine, however, is indeed “a rough and imprecise approximation.” (I’m kidding; I know what you meant).

L'Atelier is not in the same league with the starred restaurants, and it is not a surprise that it wasn’t given any Michelin stars in 2004, nor do I think it has any such claim, even if the restaurant achieves a certain level of perfection, since it is just a cozy and contemporary reincarnation of the haute-style, not even exact haute, cuisine in a production-line environment. To use your 20/20 ranking, only one or two dishes could’ve been ranked around 16.5 on my visit, with the rest being in the range 15-16, which in no way means that I didn’t enjoy my meal. The point is that I enjoyed this new concept, “haute utile,” as I once attempted to identify it, much more than the concept of the more acceptable “bistro moderne,” and the fact that the best dishes got such low marks attest not so much their imperfection as to the intentional intrinsic limitations of their original design, just like bistro cuisine. However, for a quick and light lunch or dinner, I wouldn’t have thought of a better place to snack. At the time you enjoyed Robuchon’s cuisine, I was merely a child whose ideals probably lay along the line of asceticism as the root of creativity, and other nonsense, so that I can’t compare the two, though I’d very much like to hear your opinion, if you decide to go.

We didn’t bypass the cheese course and I ordered Valencay (goat), which I also had at L’Arpège, since I was curious to compare the two. Both versions were wonderful and the one I had at L’Ambroisie was perhaps more mature than the one from Bernard Antony, since the ash exterior looked drier with multiple molds on the surface and the interior was less salty, with a more complex and sharp finish. Do you know who is the supplier for L’Ambroisie? I found once that it was Philippe Alléosse, but can’t be sure. We also had Cantal de Salers (cow’s milk from Auvergne) and Coulommiers (of the Brie family).

"Tarte fine sablée au chocolat" is indeed a much talked-about dessert, but the weather was unusually hot on that day, and we were looking for something other than chocolate. We finally chose “Dacquoise au pralinée, giboulée de frises de jardin” – a solid interpretation of dacquoise, but not exceptional.

The reason we didn’t visit ADPA on our trip was just what you mentioned; the change of reign, and since the next time we’re planning a trip to Paris is in the fall, you’ll probably be the first one to come out with a report. I was more curious to try Piege’s cuisine at Les Ambassadeurs at that time, which though it felt at the level of a two-star establishment, didn’t seem to fully find its own tune just yet, leaving the impression of Piege still going through the process of experimentation.

Edited January 19, 2005 by lxt (log)

[gdg]

you write

"It's all about money and competition, the negation of art. Innovation, originality for originality's sake (art is no longer art when it becomes a strategy; that's easy to understand but obviously it is still very hard to understand for many chefs who try to imitate Ferran Adria or Michel Bras), a good dose of elitism and snottiness, and food that, at high level, ends up looking and tasting the same all over the world, and — yes — the plague of assembly-line cuisine which is not really cuisine at all."

that's it ... you said it all ... "haute-cuisine" today in fact ressemble "art" himself, what you said above apply to art, today art is all about money, all about power and position ... for me even those two names ( Adria and Bras ) are in the same bag, i see once Bras on tv, dressing a plate, trying to look like an artist, i can "picture" him on "place du tertre" with the final plate, it's were the quality of the aesthetic ( only thing that seems to matter when it come's to "art" for mister Bras ) of the final plate look like, a cheap ugly painting for tourists, in fact the custumers of those guys are "tourists" ... deconstruction was interesting in the hand of master, but in Adria hand what it is ? ... a joke ... as good as a cook Adria can be ... and Bras also.

art is "cuisine" today, so cuisine can be art as well, it's fine with me ... everything today seems to be - is - about money ... ou sont les cuisiniers ? my grand mother is dead ... let's find another name.

[Boris_A]

you write

"It's all about money and competition, the negation of art. Innovation, originality for originality's sake (art is no longer art when it becomes a strategy; that's easy to understand but obviously it is still very hard to understand for many chefs who try to imitate Ferran Adria or Michel Bras), a good dose of elitism and snottiness, and food that, at high level, ends up looking and tasting the same all over the world, and — yes — the plague of assembly-line cuisine which is not really cuisine at all."

that's it ... you said it all ... "haute-cuisine" today in fact ressemble "art" himself, what you said above apply to art, today art is all about money, all about power and position ... for me even those two names ( Adria and Bras ) are in the same bag, i see once Bras on tv, dressing a plate, trying to look like an artist, i can "picture" him on "place du tertre" with the final plate, it's were the quality of the aesthetic ( only thing that seems to matter when it come's to "art" for mister Bras ) of the final plate look like, a cheap ugly painting for tourists, in fact the custumers of those guys are "tourists" ... deconstruction was interesting in the hand of master, but in Adria hand what it is ? ... a joke ... as good as a cook Adria can be ... and Bras also.

art is "cuisine" today, so cuisine can be art as well, it's fine with me ... everything today seems to be - is - about money ... ou sont les cuisiniers ? my grand mother is dead ... let's find another name.

←

Gérard, you should stop reading Bourdieu's "La distinction".

Art and its industrial production is maybe the last field which hasn't to endure any real critique, so no wonder everyone wants to pass the door and to fit in this room, no wonder everyone wants to ennoble himself with this notion.

Haute Cuisine is dead, long live la Cuisine Médiatique.

Edited January 25, 2005 by Boris_A (log)

[gdg]

[quote

Gérard, you should stop reading Bourdieu's "La distinction".

Art and its industrial production is maybe the last field which hasn't to endure any real critique, so no wonder everyone wants to pass the door and to fit in this room, no wonder everyone wants to ennoble himself with this notion.

Boris

i don t have time for Bourdieu ... my english is not good enough here and also i don't feel concern ... there is not much to do to change the flow of things and i don't wanna try ... i'm a poet, i know it, hope i don't don't blow it ... i already regret my previous post ... i love to cook orecchiette con cime di rapa ... vive la cuisine