FRENCH CUISINE: CULTURAL HERITAGE
INTRODUCTION (1)
INTRODUCTION (2)
Gourmet (…) refers to high-end food, a person who appreciates that food, or a restaurant or place where you can buy or prepare it. In general, the term gourmet is less about the food than it is about the person who is the subject of the word.
What is Gourmet?
Adding the word gourmet to any food or drink makes it feel upscale and generally more desirable. It is often wrongly overused. Here are some correct ways to accurately use the term. In brief, the term gourmet may refer to:
- Someone who is a connoisseur of good food and drink.
- Food of the highest quality and flavor, prepared with precision and presented in an artful manner.
- A restaurant and its chefs where food is prepared and served with the highest quality standards.
- A store that stocks and sells high-quality, unique, or hard-to-find ingredients needed to prepare gourmet dishes.
- A kitchen that is well-appointed with professional-grade appliances and storage areas for specialty items and equipment.
What Is a Gourmet?
A gourmet doesn’t see food as a means to an end. To a gourmet, food is art. Such a food enthusiast is into edible luxury. Gourmets enjoy the experience of eating, making, or displaying food. Some even explore the history and the anthropology of the foods they eat. A gourmet takes time and care in preparing food and usually eats food slowly. Gourmets frequent places that offer extra information about a food’s origin, have ingredients of top quality, prepare foods from scratch, and serve dishes in a luxurious manner. The person you may have called a gourmet years ago might today be called a „foodie.“
What Is Gourmet Food?
Gourmet food refers to food and drink that takes extra care to make or acquire. Gourmet food is often found or made only in certain locations, and its ingredients may be unusual, hard to find in regular grocery stores, only be available in limited amounts, rarely exported outside of their place of origin, or available only for short times of the year. Some, such as truffles, must be wild harvested and can’t be cultivated. These foods often are unique in flavor or texture.
Gourmet ingredients may blend herbs and spices in an interesting manner or add flavor to foods that are usually not flavored. For example, lemon olive oil spray, black truffle balsamic glaze, and Calvi white wine vinegar are unique takes on otherwise simple ingredients.
You will find gourmet ingredients in a gourmet section of a grocery store or in stand-alone gourmet stores. For example, some grocery stores have typical cheeses in the dairy aisle but have a gourmet cheese section for higher-quality and imported cheeses.
A gourmet store will often stock ingredients of the highest quality from around the world, thanks to special contacts that help import foods that otherwise are not readily available in the area. You may be able to work with the store to acquire ingredients by request. In addition, such stores often stock the equipment needed to prepare gourmet dishes.
What Are a Gourmet Restaurant and Chef?
Gourmet restaurants prepare dishes from the highest quality ingredients with impeccable technique. They can serve food that challenges the palate or offers a twist from a traditional dish. For example, gourmet mac and cheese may use Gruyere, a cheese that is almost exclusively made in France and Switzerland. A beef dish such as crab-stuffed filet mignon with whiskey peppercorn sauce is gourmet because the sauce and stuffing are unique and challenge the taste of filet mignon on its own.
A gourmet chef has a very high level of skill in preparing food and making good use of the finest ingredients. The chef may be talented in creating new dishes and using innovative techniques. Skill in the presentation of food on the plate also defines a gourmet chef.
What Is a Gourmet Kitchen?
A gourmet kitchen will have professional-grade appliances and fixtures, often conveniently arranged for ease of food preparation. For example, it may have a six-burner gas stovetop and dual ovens plus a warming drawer, with a powerful ventilating hood and a pot-filler faucet over the range. The cabinetry can provide convenient storage for appliances, tools, and pantry items. A gourmet kitchen also has enough counter space for food preparation tasks.
French cuisine has been famous for centuries. It has been the international standard of taste, excellence and tradition. Even today, should there be a show on television of a book where a man takes a woman out on an incredible date, the are usually going to Chez Pierres or Chez Francoise or some other French clich for a restaurant name. But aside from its magnificent taste, French cuisine is also the symbol for richness, extravagance and decadence. And it is not surprising to find out that those traditions came from the forefathers of self indulgence themselves, the Romans. Before France was France, it was Gaul, a Roman province.
In great many respects Gaul benefited immensely from the civilization that the Romans brought with them from the first century BC on. Not only did the Romans organize the administrative part of governing this land and imposed, with time, a much needed written law, but Roman soldiers, merchants, and other citizens that were far from familiar surroundings, naturally longed to retain the customs which they were used to in the Eternal City. And of these traditions the refined pleasures of the table were undoubtedly what represented to the displaced citizens, the essence of being Roman.
Roman food habits continued to live in Gaul, at least to the extent that the usual foodstuffs were available or could be obtained, during the five centuries that the Empire lasted. In the Area of Roman cookery one name stands out as representative of custom and tradition in the most glorious age of the Empire. M. Gavius Apicius (c. 25 BC 35 AD) was a notorious gourmet whose self inflicted death was induced by his realization that his wealth had been so squandered as to have declined to a level at which he was unable to keep up his lifestyle.
Apicius was the author of De re coquinaria, the first complete compilation of roman recipes, 450 to be exact, 138 of which the author was responsible for himself. The book outlasted its Empire, was copied by monks through out the Middle Ages and was first printed in 1498. Another name, which stands out, is not as famous but in no way less influential. It is the Letter of Anthimus to Theodoric. This letter, written about 520A. D. , embodies medical and culinary advice about foods offered by a Greek physician to and Ostragoth ruler. It is a practical dietetic, often resembling an informal cookery manual.
This letter embodies two very important aspects of medieval cookery. Firstly, the Frankish tribes which broke across the frontiers of the Roman Empire looked to Roman usage for the standards they would adopt in their own social practice. And secondly, the best advice that could be given about food in this period was given by a physician and founded on medical concepts. Copies of this letter continued to be made into the twelfth century. The Franks themselves, for whom the advice was written, ultimately established themselves in the land to which they gave their name, France.
In matters of food the French continued to respect the doctrines of medical science all the way to the end of the middle ages. This in no way denied them the decadence, which the social class rift of the Middle Ages brought with it. The cooking was not so much about taste as about the preservation of the product. Spices are critical and of great value. Not so much to cover the taste of spoiled meat as the popular wisdom has it, but more to counteract all the salt and the bland taste of shoe-leather quality meat boiled in the pot all day.
Medieval people did not value “taste” in quite the same way that we do – food was appreciated more for its appearance, its symbolic value, or its rarity. When the great noble feasts are described, a great deal of narrative is spent on the clever inventions constructed to look like castles or unicorns, boars covered in gold leaf, and peacocks dressed in their own feathers, but nothing at all on how the food tasted. The sign of a great cook was the ability to make something look like something else: fish that looks like venison or vice versa.
Those silly little fruit-shaped marzipans that are consumed at Christmas are a vestige of this tradition. However, this was an age of transition, as it was for so many arts. These times were beginning to see the development of what we consider a modern sensibility about cuisine — food valued for itself and its taste, where spices and cooking methods are used to bring out its intrinsic qualities. These new tendencies had appeared earlier in Italy, where so many of the fine arts of the Renaissance were born. The influence of Italian-born Catherine de Medici brought about the development of the culinary arts in France.
Arriving in 1533, she had her staff introduce delicacies previously unknown to the French. Over the next couple of centuries, the royal families employed chefs who developed and prepared the finest cuisine, and dining became an art form. How much impact this had on the everyday cook is hard to say. One thing she did bring over that not only influenced the cooks, but still in considered important today is the fork. Table utensils had been used only as tools of extreme measure in the Middle Ages now a proper table etiquette was beginning do develop.
And so was what we today know as Haute Cuisine, The rich yet subtle taste which we associate with French cooking. Haute cuisine enjoys the reputation of being considered the finest cuisine in the world. Literally meaning high cooking or high-class cooking, the rich sauces, fine ingredients and exquisite taste of haute cuisine typifies classic French cooking. Through the efforts of the great French chefs, haute cuisine first came to the attention of the rest of the world at the time of the French Revolution.
Before 1789, chefs were employed by the richest families to prepare food similar to what was being served at court. These chefs provided the training ground for the elaborate recipes that formed the basis of haute cuisine. The style at the time was elegant food served in many courses, often with rich sauces to accompany the many meats on the menu. Although the food was unfamiliar to common citizens and beyond their reach, it soon emerged to popular consumption after the revolution. The fall of the aristocracy meant the great chefs were out of work, and resulted in the opening of restaurants.
Before the revolution, there were at least 100 restaurants in Paris, which increased to over 500 after the social changes. Customers who had never tasted a truffle now were able to visit the emerging restaurants to sample new delicacies, such as tripe cervelle de conut and foie gras. Restaurants became temples of haute cuisine. Chefs depended on the recipes created by the masters, such as Marie-Antoine Carme (1784-1833) and his successors: Duglr, Urbain, Dubois and Escoffier. Sauces are synonymous with haute cuisine, and Carme was responsible for classifying them into four families, each headed by a basic sauce.
In 1902, Escoffier listed in his book, Guide Culinaire, more than 200 different sauces not including those used in desserts. He described haute cuisine being directly related to its sauces. The most important French cookbook however, was Francois Pierre de la Varenne’s Le Cuisinier Francois, which signals the end of the anarchy of the medieval age and Renaissance fantasy, and methodically organizes cooking. It starts with bouillon or stock, the base ingredient for sauces, etc. The goal was a harmonious blend of ingredients so that not one predominates.
The cookbook continued to be reprinted in France until 1815. It went through an estimated 250 editions with over 250,000 copies published. This alerted publishers to the financial possibilities of cookbooks. La Varenne worked for the marquis d’Uxelles. He founded the classical French cooking school. There is, however, a name that stands out in all of French culinary history as probably the most important and the most revolutionary. Georges-Auguste Escoffier was born in the Provence region of France in October 1846.
When he turned 13, his father took him to Nice where he apprenticed at a restaurant owned by his uncle, thus beginning the illustrious career that he enjoyed for the next 62 years. In 1870, when the Franco-Prussian War began, Escoffier was called to duty in the army where he served as Chef de Cuisine. It was during this period that he came to consider the need for tinned foods and was thus the first chef to undertake in-depth study of techniques for canning and preserving meats and vegetables. After returning to civilian life, Escoffier resumed his career in several Parisian restaurants where he steadily moved up the ladder of success.
It was during his years in Monte Carlo that Escoffier met Cesar Ritz. The pairing of Escoffier and Ritz brought about significant changes in hotel industry development throughout the ensuing years, raising the standards of hospitality to considerable heights. Both went to the Savoy Hotel in London where Escoffier served as Head of Restaurant Services. Later, Ritz opened several of his own hotels, such as the Hotel Ritz in Paris and the Carlton in London, where Escoffier was the key player in the restaurant end of the establishments.
Three of Escoffier’s most noted career achievements are revolutionizing and modernizing the menu, the art of cooking and the organization of the professional kitchen. Escoffier simplified the menu as it had been, writing the dishes down in the order in which they would be served (Service la Russe). He also developed the first la Carte menu. He simplified the art of cooking by getting rid of ostentatious food displays and elaborate garnishes and by reducing the number of courses served. He also emphasized the use of seasonal foods and lighter sauces.
Escoffier also simplified professional kitchen organization, as he integrated it into a single unit from its previously individualized sections that operated autonomously and often created great wasted and duplication of labor. Throughout his career, Escoffier wrote a number of books, many of which continue to be considered important today. Some of his best-known works include Le Guide Culinaire (1903), Le Livre des Menus (1912) and Ma Cuisine (1934). The French government recognized Escoffier in 1920 by making him a Chevalier of the Legion d’ Honneur, and later an Officer in 1928.
The honors due Escoffier can be summed up by a quote from Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II when he told Escoffier, I am the Emperor of Germany, but you are the emperor of chefs. The cult of food was at its height at this time. The turn of the century was a time of excess – something the Victorians were known for embracing. In an era of wealth, idealism and luxury, those who had the resources wanted only the best of everything in food and wine. Menus for the wealthy were full and lush, and combined the haute cuisine of the time with fine regional wines that accompanied every course.
The preferred method of dining was service la Russe, where each dish was prepared and served on individual plates and placed before the diner. The meal was composed of a series of courses served in succession. The average menu would begin with an hor doeuvre, followed by a soup, main course, salad, cheese, and dessert. The amount of food depended on how elaborate the dinner. Large meals might consist of as many as ten courses, spread out over several hours. Oysters were a favorite hor doeuvre to start a meal. The second course might include two soups, a clear consomm and a cream soup.
Fish was featured in the third course, often with a rich sauce. The next course, or two if it was a grand meal, would include several meat selections. Chicken, beef, lamb, and roast duckling were accompanied with several vegetable dishes. Creamed carrots, boiled new potatoes, rice, and green peas as well as any seasonal vegetable available regionally would be served. The meat dishes were often dressed with sauces. Salads then followed the meat and vegetable course. The French custom was to serve the douceur, or sweet, after the cheese course. Common choices were bombes, mousses, or iced parfaits.
Of course, one sweet would never do in the era of indulgence. Several choices were standard for a large meal. The French have always believed that there is an appropriate beverage for every food. Wine has always been an important beverage, always drunk with the meal, but rarely on its own. An aperitif, or light alcoholic beverage preceded the meal. A different wine accompanied each succeeding course, and port or cognac followed the meal to aid digestion. On the other side of the dining experience, the bourgeois menu was simpler and more directly in touch with foods available regionally.
Seafood was often the heart of a meal, and fresh vegetables combined with simple bread and wine completed it. In place of rich meats, which might not be available, local sausages, kidney, brain or tripe served as a substitute. But in reality, though the rich class was becoming larger with time, the gap between classes was still huge and so it was respectively in the ability to obtain fine foods. It took a world war at the beginning of the twentieth century to halt the gross inequality of wealth at the table, and to bring about a more even distribution of the nation’s produce.
In fact, the general expectation of good eating is a relatively new experience for the French. At the time the Bastille was stormed in 1789, at least 80% of the French population were subsistence farmers, with bread and cereals as the basis of their diet, essentially unchanged since the time of the ancient Gauls nearly two millennia before. In the mid-nineteenth century, following the demise of the aristocracy, food was a conspicuous symbol of social position, swiftly adopted by a new ruling class of bourgeoisie, who recreated the sumptuous meals of the very aristocracy they had once criticized.
At the same time, two-thirds of Parisians were either starving or ill fed, five times more likely to be nourished from vegetable proteins than from any meats or dairy products. The golden age of haute cuisine benefited only those at the very top of the social ladder. The advent of improved transportation, especially by train, brought culinary revolution to the regions, and slowly the spreading affluence could put a chicken on every peasant’s table.
Eventually, tourism fanned the flames of change in France’s commercial kitchens, as chefs were obliged to create dishes appealing to an ever-widening audience of British, Japanese, Middle Easterners, and Americans, as well as French travelers hungering for new experiences. In some instances the reasons for change in regional products were a pragmatic reaction to a decline in other industries (such a silk) or to the economic disaster brought about by the Phylloxera pest, which wiped out most of France’s grape vines at the turn of the century.
French cooking has always been known as traditional. What is perhaps less widely recognized is that France’s reputation for fine food is not so much based on long-held traditions but on constant change. What was probably the greatest change in French cooking history was the advent of nouvelle cuisine and the newly modern fusion cooking. Becoming popular in the 1970’s, Nouvelle Cuisine took traditional French cooking and gave it a fresh look. Its advent was a reaction to the typically rich and time-consuming recipes of haute cuisine.
Emphasizing lighter tastes and healthier fare, Nouvelle Cuisine introduced fruit-based and reduction sauces in its recipes as alternatives to the heavier cream and flour based sauces that were found in many dishes. Fresh ingredients, prepared in ways that optimized their natural aromas and flavors, were essential to Nouvelle Cuisine dishes. This style of “freeform” cooking strayed from the structured system of rules previously in place in French culinary philosophy.
Nouvelle Cuisine’s presentation, however, transformed cooking to an art and the chef to the status of artist, with the bite-sized portions of food being carefully and artistically arranged on large plates. Essentially taking us back to the middle ages where the chef was chosen for his presentation of the food. Michel Gurard, Jean and Pierre Troisgros and Alain Chapel all worked to pioneer Nouvelle Cuisine as a way of simplifying French cooking. It is Paul Bocuses name, however, that is most often associated with the trend’s upsurge on the French culinary horizon in the late 1960’s and early 70’s.
While the height of Nouvelle Cuisine’s popularity was enjoyed during the 1970’s and 80’s, the effects of this trend can be seen to this day with a strong emphasis on eating healthier dishes with lighter and fresher ingredients. Today with influence from Asia, India and Latin America the concept of fusion cooking is very popular mixing the traditional ingredients with more exotic ones. But the love of traditional haute cuisine has in no way been compromised. It is still the symbol of tradition refinement taste and status.
Alain Ducasse learned to love food on his parents’ farm. He received his first three-star Michelin rating—for Le Louis XV, in Monaco—when he was just 33 and now runs an empire of more than 20 restaurants (with a collective 19 Michelin stars) in cities from Tokyo to Las Vegas.
You describe yourself as “artistic director” of your company. What does that job entail?
I’m the creative one, who conceives the restaurants, books, cooking schools, events—all the products and services offered. I look at where we are and where we’re going. I work in tandem with my general director, Laurent Plantier, who handles the finance-management-business problems, which are of no interest to me. We’ve worked side by side for 15 years, ever since he joined my enterprise upon graduating from MIT, but he does not meddle in my affairs, nor do I meddle in his.
What is your schedule like?
Very chaotic. I sometimes travel up to 20 times a month. I go where needed. This year I launched several projects, including our new chocolate factory. We wanted to control the entire process—from selecting the cocoa beans, hazelnuts, pistachios, and other ingredients in various countries to repairing old machines and setting up a workshop in Paris to deciding which bars and bonbons we would offer to defining which blend we wanted for our fine-dining restaurants and keeping the taste consistent to reaching an agreement with Valrhona chocolate. I also became interested in perfecting our own coffee using the same approach. We imported the green seeds, roasted them, and developed our blend with a bitterness and complexity that is to our liking. The coffee will initially be offered in our fine-dining restaurants in Paris.
Your restaurants range from bistros to very fine dining. Why not specialize?
To make a comparison with the fashion industry, we design high fashion, ready-to-wear, and shabby chic. To make one with the automobile industry, we are like Mercedes-Benz, whose cars range from the Smart to the Maybach. We, too, must strive for perfection in every category we embrace. Each restaurant has its own unique story to tell, but when the chef is replaced, the way the story is told may change. For example, at our Paris bistro Aux Lyonnais, the former chef, a somewhat temperamental native of the Auvergne, reveled in rustic dishes: He offered tripes au bouillon, even in summer. Personally, I liked his cooking very much. The new chef’s expression is more refined, more balanced, less peasant-style. Is it better? No, it’s just different; but the clientele appreciates his food—the number of seatings has increased by 10%.
After outlining the “blueprints” for your restaurants, you appoint and supervise all your chefs. Your leadership style has been described as strict, even nitpicking.
When it comes to making appointments or personnel changes, I hold the key. Occasionally, I know what is going to happen to my people before they themselves do. One evening I watched as a lovely Japanese woman “picked up” Massimo Pasquarelli, the chef at our restaurant in Osaka, even though he had no idea what was happening. Several months later he announced that she was expecting a child, and as a result, he has based his entire career in Asia. I recently asked our current chef at the Osaka restaurant, who is Japanese, to come work as a station chef at our Paris hotel restaurant, Le Meurice. He has great potential, and we plan to round out his skills, inspire him with a new experience, and have him work on a few things he hasn’t quite grasped, such as pastries. He will then be appointed to a new position elsewhere, unless he eludes us by meeting a Frenchwoman who leads him to the far corners of Brittany! As for supervision, I do not always supervise in person. I have a network of foodies and gourmets around the world who ply me with invaluable information about our restaurants. Some go so far as to provide a detailed description of how the chicken was one evening. When I myself play the role of client, it is true that I am demanding and not always nice. If a colleague opts to do poor work when he could have performed very well, that upsets me.
When that happens, do you part ways?
No, because he might have made a mistake. But I do get annoyed with people who are intentionally feebleminded because it’s less strenuous. To come up with a menu, you must rack your brain to extract the ideas while keeping in mind the season, the price of the dishes, how they pair with wine, and the overall balance. Once, a longtime colleague faxed me a change in menu, and I called him in. I asked him how long it had taken him to write the menu. He said three weeks. I told him that he was not being truthful and that the menu deserved a grade no higher than zero. I asked him to come back the next day. He understood that I was no dupe and spent the entire night reworking his menu, and he produced a good one. I merely told him never to do that again.
So you are a strict but sympathetic supervisor?
You shouldn’t focus on supervision. What is key is the shared experience. I talk to my chefs, tell them what I see, and try to improve their level of observation. Last Saturday I had a conversation with Christophe Saintagne, the chef at Le Meurice, about what I’d seen during a recent trip to Japan: the Kyoto market, the cooking temperature of a particular product, the composition of a certain seasoning, and even the ingredients and philosophy of the vegetarian food served at the Zen temples, which I learned about from a Buddhist cook who was a passionate expert on the subject.
How do you develop your staff?
The restaurant industry is a wonderful social ladder—85% of the managers in the Ducasse enterprise were hired with zero experience. Christophe, for example, is only 36. He’d been my second-in-command for the past several years, and together we visited our restaurants throughout the world, which broadened his gustatory palate and his open-mindedness and nurtured his intellect. Laëtitia Rouabah, who has just taken control of Allard, our Paris bistro, is 29 years old—but she is sharp and unafraid, she knows what she is doing, and she wants to make great strides. You must allow people to evolve, help them grow, make them feel gratified. Achieving this, in my opinion, depends one-third on their professional advancement and ability to thrive in their work, one-third on their compensation, and one-third on the harmony that reigns over the team, which becomes a second family in our profession. You must heed all three. The possibilities for promotion generate loyalty: Nearly all the members of my tight-knit team—the 20 warriors on whose shoulders rest the identity and excellence of the enterprise—have worked with me for 20 years.
When you were 27, you were the sole survivor of an airplane crash. Seriously injured, you spent one year in a hospital. Did that represent what Americans call “a defining moment”?
Most certainly, yes. You spend your time lying in bed, but you are not tired, so you are able to think nearly 24 hours a day, with nothing to disrupt you. I had to keep working, even if I might never walk again. I managed my restaurant from my hospital bed, by writing the menus, for example. It really improved my ability to delegate, and I understood that I was able to lead without being physically present. My career would not have been the same had the crash not occurred.
You say your chefs now cook better than you. True?
They practice and refine their technique every day, and I do not. I am like the football coach who, if placed on the pitch, could no longer score goals. On the spur of the moment, I could certainly fill in for any one of my chefs at one of our three-star restaurants, but my skills would not be as refined as his. Even some of our young chefs in our less prestigious restaurants are quite impressive: Several days ago I ate a marvelous civet de lièvre [marinated rabbit stew] at Allard. I could not have done a better job.
But surely you still break out your pots and pans from time to time?
Just for fun, and for my family and friends. I pick from the vegetable gardens at my inns, or I go to the market near my country home, which inspires me and renews my vision. Again, just for private affairs. Mark my words, though, there are chefs who have never left their kitchens, but their cooking is not as good as mine!
Fine dining is such a small world. Which other great chefs do you admire?
There is enormous talent everywhere, and the world has never before eaten as well as we do today, particularly with the increase in the variety of dishes. I recently made a trek to visit and check out several colleagues who are generating quite a lot of buzz, such as René Redzepi, at Noma, in Copenhagen; the Roca brothers, at El Celler, in Catalonia; and Gastón Acurio, in Lima. Today everyone knows everything about everybody—their recipes are published and even filmed—but only face-to-face can you enter the minds of these chefs and grasp how they solve the equation: What I have today (produce, season) plus what I know (technique and skill) equals what I make. Ultimately, this is what cooking boils down to.
And among French chefs?
I lean toward people whose paths have veered off in a direction different from mine, those who operate at the highest level without losing their artisanal scale. The Pacaud family enjoys sharing the pleasures of l’Ambroisie with their guests, who are often esteemed customers, by unexpectedly opening up a great bottle of wine or going hunting with their clientele. Likewise, I went to l’Arpège several weeks ago and came away with the feeling that Alain Passard takes great delight in what he does. He served a divine, harmonious dish of three fresh scallops and one truffle. He himself grated the truffle onto his guests’ plates, which made for a very convivial moment, especially since he gave me several extra shavings! I often think of Alain Chapel, my late master, the chef who made excellent produce a key element of his cooking.
Does the excellence of the raw material define today’s cooking?
We forget that during the “nouvelle cuisine” wave of 35 years ago, we never talked about produce. Creativity was the sole requirement. A chef as respected as Pierre Troisgros could not have cared less about knowing whether his salmon came from Scotland or Norway, or whether it was wild. Alain Chapel was a forerunner of the new movement because during the 1980s he was obsessed with the quality and freshness of the produce. Today we have 50 butters that are better than the best butters available 35 years ago. Each restaurateur has become an expert in dozens of products and can recognize the difference among varieties and the excellence of each.
You closed one of your top restaurants, at the Essex House in New York. Why?
For the same reason that Joël Robuchon closed l’Atelier at the Four Seasons in New York: No longer could we (nor would we) put up with the excessive influence of the hospitality unions. I still operate Benoit Bistro in New York City, but it was inconceivable for me to continue fine dining there. The pressure exerted on us was so great that we were unable to perform at the highest-quality level or direct our course. We were no longer the decision makers; someone wanted to lead in our place. I work with unions in France and even in Las Vegas, but in order to be happy operating at the highest level in New York, I would have had to launch an independent restaurant. Would the game be worth the candle, given that we are already running two fine-dining restaurants in Paris, one in Monaco, and one in London? It’s too bad, because I love New York. That’s even the title of one of my books, J’aime New York, which describes the food-related attractions of the city, from the hot dogs in Brooklyn to the most chic restaurants.
You and your general director are founding members of the Culinary College of France, an association of the country’s greatest chefs. Is the goal to defend French cuisine?
French cuisine is not under attack, so no defense is needed. All we did was establish a group of 15 great chefs representing the full gamut of sensibilities in French cuisine as a way to listen, reflect, communicate, and form a federation. It’s more like a think tank.
You’re also preparing some meals for astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Is that true gastronomy?
Ten years ago Richard Filippi, a cooking professor at the hospitality school in Souillac (Dordogne), spent his vacation working in my restaurant in Monaco and told me that an engineer from the European Space Agency wanted to meet me. He asked if we would make and test meals for the astronauts. When they returned to Earth, after spending weeks or months in orbit, the pioneers of space complained more about the nightmarish food than about the fatigue. So we went to the ESA research center in Amsterdam to see the physical constraints of being confined in a space vessel and the parameters that had to be respected: zero bacteria, no crumbs, and no moisture (in case the plate spilled). It took us three years to come up with dishes that were aesthetically pleasing and tasty, which the astronauts could enjoy on weekends or special occasions. European, American, and Russian astronauts alike enjoyed what we offered. But the cost to run our laboratory was too high, so we closed it. We still cook for astronauts, because we transferred our knowledge to a partnership we established with Hénaff, the canning company, which has approval to export meat products to the United States.
Chanel, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent have outlived their creators. Do you think the Ducasse enterprise can one day continue without you?
Of course. I bring up this subject often, especially with my general director and our partners. Once I am gone, there is no reason for the Ducasse enterprise not to continue pursuing its philosophical path of “one creative type, one managerial type.” We have an unbelievable range of expertise in the restaurant business, including auditing, training, counsel, seminars, and event organization. The only two things that the enterprise will never do are industrial meals sold for wide distribution and accessories such as ties decorated with carrots or shoes shaped like pumpkins!
Watch the videos in INTRODUCTION (1). Characterise the company Rungis and its system.
Paraphrase INTRODUCTION (2) and formulate a definition of (a) „Gourmet“ in the context of Rungis.
Study the history of French Cuisine (Part I). Make notes and deliver a speech emphasising its origins.
Listen to Guy Savoy (Part I). What is the main idea of his presentation?
Who was August Escoffier and what is his legacy (Part I)?
What can you say about Alain Ducasse and his view on French Cuisine (Part II and VIII)? Why is cooking art?
Take a look at Ecole Ducasse (Part II) and describe their programme. If you like, make more research and present your findings.
Read the articles concerning the Michelin Stars, summarise them and answer the following questions:
1. Does the skill of excellent cooking deserve an award? Why?
2. How to avoid competition among Chefs striving for the highest standards?
Study Part III. Present Chef Joel Robuchon and his philosophy. Why is he a legend? What is his USP?
Read the paragraphs below and decide if he created his personal brand. If yes, explain how. What are the attributes of a person who does „self-branding“?
Unlike companies or products, individuals possess intrinsic personal branding as a result of personality qualities, past experience and development, and communication with others-whether they know it or not. In this sense, every person already has a personal brand of some kind. The challenge is to manage that brand strategically. (…) This investigation leads to our basic recommendation: Follow a strategic self-branding process based on one’s values and competencies, similar to the branding methods of companies and products, but with the understanding that personal branding will change as one’s career advances.
https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/BH842-PDF-ENG
What’s not to like about a smart, realistic focus on how to manage your reputation in the workplace? Hopefully, it can enable you to home in on your strengths, compensate for weaknesses, and make you a better (and better-respected) professional. Indeed, says Edmondson, personal branding is good „if it leads people to be thoughtful about how visible and transparent everything really is.“
Watch the videos in Part V. What are the secrets of the Chefs?
What is your opinion about food tours (Part V)? Is it a good idea for a holiday? Can you see similarities of lifestyle in France, Italy and Spain? If so, how was it possible for these countries to create „artistic gastronomy“ for socialising purposes?
Make yourself acquainted with Part VII and talk about French Cuisine as cultural heritage. How has French Cuisine been evolving and what are its prospects for the future (Part VII)?
Summarise the key issues and add to your speech information about cooking as artistic excellence.
Read the definition of „Brand Core“ below and explain if, how and in which market segments culinary arts can form a brand core. Give examples.
Expand on the topic „Values“.
Brand Core
Talents and performances of a brand condense over time into specific brand
core values. Taken together, these brand core values
form the brand core, which describes its specific character, its DNA.
Every brand core is unique in the composition of its values. It can only be
seen in its entirety, and outlines the brand’s credibility limits:
- Everything that fits the brand core values of a brand is credible, because it is supported by demonstrable peak performances (within the credibility framework).
- Everything that contradicts the brand core values is not credible, because it is not supported by demonstrable peak performances (outside of the credibility framework).
In detail
- Brand core values are the essence of what makes a brand unique, superior, special, differentiated, valuable, and successful.
- Together with the brand stylistics, the brand core makes up the personality of a brand.
- A brand core serves to differentiate from competing brands and forms the basis of all brand activities. It is therefore a significant investment for the company.
- The brand core provides a clear sense of identity as a prerequisite for consistent behavior of all employees.
- The brand core values must be recognizable in everything the brand does and at all brand touchpoints without being communicated verbally. The brand core values are thus a legacy and at the same time an obligation for the future.
Alain Ducasse claims that his brand will outlive him (see: RESEARCH). Is it possible in this market sector?
Save your answers and ideas in one document.
This project intends to emphasise the importance of tradition and legacy in the context of French cuisine (a perfect combination of art, knowledge, skills, excellent taste and humanity) as an important element of a country´s identity.
It should make clear, how important excellent food is not only to make people feel good but also to bring them together especially in the times, when competition between countries, companies and individuals has reached an unprecedented level of aggression.
It should help to comprehend what „ingredients“ are needed to create a personal brand and that, and also how, the brand core has to do with values.
It should show that a „self-brand“ has a chance to outlive its creator also in the field of culinary arts.
Moreover, it should help to understand how attractive the business of gastronomy can be for those who have talent, passion and the will to learn.
Not to forget about France, which offers unforgettable experiences through its unique geographical diversity and cultural heritage.
