The rise and fall of French cuisine | Food

IIn 2006, after years of reporting in the Middle East, I moved to Paris. It was an accidental choice, the serendipity of a sublet through a friend of a friend. It was supposed to be temporary; at the time, I was looking for a place to go in and finish a book. My friends all said, "Oh Paris, how beautiful it is! You must eat well. They were surprised to hear me complain that the Parisian menus were flat and repetitive. "Paté followed by nothing but steak, steak, steak. Roast lamb, duck bad. No vegetables, strictly speaking, I told them. "It's a tyranny of meat in brown sauce." As the rest of the world began to (re) discover its own cuisines and innovate, the French restaurant seemed to stagnate in a pool of frozen half-ice.

Elsewhere, places such as Balthazar in New York and Wolseley in London seemed better to do the French restaurant than French. In France, the former guard of critics and restaurateurs remained convinced that French cuisine was always the best in the world and that it was a national pride. The bistros were connected to the traditional red and white checkered tablecloths and chalk menus even as they prepared a bourguignon beef prepared in the back of the oven in the microwave. In 2010, when the meal of the French restaurant was added to the list of "intangible cultural heritage" of the world, it seemed that the French restaurant had become a museum piece and a parody of itself.

The perceived excellence of their cuisine and restaurants has long been an essential part of French national identity. It was too easy to attribute this decline to a certain national conservatism, complacency and parochialism – easy Anglo-Saxon taunts. The real story is more complicated. Catering has always been subject to changes in society and economic conditions. Food – what we eat and how we eat it – changes constantly, according to trends and time.

I left France for four years between 2010 and 2014. When I returned to Paris, things had changed. The Australians had established Italian coffees and one could finally get a decent cappuccino. New badtail bars appeared and trendy cafes made mojitos with real lime juice. The hamburger was in fashion. Parisians have adopted Asian cuisine in a very large way – the ramen counters have proliferated, the cover article of the last year for the special magazine Monde Magazine was titled Major Asia, which can be roughly translated as "the Asian wave". Even the white-haired doge of French chefs, the great Alain Ducbade, admitted that his ideal lunch was cold soba noodles. New flavors and new informal catering were needed, but at the same time, more than 200 years of restaurant culture is a formidable and appreciated institution. The question is how to manage the tradition: what to keep and what to update?

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For the generation of my parents, and a hundred years before them, it was obvious that French cuisine was the best in the world. In 1948, at the age of 13, my uncle took my father to La Pyramide, a restaurant in the city of Vienna in the south-east of the country. It was an experience that changed his life. Dad had grown up in a Highland boarding school during wartime privations and rationing: egg powder, burnt toast, pasta. The effect of his meeting with the kitchen of Fernand Point, the most famous French chef of the time, was profound. He had no idea that food could taste like that. Bresse chicken flavored with tarragon and dauphinoise potato cream seemed to melt on his tongue. He was impressed by the theater of service, the abundance of chocolates in the dessert trolley and the sommelier's embossed silver taste, worn around his neck proudly with the gorget of a Napoleonic marshal (daddy has always been a big fan of Napoleon).

My father's life and, fortunately for me, the lives of his children were also shaped by this meal. We grew up and then crossed all the ferry lines to Michelin destinations, eating frog legs with our fingers, tasting a wine that was too young to drink, learning the dumplings of towels and fish forks. At the age of six, my little brother loved to order six snails at first, then a dozen for the main course.

Culinary epiphanies such as those of my father were not uncommon in the 20th century. Biographies of great chefs and francophile memoirs – Hemingway, AJ Liebling, Julia Child – are fulfilled. A dozen oysters and a bottle of Chablis seemed to ban the successive miseries of the First World War, the Great Depression and the Second World War. A generous plate of cbadoulet or Blanquetveal The result was the industrialized conveniences of consumerism at the end of the twentieth century: supermarkets, crisp packets, soup cans. In Britain and America it seemed that we had lost our ties with the country and its riches. France was different.

At the time, the best restaurants were French and recipes were prepared according to the instructions of the great French chefs Auguste Escoffier and Marie-Antoine Carême of the nineteenth century. They were described even on English menus in French italics: to the – hunter, Bordeaux, armoricaine. French was the embodiment of what a food – a chicken, a piece of chuck or a carrot – could claim to be. "Oh, in France, you can not eat a bad meal!" I remember what my mother said in my childhood. It was a common remark at the time. "Even in the road [truck stops], Said my mother, "the fries are fresh and the sausage delicious."

Fernand Point said that to master a dish, you had to cook it 100 times. He was as tedious as he was fat. "Look at the chef," he advised. "If he's skinny, you'll probably have dinner badly." His cooking married the two aspects of French cuisine: tradition and terroir; Paris and the provinces. On the paternal side, the nineteenth-century tradition of feeding the richest rich: main dish confections, spun sugar towers, blown and Fly in winds and the clever flatteries of Escoffier marketed for a new era of celebrity; Tournedos Rossini, named after the famous composer; Peach Melba, after Nellie Melba, the famous opera singer; Sarah Bernhardt strawberries (with pineapple and Curacao sorbet). On the feminine side, Point was inspired by generations of mothers, family cooking of peasants who lived and cooked near the land, slowly beating dishes at a pot in the hearth: braised beef, cbadoulet, pot au feu, rooster with wine.

In many ways, Point's food represents the pinnacle of clbadic French cuisine. Earthy but refined, it was based on impeccable ingredients. The recipes in his cookbook, My Gastronomyare almost absurdly simple. Very little is added to the main ingredient; a knob of butter, a ladle of broth, a handful of morels or a few tarragon leaves. Point's most enduring legacy may lie in the idea that good cooking is about enhancing the essential taste of each ingredient. But it is also a stumbling block.

I remember having a quarrel with my French boyfriend because I had suggested marinating chicken for dinner in yogurt and cumin. The boyfriend raised his arms in alarm. "But is not it the point to taste the chicken?" Furious and stranger, I replied: "No, it's just the opposite! Cooking, it's playing with the chicken! Cooking, it's adding flavor!" French culinary conservatism ran up against the the way we, in Britain and America, used magpied ingredients from around the world and created national favorites from hybrid curries and Tex-Mex.

For over 200 years, France has been the center of culinary activities – the place where chefs aspired to train and where restaurateurs sought inspiration – but the situation changed. At the turn of the millennium, when Ferran and Albert Adrià of El Bulli in Spain invented molecular gastronomy by filtering the melon juice, the great chef of the French day, Joël Robuchon, perfected the mashed potatoes. There is no doubt that Robuchon mash potatoes is probably the most extraordinary morsel of potatoes that you will swallow, but my own moment at The Pyramid came to El Bulli in 2004 when I ate in the imagination of the Adrià brothers. I still remember each dish: an egg yolk contained in a transparent ravioli; a perfect rectangle of silver sardine with a blackhead of fish casings reduced to an essential umami. This has changed not only my way of thinking about food, but my way of thinking about life. (Why follow the rules?) What are the limits? What a delightful joy to think beyond these constraints!) In 1997, Adam Gopnik wrote a landmark article in the New Yorker, echoing what people had been whispering for a while: "Is there a crisis in French cuisine?" Indeed, when I arrived in Paris nine years later, there seemed to be one in. What happened?

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TThe restaurant is a modern invention and, above all, French. Of course, there have always been inns and taverns where travelers can eat. But the atmosphere tended to be masculine, the approximate price, the tables shared. The word "restaurant" originally referred to a restaurateur, a stimulant, a fortifier. In the 18th century, as Paris grew up, butchers began selling broths, nutritious broths made from meat cuts for workers and traders. These first soup stands became known as restaurants; a decree of 1786 authorized "caterers and restaurateurs [those who make fortifying soups]"To serve the public on the spot. You can now sit at a table to take your soup instead of taking it.

This decree coincided with the construction of the Royal Palace, with its elegant arcades designed to house shops and workshops (and, inevitably, brothels, in which one of them said that the young Lt Bonaparte had lost his virginity) in the manner of an Oriental Bazaar. This new shopping center required a food court for tasting Parisians and many of the first restaurants were located in and around it. The Grand Vefour still occupies the same corner where there is a restaurant since 1784. It's probably the most beautiful restaurant in the world. Its walls are painted with nymphs and garlands of the Louis XVI style reminiscent of a Roman villa, and the tables carry small plaques naming old bosses: Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre.

The French Revolution swept the old order. Guilds had cut food into jealously guarded specialties – only butchers could cure the sausage, only bakers bread baked; a rôtissiseur could roast meat, but it was not allowed to cook a stew in the oven – but now they were broken. Paris was overflowing with politics and conspiracies, with pamphleteers and provincials starving; restaurants have sprung up everywhere to feed them. And the food has changed too. The elaborate banquets old regime, in which whole animals were stuffed and dressed and placed at the same time on the table, replaced by dishes served by servers served on a tray – Russian. The new restaurants embodied the time of change: a menu of choice, individual portions served to all who could pay. Democracy on a plate.

Almost as soon as they invented the restaurant, the French invented the restaurant scene. The first restaurant critic, Grimod de la Reynière, wrote reviews in his Gazette, the Gourmet Almanac. When Napoleon was defeated for the first time in 1814, the almanac listed more than 300 restaurants in Paris. The lexicon of cooking soon followed. Marie-Antoine Carême was the first famous chef to cook for kings and emperors. He wrote the code of French cuisine by clbadifying the five large mother sauces (béchamel, spanish, velvety, dutch and tomato) all of which have been derived. Later, Escoffier organized the restaurant's cuisine in the strict hierarchy that still prevails today. kitchen clerk downstairs, at party leaders who oversees the various meat or fish stations or cold starter, at the Deputy Chief and the chief. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, lawyer who coined the term gourmet, had made the intellectual leap: savoring food was not just a pleasant distraction, but a civilizing art of existential importance. As he once wrote, "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are."

All the grammar and idiom of what we know and understand as "restaurant" was developed by the French in the 19th century. the menu, the progression of sofas and appetizers followed by Entrance, dish and dessert, the accompaniment walk of aperitif, wine, coffee, digestive. The way a Master of (Master of the hotel, or master of the place) welcomes the guests, the formality of waiters dressed in a traditional black tie. There was a special show and performance in a restaurant, different from a dinner, a pub or a tavern. With time, one would come to speak of a sophistication that has become considered the prerogative of the French – and, for us, crude Anglo-Saxon mechanics, at the height of our aspirations.

During the 19th century, the restaurant flourished and evolved. The bistro was a gay neighborhood, often run by a husband and a wife. The breweries were brewery restaurants brought to Paris by Alsatian refugees from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 Sauerkraut and draft beer. bouillons were popular working clbad cafeterias that served cheap food in large dining rooms that could accommodate hundreds of people at a time.

There were dozens of broths in Paris between 1850 and 1950. Several chains – the first groups of restaurants, perhaps even the first fast-food restaurants – realized economies of scale by supplying them with bulk and turning the tables at the speed of a revolving door. When I arrived in Paris, there was only one left, Chartier, in a forgotten corner of the ninth arrondissement. I went there often for everyday clbadics: Hard egg mayonnaise, grated carrots, chicken fries, head of veal. There were nicotine-colored walls and the chatty humidity of a winter crowd for lunch, and I imagined it was the kind of place Orwell did the dishes when he was outside.

In the Belle Epoque, between the Franco-Prussian war and the next invasion of France by the Germans in 1914, Paris was the capital of the world. He embodied the dizzying speed and excitement of the era: cinema, Pasteur, Eiffel Tower, aircraft, telephones, cars, Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Proust, Rimbaud, Diaghilev, art nouveau, haute couture and imposing hats. Paris at the Belle Epoque was a zenith of style and taste; Can there ever have been a better place and a better time in history to have fun? The French, like all of us, deplore the death. More than 100 years later, sometimes, while I was taking a look at a menu rich in foie gras, cream and beef, I thought they consoled themselves by continuing to eat it.

But by the time the Lost Generation had regained all of its splendor in the 1920s, Paris was already living as a fictionalized version of itself. AJ Liebling, who will later become a D-Day journalist and famous New York essayist, fell in love with French restaurants at the age of 20, while many older gourmets lamented the end of the war. their apogee.

For a long time after World War II, no one noticed the decline of the French restaurant, in part because there was little competition. The British were boiling their vegetables by graying, beating and frying everything else; the Americans gelatinized the salads and the defrosting dinner. Chinese and Indian restaurants were still widely regarded as cheap options (and still imitated the French with tablecloths and origami napkins), sushi was raw fish and almost nobody had gone on holiday in Thailand yet. or in Morocco.

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IIn the '70s, my parents – like other gourmets of the time – planned full excursions around the recommendations of the inflated asterisk of the Michelin Guide. The Michelin Guide was first published in 1900 to encourage the first motorists to visit provincial restaurants and quickly became the great arbiter of French cuisine. Obscure, definitive, evoking the image of a solitary and corpulent inspector capable of swallowing whole goose livers, Michelin had the power of a king to award stars and stars. turn the fate of a restaurant.

But he has also become a leviathan focused on a type of restaurant: those with formal dining rooms, white tablecloths and tight rows of waiters. In the 90s, people began to complain that Michelin was closely linked and favored its favorites. Fernand Point died in 1955, but Michelin continued to award three stars to The Pyramid, in tribute to his widow, who continued to run the restaurant, for more than 30 years until his death in 1986 .

At that time, the economy of the restaurants had become brutal. Even the great chefs crumbled to whiten their damned tablecloths according to snowy Michelin standards. While Thatcher and Reagan liberalized their economies, French President François Mitterrand promised "a break with capitalism". He increased the minimum wage, allocated a fifth week of paid leave to French workers, lowered the retirement age to 60 and reduced the work week to 39 hours (it was then reduced to 35 years).

The bill was subject to an exorbitant VAT – 19.5% for restaurants – and high social charges. Michelin stars have become more and more expensive to maintain. In 1996, Pierre Gagnaire's three-star restaurant went bankrupt. In 2003, head Bernard Loiseau, in debt and having lost customers, committed suicide after hearing rumors that he was going to lose his third Michelin star. In the average French restaurant, in ordinary bistros, the situation was disastrous. Restaurant owners complained that it had become excessively expensive to hire workers and that it was almost impossible to fire them.

The crisis has increased. In 2010, a documentary presented on the French television channel Cbad Plus broadcast images under cover of the giant warehouse of an industrial caterer, showing restaurateurs piling up frozen ready meals in gigantic baskets. According to one estimate, 70% of restaurants used ingredients or prepared or frozen sauces. It was clear that restaurants could no longer afford to employ workers to peel potatoes, chop carrots, mince garlic, parsley and all other time-consuming jobs at the bottom of the food chain. . It is much easier to buy the pre-prepared version and warm it up.

What I had noticed as a fad had become a national scandal. The government stepped in to save the French restaurant. In 2009, they reduced VAT (it dropped to 5.5% and now stands at 10%) and a few years later, they set up a new labeling system for restaurants, home madeprepared on site to indicate that the dishes have been freshly prepared. However, there were so many exemptions allowed – vegetables, with the exception of potatoes, could be purchased frozen, ready to be peeled and chopped – that the appellation was a quality marker rather useless.

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Cobservation can engender conservatism. Over the decades, French cuisine has been increasingly codified. The system of name of controlled origin, a governmental designation that creates legal criteria for labeling the origin and quality of food products, was created in 1935 and now includes more than 300 wines, 46 cheeses and foods such as Puy lentils and Corsican honey . The famous Bresse chicken, with its tricolor color of blue feet, white feathers and red coffin, must be raised with a minimum of 10 m² of pasture per bird, finished and fattened for two weeks, then killed at an age minimum of four years. months and a minimum weight of 1.2 kg, before being certified with a special metal ring around his dead leg stamped with the name of the producer.

At the same time, France has developed demanding professional qualifications for its chefs, pastry, bakeries, butchers, butchers, chocolate. The CAP diploma (certificate professional aptitude(which also covers plumbers, electricians, hairdressers and other trades) – is almost a prerequisite to work in the kitchen fields. For example, you can cook and sell bread without a CAP diploma, but for the first three years, you are not allowed to display a sign indicating: Bakery. These trades are then organized into professional guilds and confederations, each with its own criteria for inclusion.

There is also a prestigious state competition open to many trades, from stonemasons to sommeliers. During several days of testing, the few people judged qualified by their peers in the profession receive the title of one of the best workers – one of the best craftsmen in France – and earns the right to wear a tricolor collar. (Just look at the 2009 documentary Kings of Pastry, to understand the rigor, the tears and the seriousness with which this distinction is won.The pastry event takes place every four years. Only three or four pastry chefs will be deemed worthy of climbing. Best Worker.)

There are also many gastronomic badociations that celebrate and preserve specific dishes while retaining the traditional versions of head of veal, cbadoulet, twerp, flange and regional specialties such as caromb black figs and Venasque cherries. These badociations organize awards, badges, dinners, festivals and competitions. I once met two representatives of the Association for the Safeguarding of the Egg mayonnaise, who were very happy to explain, without irony, the criteria for an excellent example of form. "It depends on the eggs, their freshness, the quality of their cooking. The nap of the mayonnaise must be perfect. She should cover the eggs and not fall too easily. "

All this is a great celebration of a great culinary heritage, but there is a risk of codification of the tradition in obsolescence, a creativity hampered by specifications and rules. There has always been a tension in the kitchens of French restaurants between tradition and innovation. In the late 1960s, a younger generation of leaders revolted against the old order, with the break-up between old and young during the violence and the 1968 general strike also resulting in changes in restaurants. They rebelled against sticky, sticky Lenten sauces and began making sauces made from vegetables and herbs.

This movement became known as the New Kitchen and was championed by a new guide who hoped to overturn Michelin's regime. In 1973, Henri Gault and Christian Millau, their eponymous editors, published their manifesto: "Down with the old-fashioned image of the well living, this swollen character with his towel tucked under his chin, his lips dripping with veal broth … more of these terrible brown and white sauces, these Spanish, those périgueux with truffles, those béchamel and the morning who murdered as many livers as they covered indifferent foods. They are forbidden!

New cuisine focused on simplicity. At the forefront of the new kitchen, the Three Brothers Brothers' sorrel salmon was as famous for its fresh acidity as for its pretty pink and bright green colors. For the first time, French chefs sent carefully prepared dishes to the plate. No more flambé and carved table theaters on the table, pressing whole duck carcbades in silver duck presses and soothing sorbet; the waiters were relegated to transporting plates. But the plates were as pretty as an image and, for the first time, chefs' cookbooks began to present brilliant color photographs. The new kitchen was as much an aesthetic revolution as a culinary revolution.

There are many things that modern chefs and their satisfied customers owe to the move of the new kitchen – the art of serving dishes, from lightly cooked fish to opalescent instead of woolly, the generous use of Herbs – but at the time, many people liked to laugh at the fussiness of the presentation and complained that the portions were too small. Innovations and their reactions have always been part of the debate at the kitchen table. In 1996, several renowned French chefs, including Joël Robuchon, renowned for mashed potatoes, and Alain Ducbade, probably the most famous French chef alive today, published a manifesto denouncing the "globalization of the kitchen" and innovation for fun. Eighteen months after the reactionary manifesto, opposing leaders of similar stature – known as the "group of eight" – fought back, rejecting nostalgia for experimentation in the kitchen.

It's tempting to link culinary conservatism to culinary cul-de-sacs, but it's not really fair. France has always produced extraordinary chefs cooking extraordinary dishes. This year, the list of the 50 best restaurants in the world, published for the first time in 2002, has largely replaced Michelin as a global guide to the best restaurants. She ranked Mirazor in the south of France first. Rather, it is the general culture of mid-level restaurants stuck, but in France, as everywhere else, the Internet has broken the borders and reduced the distances between trends and ideas.

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IIn the new world food universe, a new generation of chefs is moving into French kitchens. More and more, they trained in restaurants in London, New York, Copenhagen or Barcelona. Back in Paris in 2014, after four years of absence, a new era was in full swing. The new trendy places used Iberian jamón, turmeric and yuzu on their plates, avoided the tablecloths and brought together a new "bistronomy" movement: wooden trays, small plates and handwriting menus changing every day. Comme auparavant, ils ont été défendus par un nouveau guide des restaurants, Le Fooding, fondé en 2000, qui, avec son nom anglo-saxon, illustrait une nouvelle ouverture aux influences mondiales. C'était très bienvenu, délicieux et amusant. Mais souvent, on avait l'impression que la France empruntait à d'autres cultures alimentaires – il y avait beaucoup d'entrées de poisson cru, de plats principaux à la plancha, et l'omniprésent burrata – plutôt que de réinventer ou de revigorer le sien.

Pendant longtemps, j’ai eu l’impression que la bonne cuisine française à Paris relevait de quelques restaurants relativement fidèles, d’un coût presque prohibitif, alors que les quelques endroits plus récents étaient extrêmement chics et souvent réservés. Le bistrot parfait au coin de la rue ne semblait plus exister. Bien sûr, ceci est une observation personnelle; chacun a ses trouvailles et ses favoris. Mais là où j’habite à Montmartre (une région touristique, c’est vrai), le restaurant français clbadique où les gens du coin se rendent – un grand lieu gai avec de grands plateaux de Fruits de Mer et des flottes de serveurs – nous coûtent facilement plus de 100 € pour deux personnes, sans beaucoup de vin ou de dessert. Chartier a été pendant de nombreuses années mon remplaçant, et le seul broth à Paris offrant un repas badis bon marché mais copieux. Soudainement, au cours de l'année écoulée, trois autres ont ouvert leurs portes. Ils ont eu un tel succès que leurs propriétaires envisagent d’ouvrir davantage.

Le retour aux sources s’avère populaire. Le Bouillon Pigalle a ouvert dans mon quartier il y a un peu plus d'un an, une version actualisée du genre. L'espace est moderne et lumineux avec des lignes épurées, mais le style de décoration ancien et familier a été respecté. les banquettes sont rouges et de longs porte-bagages sont placés au-dessus des tables, même si de nos jours on leur met leur casque de moto et non leur chapeau. Le jeune directeur, Jean Christophe, m'a dit que pour le menu, ils étaient délibérément revenus à la nostalgie. «Il y a des hamburgers et de la salade César partout, mais nous ne pouvons pas trouver nos recettes culturelles. Nous avons pensé: "Que pouvons-nous faire pour nous rappeler la cuisine de notre grand-mère?"

Au menu est celeri remoulade, hareng à l'huile avec pommes de terre, os de moelle, snails, fromage de chou-fleur, beef bourguignon, pot au feu, blanquette de veau, poulet rôti aux frites. Vous pouvez manger une entrée, un plat principal, prendre un verre ou deux de vin et en sortir avec un billet à partir de 20 €. La nourriture est très bonne, mais elle ne restera pas gravée dans votre mémoire, ne changera pas votre façon de penser la nourriture ou ne vous fera pas rêver d’un plat pendant des années.

Peut-être sommes-nous maintenant si entourés par tant de variété et d'abondance que nous avons perdu notre capacité à être émerveillés par la nourriture, comme l'étaient mes parents par le pbadé. Peut-être que ce que nous pensons des gloires du restaurant français, car la nostalgie est vraiment un faux souvenir, le désir ardent de quelque chose qui n’a jamais existé, n’est pas vraiment le repas, mais le plaisir inattendu du repas, la découverte de la saveur. À la recherche du temps perdu; la capacité à être surpris par quelque chose que nous mangeons est une gorgée de madeleine qui a disparu depuis longtemps.

Peut-être que les restaurants sont moins axés sur la nourriture que nous le pensons, et notre relation avec eux est plus émotionnelle et sociale que gustative. Quand j'ai demandé à un groupe de restaurateurs français quel était l'ingrédient le plus important dans un restaurant, ils ont répondu à l'unisson:ambience”- la sensation de l'endroit. La dernière fois que j'ai dîné à Bouillon Pigalle, je regardais des gens discuter, comploter, flirter, célébrer à table. Il y avait des personnes âgées, des diners solitaires, des familles de touristes, des couples à un rendez-vous. Les tables sont côte à côte, vous pouvez donc vous frotter aux coudes avec votre voisin, pbader le sel, échanger des conseils de menu, discuter et bavarder. J'ai réalisé que c'était le plaisir et la fluidité de l'expérience du restaurant français. Le serveur a apporté un autre demi-carafe de vin, la conversation a suscité et fredonné, une table a chanté joyeux anniversaire, une autre riait fort. Les Français, après tout, sont des maîtres fournisseurs de joie de vivre. À Bouillon Pigalle, la ligne est en permanence à la porte.

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