Pushing the Envelope

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Pushing the Envelope
I’m sure if one were able to interview contemporaries of Vatel (1635-1671), Carême (1783-1833) or Escoffier (1846-1935), one would discover that they had fun doing daring things culinary-wise. And, indeed, the great names post-WWII in France: such as Point, Bise and Bocuse pioneered both classic and new presentations. But it was really in the 1960’s, with the reverberating feedback loop of Gault-Millau → the nouvelle cuisine chefs → Gault-Millau → etc, that things really heated up. Chefs such as Louis Outhier, Alain Senderens and Michel Guérard (who went even farther on to cuisine minceur), broke with their classical training and began to offer creamless and butterless sauces, fresh product with each season and exotic pairings, often mocked in my household as “kiwis and catsup.” When the “novelty of nouvelle” wore off a bit, others came along to keep pushing the envelope farther. It is said that Bernard Loiseau was “driven” to create new dishes and that the most successful modernists like Ducasse, Savoy, Robuchon and Gagnaire gained fame and fortune not only through a combination of marketing and spin-offs but also by constant innovation. In addition, Olivier Morteau (“Food Business: La face cachée de la gastronomie française” Éditions Générales First, February 2004) gives Christian Constant, ex-Les Ambassadeurs and Christophe Chabanel, ex-La Dinee credit for wielding considerable influence by going against “gastronomic correctness.” Constant alone fostered the chefs who now are at the pianos of numerous interesting neo-bistrots and gastro-bistrots in Paris (but that is for another day). Most recently, the group called “Generation ‘C,’” who Morteau calls the culinary children of Bras, Gagnaire, Ducasse & Veynat” (about whom I’ll also write more another day), has burst onto the scene. Termed thus by Francois Simon and Luc Dubranchet and his merry band at Omnivore, they comprise among others, Gilles Choukroun at first the Café des Delices and then l’Angl’Opera, Nicolas Vagnon at La Table de Lucullus, Pascal Barbot at l’Astrance and Inaki Aizpitarte at La Famille. Driven by inside passion and outside influences, principally by Ferran Adrià and Asian food, they are the ones that I fear are pushing the “envelope too far.” What do I mean by “pushing the envelope? Word origins says it is an “aviation” term that means trying to “take the aircraft to the edge of what it was designed to do and trying to take it beyond.” And why do I fear it? Well, once you’ve gotten rid of butter and cream, used only fresh seasonal products and combined everything possible in new dishes, what’s left? The answer: cooking sealed packets at low temperatures per Hervé This, e.g. “sous-vide;” “deconstructing food per Ferran Adrià; serving everything raw; serving everything lukewarm – “tiede;” cooking slow and low; and cooking with new, unheard-of spices. Fortunately, this keeps French cuisine moving forward; unfortunately, we, the customer, are the guinea pigs to this experimentation. Let me return to the Resto R, as only an example, I insist. The first time I ate there, I had a hell of a great meal; fresh ideas, good product, perfectly cooked. The next time, the chef, very flatteringly, sent up a couple of things “for me to try:” one worked (a chilled soup), the other didn’t (a shrimp that was raw at the one end, singed at the other). The third time, a Euro-American friend and I were both puzzled at some of the combinations and cooking methods, but were still impressed. But the fourth time, when I brought in my culinarily-expert family member and neighbors, the food had moved from puzzling to bizarre; from strangely-cooked to over-the-top. And I’m not singling out this wonderful chef or this breath-of-fresh-air resto in a gastronomic desert as one of a kind. I can say the same about so many places I’ve mentioned above. In their quest to be different and new and innovative, some chefs are simply going too far and eventually I think they’ll have to pull back. Morals: “What’s sauce for the goose may not be sauce for the gander” and “love the sinner, hate the sin.” My preferred places among the above mentioned are: Café Constant139, rue St-Dominique, 7th (Metro : Ecole Militaire)T : 01 47 53 73 34Closed SundaysA la carte about 30€ Fables of Fontaine (Constant)131, rue Saint-Dominique, 7th (Metro : Ecole Militaire)T : 01 44 18 37 55Closed SundaysA la carte about 40€
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