Changing the guard of culinary masters

Legendary French chef Paul Bocuse passed away in January this year. He was known as one of the first chefs to move away from traditional French "cuisine classique" to the lighter, more modernised "nouvelle cuisine" (a term supposedly first used by a journalist to describe the meal Bocuse and others prepared for the maiden flight of the Concorde airliner in 1969). He also founded the Bocuse d'Or (often described as the culinary version of the Olympics) in 1987, which remains the most prestigious gastronomic contest in the world. (His private life famously included one wife, two long-term mistresses, and a tattoo of a rooster on his left arm.)

More than 1500 of the world's top chefs attended Bocuse's funeral in Lyon (image courtesy of The Telegraph)

Although he was a pioneer in many ways, Bocuse was also deeply committed to tradition (for the last years of his life he slept - and eventually died - in the room in which he was born), which in the kitchen meant insisting on the importance of classic technique.

As one writer pointed out in the wake of Bocuse's passing, such focus on culinary technique has largely been sidelined in this era of "YouTube chefs" and "ingredient-driven" cooking, which aims to let ingredients (ideally from local, organic markets) "basically assemble themselves—the product of good agriculture, needing just a little coaxing, some confidence, and maybe a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil to display their complexity on a gleaming white plate".

It's of course not true to say that the culinary scene is neatly divided between the simplicity of a YouTube cooking show or serving a single peach on a plate for dessert (as Alice Waters famously did at her California restaurant Chez Panisse) and the complexities of a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Some chefs become famous for rejecting classical trimmings, like Argentinian Francis Mallman (featured in one episode of the Netflix series Chef's Table), who focuses "on a primal style of hospitality whose core comes down to one-syllable words: smoke, fire, air, stone, salt, rain, meat, wine", while others choose to move from a life of cooking in fine-dining restaurants to making "ordinary food that many people can afford".

However the gastronomic landscape unfolds, let us hope that there will continue to be masters of the trade who can inspire the kind of honour and respect that Bocuse did, and who will hopefully have a more enduring impact than a million views on YouTube.

Latest from our site

For his latest review, Jean-Pierre returns to The Shortmarket Club and finds "a happily reliable option for those who like more sophisticated dining experiences in the city [of Cape Town]" in a space that evokes the “Belle Époque" (but do consider it a special treat - this calibre of dining doesn't come cheap!). Recommended: steak with café au lait or béarnaise sauce, all expertly prepared.

In case you missed our last newsletter, we wrote about the troubling issue of discrimination in the restaurant industry (primarily to do with cases that have received wide media coverage in the US, but we conclude the post with contact details of local crisis response organisations on hand for anyone in need of assistance).

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Bits and Bites

The cultural value of sausage: A fun piece about how sausage "flavours" the German language: "“‘Das ist mir Wurscht’ or ‘it’s sausage to me’ is a way of expressing disinterest, perhaps because both ends look and taste the same. Counterintuitively, ‘es geht um die Wurst’ or ‘it’s about the sausage’ gives a sense of urgency: now it really counts. A woman who ‘spielt die beleidigte Leberwurst’ or ‘plays the insulted liverwurst’ is a prima donna in a huff; while someone who can barely steal sausage from a plate – ‘die Wurst vom Teller ziehen’ – is unimpressive despite his pretensions”.

New life for restaurants after terrorism: Eater recently published a feature describing the story of "My Fair Lady", a local favourite restaurant in Mosul, Iraq, that survived that country's occupation by ISIS only to be destroyed by a suicide bomber shortly after the city had been declared officially liberated from the Islamic State. While the story contains some troubling details about what life was like pre-liberation, it is ultimately a tale of hope and human endurance - as is the news that the Grand Café Bataclan, which was destroyed in the terrorist attack in Paris two years ago that claimed 130 lives, has finally re-opened for business.

Foods for the brave new world: Move over "bleeding" veggie burgers; now someone has figured out how to make scrambled "eggs" out of mung beans, a banana with edible skin, onions that won't make you cry, and an actual burger that's bigger than your head. OK, that last one probably isn't useful for posterity, and neither is what someone is calling "mouth cooking": let's just say you ditch the knife for your molars when you want to "chop" an onion, which is frankly sausage to us.

Please share this newsletter with your food-loving friends, and feel free to email us with any queries, suggestions, or eating recommendations!

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