mardi 16 septembre 2008

What's Nouvelle Cuisine?

The characterization of Nouvelle cuisine as light is misleading. If you think of Bocuse, Robuchon, Senderens, Guérard, even Loiseau, Winkler, or Passard. All rely heavily on butter and sometimes cream. One hardly leaves these places feeling light, eventhough there are degrees.

The main reason for butter is, that nothing replaces it to capture the flavors. Thanks to butter you can make mono-taste sauces that emphasize the complexity and richness of one ingredients: for instance a thyme or a tarragon butter sauce, served on the side of a fish cooked à l’unilatérale are very typical nouvelle cuisine dishes, still served by Winkler. Today, Passard’s Gratin d’oignon is an example of that mono-ingredient approach, which relies on butter to capture the flavours during the slow cooking and aims at demonstrating that a simple onion can be a grande cuisine dish, and not only some aromatic sidekick in a stock.

Winkler's seabass, cooked in salt,
with a tarragon and mustard sauce, parsley purée, potatoes

Technologies for capturing clear, pure tastes have been refined from the traditional to butter to more surprising infusions, mousses, etc. You could consider that the latest in pure nouvelle cuisine was reached in the early 90s, with Loiseau, Robuchon and Veyrat. And water.

The other day, Pti made a traditional nettle soup – I had no idea that it would have potatoes and leeks in there and cook for fourty minutes. To me, educated by Loiseau, a nettle soup was only water, salt and nettles, the nettles cooked à l’anglaise for a few minutes, stopped in ice, then blended with the water they cooked in. Same deal with the parsley sauce, for instance.
Loiseau's Jerusalemen artichoke soup
De Loiseau, 26 oct 2007

More than lightness, Nouvelle Cuisine can be characterized by a focus on ingredients and the clarity of their taste. By comparison, traditional cuisine, the Escoffier style, is more about transformation of ingredients, the magic of the act of cooking. Turning stuff that grows in or on the soil into delicious food. It's not that they did not use the best ingredients they have. Cooks always knew that you can't make good food without good ingredients. But in the traditional cuisine, cooking was about the transformation, the recipe, and how to create a taste. Stews, quenelles, are examples of long transformative processes creating pleasant and arguably artificial feelings in mouth. In nouvelle cuisine, it is about emphasising a taste more than about creating one. There is both a more natural and a more artistic approach in a way.

You can taste the pre-nouvelle cuisine approach in places like Michel Rostang or l’Auberge Bressane. A pasta or potato gratin are good example, or crêpes Suzettes. Another comparison I like to use is that the difference between Nouvelle and Ancienne Cuisine is reflected in the difference between Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine. Basically (no offence), in a Vietnamese Bo-Bun you can identify every ingredient clearly. In a Chinese Imperial style chicken, there is fusion of ingredients, and while it is delicious, it is actually hard to tell what exactly it is that you are eating.
Not nouvelle. Not bad, but not nouvelle.

There’s the same difference between nouvelle and ancienne cuisine. A classic of nouvelle cuisine, emphasized to the point of caricature, if you ask me, in Michel Bras’ Gargouillou, is the separate cooking of different vegetables. A Senderens approach to Ratatouille, a Loiseau ragout de legumes, as opposed to their traditional counterpart, all rely on separate cooking and last minute assembly.
Passard's couscous de légumes

Of course there has been evolution and progress inside nouvelle cuisine. The first stage was, say, Bocuse, maybe Point, and their food does not taste that distinct to our palates anymore. But if you compare Bocuse to Rostang or to your (OK, my) grandmother’s cooking, you will feel the clarity of taste, the lightening of traditional recipes not in a dietetic but in an aesthetic sense. One dish which I think is a good example of the revolution the Nouvelle Cuisine was is that salade de rougets I had the other day at Gérard Besson. Suddenly, the plate is full of colors and distinct taste, while still being, formally, the traditional salad – a salad in which everything is mixed and soaked and hardly recognizable. As far as the plating is concerned, in Nouvelle Cuisine, it is a logical consequence of the search for control of the gustative experience and the separation and purity of flavors.
Besson's salade de rougets De Gérard Besson

By the way, what is the difference between Nouvelle Cuisine and California cuisine? I would argue, none, essentially. Except that they rely, like all good cuisines, on local and therefore different ingredients and traditions. Traditions reinterpreted, even reinvented: from Bocuse’s chicken to Loiseau’s frogs, Nouvelle Cuisine has been exactly that.

In the Robuchon school, there even some sort of conciliation between traditional and nouvelle cuisine: some ingredients are magnified with clear tastes, but melty, fusionned, regressive tastes are also present like in his pumpkin soup or his potato purée. This Robuchon synthesis is very apparent in the contrast of his two signature dishes: the aromatic herb salad and the potato purée. Both were served on the side of a perfect roast lamb, by the way.
So much work for this purée
De Table de JR, 14 mai 08

When opposing Nouvelle Cuisine to the restaurants that emerged in the 90s, many of them techno-molecular-something, I think that the operating word is cuisine. In French, it is what people do at home as well as the name of the room. It is how the people prepare food. Traditional and nouvelle cuisine are both cuisines – essentially, cooks do the same things we do at home and they do the same things we do. Only they’re professionals. And indeed, while places like Rostang or l’Auberge Bressane, or even Bocuse or Besson, use very similar techniques to what we use at home, the “advanced” nouvelle cuisine is extrelly work-intensive. Robuchon’s purée require hard work for sure, so does Bocuse’s gazpacho or pea soup made from small vegetables pealed one by one. Veyrat invented fat free fries but they take 40 minutes to do instead of 10. And I mentioned earlier using ten different pots to prepare a vegetable stew. You have to have staff and a professional kitchen.

By opposition, what you eat at Adria’s, Blumenthal’s, Amador’s, even at l’Astrance, is not cuisine in the sense that it has not much to do with feeding you, it is not an extension or a modification of how you would cook at home. It just has nothing to do with it. What emerged since Nouvelle Cuisine arguably peaked is not better food but a shift or return of emphasis on other dimensions of the fine dining experience than having the best possible food. Novelty and surprise are major factors, as is the show dimension. Adria offers, it seems, an unparalleled stimulation of the mind and a unique reconsideration of the nature of the culinary experience. Amador is both playful and generous.
Vinaigrette „en cocoon“
Inside the cloud is a ball of balsamic, while you inject the olive oil
in your mouth thank to the device on the right
De Amador (May 8th, 2008)

Come to think of it, what else could young chefs do to differentiate themselves? The champions of nouvelle cuisine had created a new orthodoxy and of course set their own bar for excellence. How would you make better, more intense and pure food than Robuchon or Pacaud or Senderens when they’re on? You can’t. They’ve just perfected their art the same way an Escoffier probably had before them. You just can’t beat them to their own game. But you can get tired of their game. Some people do.

vendredi 12 septembre 2008

Democrats, just say it! She rocks!

Regular readers know that I have been an Obama supporter for a long time, and obviously the change in the dynamics of this election since Sarah Palin was chosen by McCain had me worried. So I'd like to say it, and mostly to suggest democrats to say it too: Palin rocks!

The Republican ads, the discourse, even Karl Rove's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal pretending to give an advice to Obama to stop his attacks on Palin when Obama has not, in fact, attacked Palin: this all demonstrates that the fight about Palin is the fight the Republicans want to have. Why wouldn't they? She's good-looking, she's bold, she is indeniably different from anything we've seen on a presidential ticket before, and she is definitely a woman. And even the supposed skeletons in her closet are only likely to make her like more: So she was a pitbull with her former brother-in-law? Many think, and say that a pitbul is exactly what we need. So she believes in God and creation? That's better than being a godless liberal, many think. Plus, any questionable attack on a woman mechanically creates a defence reaction among some undecided women, and men, and with reasons. After all, claims that Palin is a monster are widely exaggerated. She's obviously not a liberal, but the thing that is the worst about her for us Obama supporters is that she's creating a strong movement in favour of John McCain.

Democrats can't win if the question is "do you like Wonder Woman?". Of course we like her. Who doesn't? God, I may well love her. I don't want her as President of course, but that's not based on her being a monster. They need to bring back the debate on "do you want more Bush?" (or even "what kind of change do you want?", etc) . So here's my proposition to Democrats and other Obama supporters: concede the point publicly. Governor Palin is an extraordinary woman and an exciting candidate. That fight can't be won, and obviously the Rove gang won't let it fade either. The Obama camp needs to clearly say that this fight is lost: Palin rocks! That way they will efficiently diffuse the Republican tactic of pretending that Palin is attacked. I'd like to see a McCain spokesperson saying "the claim from the Obama camp that Palin rocks is offensive and sexist and the only question in this election are about Palin's life and family".

And so here is, free of charge, a draft for an ad to run in all 50 states day and night: "The McCain campaign wants to make this election about Sarah Palin. It makes sense. She's an extraordinary woman and an uncommon candidate. But this election is not about Sarah Palin. It is about our country and our future. Do you really want more of the same policies?"

Come to think of it, the Republican VP president is not the traditional attack dog: instead, they invented the attacked dog, which is really new.

jeudi 4 septembre 2008

Le Tastevin, gloire de la grande bourgeoise française

Agrandir le plan

English version coming soon

Maisons-Laffitte, ce petit paradis presque inconnu, au bord des Yvelines... Il y a ici une belle maison bourgeoise, une vraie, comme on ne s'attend pas à en trouver à 15min de l'Etoile. Tous les jours, c'est comme un déjeuner du dimanche chez une vieille tante fortunée: sa belle demeure impeccable et cirée, avec un grand escalier tout vernis, des bibelots et des tapis, des lambris impeccables, un gentil labrador, un vieux chef qui connait la chanson, et aussi la profession.

Et puis comme vous le voyez, au premier rayon de soleils, il y a les tables non seulement sur la terrasse mais encore dans le jardin, séparées par des petits bosquets.

Mais ça n'est pas tout. Dans une attraction comme ça, on pourrait s'attendre à des prestations culinaires un peu relâchées, confites dans leur certitude et leur approximation. Au lieu de ça, on a une longue carte très classique et très bien réalisée et plein de suggestions du jour. Ce jour-là, il y avait raviolis de homard -- ça ne se refuse pas. La pâte est fine, parfaitement dosée entre ferme et fondant, le homard est ferme avec ses fibres bien serrées, et mes quatre beaux raviolis sont posés sur un beau lit d'épinard frais juste "tombés", un jus de crustacé joue plus les assaisonnements que les sauces.

Classique de la maison ensuite avec une belle pomme de ris de veau pommes/câpres flanquée d'une invraisemblable charlotte de macaronis aux girolles. Quand on commence à voir des structures faites en pâtes, on sait qu'on a changé de dimension. Même si, dans le fond, des macaronis juste cuits à la minute avec leur girolles auraient été meilleurs, le charme de cette présentation à la Escoffier est imparable.

On est d'autant plus emballé, ceci dit, que la cuisson du ris est vraiment parfaite (chapeau, ça n'est pas si courant même dans les grandes maisons), et que l'équilibre de la recette, sous ses allures balourdes (du ris, des pâtes et des champignons), est assurée par l'acidité des dés de pomme et des câpres.

Et puis le portrait ne serait pas complet sans un annuaire de cave qui a tout bon dans la grande tradition, vins jeunes et vieux, châteaux alignés comme à la parade, Raveneau et Trimbach, conseil compétent. N'attendez pas de vins exotiques, néanmoins, à moins que, dans l'esprit de la maison, le Languedoc ne soit pour vous la quintessence de l'hétérodoxie vinicole.

Bien sûr, c'est pas donné. Mon repas d'hier soir était à 151€ pp avec un millefeuille et une bouteille de Cassis blanc. Il y a un menu dégustation à 95€, et un menu du déjeuner en semaine ("menu d'affaires") à 45€. Mais le dépaysement, et le charme certes discret mais surtout éternel de la bourgeoisie, est à ce prix, du moins tant qu'on reste à portée de vue de la Tour Eiffel.