Remembering Paul Bocuse
"Without butter, without eggs, there is no reason to come to France."
Paul Bocuse
They say his favourite ingredient was butter - but hey he was 91 when he died earlier this week. So butter must be good for you.
A veritable icon - even the President of France gave a speech on his passing,
I can recount a couple of memories of Paul Bocuse. Yes I once even saw the man in person - he swept through his restaurant in Lyon, retinue in tow and ignored his customers - in spite of him having said elsewhere that the client was the most important thing,
And this is the thing about Paul Bocuse. I read a few obituaries, including Emanuel Macron's one in French in which he described him as a mythical figure and that all the chefs in France would be crying in their kitchens. Anyway somewhere in all the obituaries somebody described him as modest but grandiose - and I guess this sums him up really.
His food was based on simple and traditional French food and yet it was very grand. As were his restaurants. Here are three of his most famous dishes: a truffle soup (covered in puff pastry), a fricassee of Bresse chicken and red mullet with potato scales. If you click on the pictures you get a bigger view. Note the elaborate plates.
"If an architect makes a mistake, he grows ivy to cover it. If a doctor makes a mistake, he covers it with soil. If a cook makes a mistake, he covers it with some sauce and says it is a new recipe." Paul Bocuse
Was he referring to the chicken dish I wonder?
We went to his 'home' restaurant just outside Lyon for my 50th birthday celebration dinner. I remember I was still skinny and I wore a green velvety culotte kind of suit. I loved that dress/suit thing. There is a photo somewhere taken outside the restaurant but I really have no idea where it is. We were too overwhelmed to take photos inside. I will have a look and maybe post it later. But here are two photographs I found on the net which show the grandeur of the place.
We were somewhat overwhelmed by it all. Although we had agreed that we would not worry about the price (it was so horrendous to us that we framed the bill, which still hangs on our wall), nevertheless we could not bring ourselves to have the cheese course, or to have more than a half bottle of wine. I regret this now. We should have really, really splurged - particularly on the wine. The cheese came in a massive trolley and looked to be almost all goat's cheese, so I maybe wouldn't have missed that. The desserts were on a trolley though - maybe one could have had several, though I wasn't game to test it out. When I look at the bill, none of the food looks very complicated or grand - it's simple food - smoked salmon with dill for example. But it was indeed all totally delicious. And I even had snails - for the amuse bouche which you got for free at the beginning was snails - so you had to eat it. And it was truly delicious. I guess it was the sauce more than the snails which were a bit chewy but anyway - they were surprisingly good and it was no hardship to eat them.
This was also the only restaurant to which I have been (ever) where the sommelier actually tasted the wine for us. I guess he thought he had better taste buds than us - and no doubt he did, but it was a precious few drops of our very expensive half bottle of Meursault. He had a shallow little metal cup hung around his neck on a big chain which he used. I remember seeing him as we left, on his way home dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
We also once dined at Paul Bocuse in Melbourne where he had a restaurant in Daimaru - the Japanese department store that used to dominate Melbourne Central. I cannot find a photograph of this. We went there for an anniversary dinner with some friends who also have an anniversary at about the same time. I think it was somebody's silver wedding anniversary. Anyway - the ambience - though grand and heavily velvet I seem to remember was a bit dark and the entrance was in the shopping centre so not so grand. The food however, was really good - well it was cooked by Philippe Mouchel, who has gone on to bigger and better things - his latest venture being Philippe in the city. The thing I remember about this meal is that our friend had ordered some lamb with eggplant because she loves eggplant. But there was no eggplant, and she commented on this when her empty plate was collected. The apologies were profuse and the waiter who had taken the order was maligned for not having told her that eggplant had not been used because it was the wrong cut of lamb for eggplant. She had loved the dish anyway and we all felt somewhat concerned for the original waiter. But credit to the restaurant - she was given a free dessert to make up for her disappointment.
So what did I learn about Paul Bocuse from the obituaries? That he was a bit of a misogynist - loved women for all the wrong reasons - he simultaneously lived with three of them - and also famously said they could not be great chefs, even though he had in fact learnt his trade from a female three Michelin star chef.
That he was the first chef to really make being a chef glamorous - he was a very canny businessman as well as a great chef. He made television programs and wrote books, though I do not have any of them. He opened restaurants all over the world under his name including in Disneyworld, he had pots and pans made in his name. All the things that celebrity chefs do now he started them off. He got his three Michelin stars in 1965 and has retained them ever since. Mind you he also had a very poor opinion of food critics. But then I guess he became a bit godlike and so it didn't matter what he said. He put Lyon on the food map and started a school for chefs. I was given a gift by my daughter-in-law of some money to be spent on a short course at his school in Lyon, but alas they had stopped having short courses and so we spent it on a wonderful meal out somewhere instead. But he championed his school and set up a food competition which has become one of the most prestigious in the world.
"It is our duty to give meaning to the life of future generations by sharing our knowledge and experience; by teaching an appreciation of work well done and a respect for nature, the source of all life; by encouraging the young to venture off the beaten path and avoid complacency by challenging their emotions." Paul Bocuse
He was actually one of the instigators of the Nouvelle Cuisine, though he later fell out with them and said:
"The so-called nouvelle cuisine usually means not enough on your plate and too much on your bill."
Not that I remember his own meals being over generous.
He has the highest honour available in France - the Légion d'Honneur
I doubt he has been cooking in recent years. He was suffering from Parkinson's and had had heart surgery - and he was 91. But what a life. He leaves a wife, two children, restaurants, a cooking school, a prize and, I believe, a statue outside his restaurant.
He was in the French Resistance and was indeed wounded at one point by the Germans. In his sixties he posed nude for a magazine!
Another one gone. Who next?
POSTSCRIPT
Apologies for not posting anything for a week or so. It was a combination of interstate guests - who have now gone home - and a big task (film society newsletter) - now completed. So hopefully I am back to a daily post. Potential topics have certainly been piling up.
