Bonjour tout le monde, and a very warm welcome to the Good Life France podcast, in which we talk about everything you want to know about France and more.I'm your host, Janine Marsh.I was born in London, as you can probably hear.
but I feel a bit French, certainly in my heart, as I've had a home in the north of France for more than 20 years now.
I'm the editor of the Good Life France magazine, which is totally free to read online at magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com, and I'm also the editor of a website about France, thegoodlifefrance.com.
I write books, I explore France year round, from the north to the south, the east to the west, and everywhere in between.And next year, I'll also be hosting exclusive tours of Paris,
the authentic beautiful Paris I've discovered over decades of exploration and research. And if you're interested in joining me, you'll find details on the website and in the magazine, or just email me.
You could say that France, my adopted country, is my obsession.When I'm not traveling, writing, or looking after my many animals, I have a lot of animals, four dogs, seven cats, chickens, ducks, geese, and a rescue dove called Doris.
Well, then I'd love to chat to you on this podcast alongside my podcast partner, Olivier.
Bonjour, bonjour tout le monde, bonjour and bienvenue, welcome.I'm Oli and I live in Lyon in the south of France, the gastronomic capital of France.And if I sound a little bit British, I think I do.That's because I lived in the UK for 20 years.
So let's get going and get stuck into our podcast topic.Janine, tell us about the theme for today's episode, please.
Well, Ollie, it's funny you should mention that Lyon is the gastronomic capital of France, because today is a foodie episode.A little while ago, I was lucky enough to go to a very famous restaurant in France, in Lyon.
In fact, I'd actually been for a beer with you and your partner Christelle in the afternoon that day, and I had walked my socks off in Lyon, climbing up hills, exploring Roman ruins, hidden passageways, popping into museums,
I'd saved a very special experience till the last.It was the restaurant of the late, great Paul Bocuse, one of the most famous chefs of France who was nicknamed the Pope of Gastronomy.
And before I met you in Lyon, I'd actually been to a cookery school to learn about cooking near Lyon at the Ecole du Casse. And Chef Ducasse is the most Michelin-starred chef in the world.
And it all made me think, who started the whole haute cuisine thing in the first place and why?So this episode is dedicated to the history and creators of haute cuisine.
Oh, that's great.Good idea, Janine.It's a fascinating topic.
Haute cuisine has a long and incredible history, and there are some truly incredible events that helped to shape French cuisine, including the French Revolution, plus some famous characters who made haute cuisine a thing.
It's all about obsessive chefs and edible art. The Good Life France Podcast.Everything you want to know about France and more with Janine Marsh and Olivier Joffrey.Okay, let's start with what exactly is Haute Cuisine.Literally, it means high cooking.
When we say Haute Cuisine, we mean dishes that are high quality, grande cuisine. the very best ingredients prepared by the most skilled chefs.And of course, that means we are talking about expensive food, premium prices.
It's fine dining at its most elevated.
Oak cuisine is considered to be culinary art.It's very refined and it involves a lot of elaborate preparation.And like you say, very high quality ingredients.
A few years ago, if you went to an oak cuisine restaurant in France, you'd probably find ingredients came from all around the world.But these days there's a real movement going on that focuses on local and seasonal ingredients.
I've noticed on my travels over the last few years that chefs really want to make sure that they use local and create partnerships with local producers. And they're very much into sustainable production, too.
And that is changing, I think, the whole cuisine outlook in France in a good way.The top level food doesn't now need to involve products from all around the world, but it does involve some.
So, for instance, vanilla, which isn't easy to grow in France. But where did it all start?
I mean, you can get fancy food in every country, but nowhere has the equivalent of haute cuisine a very French expression, although it's known and used globally.
Well, we have to go back to the 17th century to see where it started, to a chef named François-Pierre de Lavarenne.He moved French cooking away from its medieval roots and published a cookbook in 1651 called Le Cuisinier François.
This was revolutionary, instead of massive hearty feasts that relied on spices to cover up less than fresh ingredients, no I'm not kidding, it's true, he introduced lighter sauces, fresh herbs and more refined seasonal ingredients.
His work is often seen as the foundation of modern French cooking and haute cuisine as we know it.Of course, this was all about the preparation and presentation of food for the nobility, not for the peasants.
And this is generally seen as the start of it all.
nobility of course always had better food than anyone else.William the Conqueror was said to really love good food and he bought the art of French cooking to England when he conquered it in 1066.
The culture of French dishes at the time was strictly for the rich.Us peasants, as you said, continued to eat whatever was affordable as usual, which was mostly a lot of cabbage soup,
But in the royal kitchens of England, from the time of William, French chefs ruled.And they still do.And French cuisine is really, really popular for the royal family.It still is.It will always be, apparently.
In fact, an advert posted for a sous-chef based in Buckingham Palace in 2021 required that applicants be, quote, thoroughly trained in classical French cuisine, unquote.
By the mid 1600s, having a great chef was a sign of your wealth and power.And under King Louis XIV, one man in particular made the financing of fine food very famous.That was hard to say.
François Vattel, maître d'hôtel and right-hand man to two of the most powerful men in France, was responsible for organizing wonderful and sumptuous feasts and banquets for the court of King Louis XIV.
In April 1771, Bertel was working for the Prince de Conde, who held a party at his Chateau de Chantilly for King Louis and his court.600 noblemen and noblewomen, plus their staff, around 2,000 people in total.
God, can you imagine having a party for 2,000 people just coming to your house?I don't think I'd fit them all in.Anyway, for three days and nights, these people had to be fed, entertained, and have somewhere to sleep.
Not only that, Vatel had been given 15 days to prepare the lavish feasts and everything.
It was a massive job to look after all of this and though Vatel didn't cook the food, he oversaw the supplies for the food, the running of the kitchen and everything had to be absolutely perfect.
He also had to organise housing for everyone, firework displays, orchestras, entertainers, wine and food deliveries, extra staff, had to do everything.And everything was done, but just in the nick of time.
It did, though, mean that Paul Votel hardly slept a wink. He worked all day and all night to sort it out.
The guests arrived.It was all going fairly well, but not everything went to plan.Apparently not enough cream was delivered.So Vattel whipped it up with some added sugar and vanilla and allegedly created Chantilly cream.
Probably not true, but the French do love a good story.Disaster averted.
That disaster was averted indeed.And OK. That was probably a made-up story, Ollie.No one actually knows who invented Chantilly Cream.But it could be true, and we never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Anyway, another problem cropped up when an extra 75 guests turned up.God, can you imagine that?Anyway, there was not enough meat to go round. But no one seemed to notice very much, so the banquet continued.Phew, another problem solved.
But, because there is a but, on the second day of the festivities, the delivery man arrived with fresh fish for that day's main dish.But, horror, there wasn't enough fish to go round.Vatel asked the cart driver, is that all there is?
The man thought he meant, is that all there is on your cart?And said, yes, he didn't mention that more carts were on the way.
Orvatel was absolutely horrified.Not enough food for the very important guests.His reputation would be ruined.He just couldn't take any more.He went to his room and he fell on his sword.Literally.
And you know, the fish turned up, the chef cooked it, no one knew that there had been a problem at all, Vattel's staff thought he'd gone up to his room for a rest, and when they went up to tell him, the rest of the fish arrived, they found his poor, lifeless body.
Some may say he was being overdramatic, but the man was just exhausted and likely having a major breakdown.
Poor man.But by his final act, Vattel, in his own strange way, set a very high bar for those who followed in his footsteps.
His proof of his level of devotion to producing the very best made him much more famous than the food that was served ever did.
Chefs didn't really become famous until after the French Revolution in 1789, when all the nobles were knocked off their perches, all of their chefs were out of the job.
Before that, if you wanted to open a dining establishment, you had to join a guild run by the government, which, of course, demanded a tax payment for the pleasure of which bought a lot of people off.
Generally, there was just one meal a day served at one o'clock. and it was whatever the cook gave you.There was no choice.The quality was not good.People went to these places to survive, not to enjoy the taste.
There were roasters and caterers around as well, but they had to sell whole pieces, not individual portions.So going out for a meal wasn't really a big thing then. The one thing you could get easily was soup.
There was no soup guild, so clever cooks called the soup a restorative, like a health food.And that eventually morphed into the word restaurant.So they served only one dish, a slowly simmered bone broth called bouillon.
And actually in Paris, in what is now the Rue du Louvre, there's an engraved stone plaque on the wall of a building, which was one of the first soup restaurants in Paris.And it's in Latin, but it translates as
Come to me, those whose stomachs ache, and I will restore you.
After the French Revolution, the chefs were like, what are we going to do?We have no jobs.
And since no one was really taking much notice of the pre-revolution restaurant taxes, they headed to the cities where they could hopefully find customers and set up their own restaurants.
Within a year, 50 lavish restaurants had opened in Paris alone.
And this really kick-started the whole French cuisine thing, though not haute cuisine itself.But it's a really important part of the history of gastronomy in France.
It brought the art of French cooking into the public arena, making it a respected profession, and even more important, a very French profession.The French cooks transformed themselves from household servants to masters of the art of fine dining.
Old cuisine, as we know it, really began in the 1800s.And there were two chefs who were really fundamental to its invention.The first was Marie-Antoine Carême.It is said that he was one of 25 children born into a poor Parisian family around 1784.
He was abandoned during the French Revolution.And at 10 years old, he started work as a kitchen boy.No wages, but he had a room and food.
His talent was evident right from the start and by the time he was 15 years old, just as the French Revolution came to an end after 10 years of upheaval, Karem was working in a patisserie.
His boss at the cake shop encouraged him to learn to read and write and the young boy spent all of his spare time studying books about art and architecture in the National Library, which thanks to the French Revolution was now open to all.
What he read influenced him to design masterpieces in the kitchen using pastry, marzipan and sugar.
Karem became famous for his creations and by the age of 19 he set up his own bakery in Rue de la Paix in Paris and daily people began queuing to look in the windows at the latest creation of the young baker.
He made replicas of famous buildings, sometimes as big as four feet tall.And that's what people like to see in the windows of the patisserie.They've never seen anything like it before.
And funny enough, these grand concoctions are still a thing to this day in France.So I saw a replica of the Chateau of Valence made from sugar at a bakery in Valencia in the Loire Valley.
And recently, in fact, last week when I was in Montmartre, I was in a chocolate shop.They had a chocolate cathedral of Notre Dame made from 58 kilos of chocolate.
Yeah, I couldn't eat a whole one.
And Karem worked for the great and the good, including Napoleon.He was commissioned to create the wedding cake for Napoleon's marriage to his second bride, Marie-Louise of Austria.
And he worked in Valence at the chateau in the kitchens of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, Napoleon's chief diplomat.And here he learned the savory side of the kitchen.
In 1815, aged about 30, Carême went to England to be head chef to the Prince Regent who became King George IV.George was known to be a man who liked to indulge himself.
You're never going to believe this, but his favourite breakfast consisted of two pigeons, three beef steaks, almost a whole bottle of white wine, a glass of champagne, two glasses of port and a glass of brandy.
Does that sound like your breakfast, Ollie?
No, not at all.That's a tiny bit too much.
Well, in 1817, Kerem created a menu for a dinner for George to welcome the Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia to Brighton.On the menu were a whopping 120 dishes, including eight different soups, 40 entrees and 32 desserts.
I don't even know if I can name 32 desserts.Maybe I could.I won't.But I could probably if I tried hard.But it's massively impressive.Karim's reputation was enormous.
He went on to cook for Alexander I Tsar of Russia, and the feast got even more elaborate, up to 200 dishes.Karim made a fortune.He was the first chef to become rich and famous, and he was the world's first celebrity chef.
And Karim refined what he called his mother sauces.These sauces, béchamel, velouté, espagnol and allemande, that are the cornerstone of modern French cuisine.Did you know that sauce espagnol, Spanish sauce, has absolutely nothing to do with Spain?
The legend is that the bride of King Louis XIII had Spanish cooks who put tomatoes in the basic brown gravy the French were used to.And everyone loved it.So it was called Spanish sauce.Why not?It's the basic sauce for things like bœuf bourguignon.
These sauces are used as a base for hundreds of other sauces.And if you speak to any French chef, they all tell you that without a good sauce, a dish is nothing.The sauces are an essential element of haute cuisine today.
That's true.I've actually been told that by several chefs too.So Kerem, he also perfected the souffle.He became the first chef to pipe his meringue through a pastry bag.And he also introduced the standard chef's uniform.
the same double-breasted white coat and top, you know, the tall white hat, that is still worn by chefs today.He's also credited with creating the first ever menu, and he went on to write several best-selling cookbooks.
And he often, well, pretty much always, included a portrait of himself so that people would recognize him because he quite liked the adoration.His books are sold all over Europe, spreading the ethos of haute cuisine.
And the second important chef was Auguste Escoffier, who, like Vattel and Carême before him, made attention to detail and top quality ingredients, the signature of his work.
Born in 1846, Auguste was thrown into the world of professional kitchens when he was just 12 years old, when he started an apprenticeship at his uncle's restaurant in Nice.
Working in a restaurant then was not a pleasant experience.Everybody drank alcohol.I mean, a lot.So they were fairly crazy a lot of the time.And poor old 13 year old August.
Well, he couldn't reach the stove because he was quite short and everyone laughed at him.Later, he would wear platform shoes to make himself taller.
But little August had huge talent.It was clear almost immediately that he would be a brilliant chef.
He later wrote, I said to myself, although I had not originally intended to enter this profession, since I am in it, I will work in such a fashion that I will rise above the ordinary and I will do my best to raise again the prestige of the chef de cuisine.
he certainly did that.When he was 19, Escoffier left Nice and went to Paris to work in a fashionable restaurant.Then he joined the French army as a chef, and there he learned about making the most of every scrap of food.
He even studied canning so that he could reduce waste, and he later started a canning business selling tinned tomatoes, of all things.
And at 34, he got married to a woman he hardly saw for the next 30 years, because by now he had a reputation for being a great chef and he moved to Monte Carlo to work at the Grand Hotel, where he introduced a fixed price menu and refashioned how food was served.
It had been traditional for everything to arrive at once and be plonked on the table.He introduced courses to French dining.
While he was in Monte Carlo, he met a man called Cesar Ritz.Yes, that Ritz, though he didn't have a hotel there.Escoffier and Ritz worked at the Savoy Hotel in London.
And here Escoffier became a legend, like really a legend, much more even than Gordon Ramsay, maybe.So the hotel became the most fashionable restaurant in London. Diners absolutely sighed over Escoffier's cuisse de nymphe at l'horreur.
Did I say that right, Ollie?You say it.Yeah, you did.Oh, I did.Oh, my God.I'm almost French.So this translates to nymphe thighs at dawn.Frog's legs, basically.Frog's legs on a glassy pool of champagne jelly.Yes, he got the British to eat frog's legs.
Well done him. Royalty and the nouveau riche were his clients.He was so famous that he even influenced British society.
It wasn't a done thing for a respectable woman to dine at a restaurant in the 19th century, but the temptations of Escoffier at the Savoy proved impossible to resist.
It became fashionable for rich women to wear their finest clothes and jewelry and be seen and admired.
Over the years, Escoffier worked at the very best restaurants, in which he created a system of à la carte menus.He simplified hugely complicated recipes of the earlier centuries, but he made the dishes taste even better.
Cooking for the very rich, the very famous royalty, he became nicknamed the King of Chefs and the Chef of Kings. He then went on to collaborate with Cesar Ritz to set up the Ritz Hotel Development Company.
The first hotel opened in Paris in 1898, and it was the first hotel in the world to have electricity on every floor and rooms with private bathrooms.
And Escoffier collected celebrity fans along the way, naming some of his dishes for them, such as Peach Melba, dedicated to the famous Australian opera singer Nelly Melba.
He wrote books too, and he introduced the brigade de cuisine approach to the kitchen. This meant that duties were delegated depending on the station.
He created numerous roles, a pâtissier, you know, a saucier, a rôtissier, and a garde-manger who organized the pantry.He banned alcohol, I think that was a good idea, and instead served a refreshing malt drink to keep his chefs hydrated.
He was the first chef to be awarded Légion d'honneur and his work hugely influenced haute cuisine.
I was just thinking, can you imagine if he hadn't banned alcohol and everyone in the kitchen still drank wine like it was going out of fashion.That would make Gordon Ramsay's nightmare kitchens a bit more fun, wouldn't it?
And what about haute cuisine today?Well, it's a thriving industry in France and all around the world.Though some things have changed from those early days, much is the same. The whole philosophy of oak cuisine is the same everywhere.
It's about elegant, artistic dishes, meticulous preparation and great presentation.It's also about small or moderate sizes of dishes.They are so special that generous sized portions just aren't necessary.
The whole idea is that you are to savour every single morsel. Unlike in those early days, now haute cuisine is accessible to everyone, not just the very rich.And though it can be expensive, it isn't always.
I've been to Michelin-starred restaurants where two courses cost the same as two courses in my local restaurant, which is definitely not haute cuisine.
Haute cuisine is less about feeding your hunger and more about feeding your senses, really.The flavors and the presentation are so elevated that it feels like an experience rather than just a meal.
Absolutely.I mean, there's a real difference between your neighbourhood bistro, which don't get me wrong, I love, I don't know, cuisine restaurant.So let's paint a picture.Imagine you go to a bistro and you order steak frits.
and you get a perfectly cooked steak and a pile of golden fries, maybe a little crisp salad on the side.Delicious, right?That's your classic restaurant dish.Hearty, tasty, relatively simple.The focus is on flavor and comfort.
Now, haute cuisine is a whole different ballgame.The focus shifts from volume to precision.Instead of a big steak and fries, you might get a small portion of the finest cut of beef.
served with a tiny mound of finely mashed potatoes infused with truffle, maybe a single carrot slice that's been roasted to caramelise perfection.Every component on the plate has been thought through, tested and executed with the utmost care.
There's often a theatrical element as well.The dish might be presented at your table, in a certain way or served under a glass dome filled with aromatic smoke.Oh God, I'm hungry now.Oh yeah, I'm becoming so hungry as well.
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The film Ratatouille showcases not just the artistry of cooking, but the passion and precision that goes into oak cuisine.And yeah, sure, it's a kid's movie, but any foodie watching it can't help but get emotional during the final scenes.
Oh, I've got goosebumps now just thinking of it, where the dish of Ratatouille, a humble vegetable dish, is elevated to oak cuisine status.Or is that just me?
No, it's me as well. One of the most famous haute cuisine dishes in France at the Bocuse restaurant you mentioned earlier in Lyon is a soup of Truffes Noires Elysee, black truffle soup of the Elysee.
Paul Bocuse was a famous chef with three mentioned stars, which is itself an indication of haute cuisine.
By the mid 1970s, when he received a letter from the Elysee Palace stating he was to be awarded with the Medal of the Legion d'Honneur, but it was a hoax.
Yeah, very.But the president got to hear about this horrible hoax and he decided to make it come true.
Brilliant.So Paul Bocuse made in his honour, in the honour of the president, what would become the most famous mushroom soup in France, perhaps in history.It's on the menu of the Bocuse restaurant at a slightly panic inducing price.
I'll just be honest.But it is the epitome of haute cuisine, art, perfectionism and a dash of flair.It's made with vegetables, beef, foie gras and black truffles.
And then you add Noilly Prat, liquor and truffle juice and beef consommé as well.
And then you cover the soup dish with puff pastry and you cook it like that so that when you break through the pastry, The aroma of the soup wafts up to your quivering nostrils.
I can smell it now.I'm just thinking about it.Yes, my nostrils are quivering.
So are mine.And that, my friends, it's haute cuisine.It's not just about fancy food.It is about artistry, precision, and a true celebration of ingredients and technique.
And whether you're indulging in a multi-course tasting menu in Paris or watching a rat cook up a storm in an animated film, Oat cuisine is about appreciating the finest things of life.
Thank you very much, Janine.And we hope you've enjoyed this foodie episode of the Good Life France podcast. This is The Good Life France podcast.Oh la la!Le podcast The Good Life France.
We just want to say a huge thank you to all of you listening to our podcast and to everyone for sharing it too.
We really love sharing the France we know and love with you, the authentic and real France with its wonderful history, culture, gastronomy, wine and much more.It always amazes us that people are listening in about 150 countries around the world.
Yes, thank you so much everyone.Wherever you are, we really appreciate it.
You've been listening to me, Janine Marsh and Olivier Joffre, and you can find me and a ton of information about France, where to visit, culture, history, recipes, everything France at thegoodlifefrance.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast, a weekly newsletter about France and a totally brilliant, completely free magazine, which you can read at magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com.
But for now, it's au revoir from me and goodbye from me.Speak to you soon.
The Good Life France Podcast.Everything you want to know about France and more with Janine Marsh and Olivier Joffrey.
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