Nouvelle Cuisine | The Rambling Epicure

Is haute cuisine still relevant?

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, November 18, 2015 Permalink 0

Is French cuisine dead? Not even close.

Is haute cuisine still relevant? Yes. What’s happening with it and does it still matter?

In 2009, Michael Steinberger, in his book Au Revoir to All That, declared that the ostensible decline of Michelin-starred restaurants mirrors the decline of France. While it is true that French cuisine, in particular the haute cuisine of the gastronomic palaces, may be threatened by high overheads and a weak economy, it would be wrong and premature to announce its demise. Profit margins are slim in high-end, labor-intensive restaurants, and labor laws are strict. The over-indulgence of the grandes tables of the past with their thousands of bottles of ancient claret in the cellar has been compromised by taxes on stock and thirty-nine hour work weeks that simply don’t work in the restaurant business, even if it’s four hours more than in other sectors.

Despite all that, French cuisine is still alive and kicking, and the number of Michelin star restaurants increases every year: today France has 26 three-star restaurants, four more than in 2000, and 80 two-star restaurants, ten more than in 2000, according to the Financial Times. In 2015, there are 25 per cent more one-star restaurants. These palaces remain quintessentially French in their food, service and organization. Simplified versions of these chefs’ dishes are published in cooking magazines and imitated in millions of homes around France, making it relevant even in middle class households. French families may not eat in such establishments often, but they will save and go to them once a year for a special occasion. This French devotion to their food traditions will ensure its survival.

What’s the Difference in Haute Cuisine and French Cuisine?

Published by Jonell Galloway + Sunday, November 15, 2015 Permalink 0

There are many kinds of French cuisine. It is not limited to the haute cuisine accessible only to the rich.

by Jonell Galloway

What many of us think of as “French cuisine” is actually haute cuisine, the cuisine that evolved from the aristocratic cuisine of the royalty. This cuisine was centered mainly in Paris and Versailles. Regional cuisine as we know it today did not even exist at the time, since regions didn’t exist until after the Revolution. Until the Revolution, there were provinces and feudal “kingdoms,” abolished afterward. Cuisine bourgeoise, the cooking of the upper middle classes and later middle classes, developed after the Revolution, and gradually filtered down to the broader population.

Regions didn’t formally exist by name until 1890, so there was little meaning attached to the word “region”. One cooked and ate what was available, what one grew and raised and that varied widely. Even the gruel was made with different grains in different regions. Regions only formed an identity after this. Knowledge of regional cuisines increased as travel became easier and accessible to all, especially after the generalization of cars.

French cuisine has always consisted of two tiers: haute cuisine and regional cuisine. Elements of haute cuisine — the cuisine that we inherited from the courts and later the affluent bourgeoisie, the cuisine that elevated sauce-making to an art form — have over the centuries infiltrated the cuisine of the regions, and regional cuisine is the lifeline and wherein lies the future.

Simon Says: Daily Food Quote, March 2, 2012

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, March 2, 2012 Permalink 0

by Simón de Swaan

Life is too short for cuisine minceur and for diets. Dietetic meals are like an opera without the orchestra.—Paul Bocuse

Paul Bocuse is a French chef based in Lyon, renowned for the high quality of his restaurants and his innovative approaches to cuisine. He is one of the most prominent chefs associated with the Nouvelle Cuisine, which is less opulent and calorific than the traditional cuisine classique associated with the Escoffier school of cooking, and stresses the importance of fresh ingredients of the highest quality. Paul Bocuse claims that Henri Gault first used the term Nouvelle Cuisine to describe food prepared by Bocuse and other top chefs for the maiden flight of the Concorde airliner in 1969.

Click here to see Bocuse’s restaurant website.

French Food Quote: Daily Food Quote, August 15, 2011

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, August 15, 2011 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Nouvelle cuisine was so specifically French that it was, and still is, misunderstood in the rest of the world. You have to be dominated by Escoffier before rejecting him becomes meaningful.–Mark Kurlansky, Choice Cuts (2002)

Mark Kurlansky’s Choice Cuts features more than 200 essays on what great thinkers, writers, musicians and sometimes even foodies thought about food in all its forms throughout time. It is essential to any cookbook collection and serves as an amusing read at any time of the day.