Gastronomy with roots and commitment
Cooking in resonance with nature's tempo
As an appetizer to this reading, I suggest you discovervrir the first and the second section in this article, which place gastronomy in its cultural, societal and artistic context.
Authenticity à la carte
If the rare and prestigious dishes are always very popular, gastronomy and gourmet cuisine are gradually turning away from interest in ingredients traditionally We're celebrating the «forgotten vegetables» that are more popular than ever. Gone are the days of sensual intoxication and ancient bacchanalia, the time is ripe for a certain sobriety, for a cuisine that is simple but never simplistic.
Reflecting the times, maps are finally evolving and opening up to a whole new world. greener cooking. From gourmet restaurants to neighbourhood brasseries, the vegetarian menus, or even vegans, are now accessible: a decision long unthinkable. A tasty cuisine and creative can, however, give a new lease of life to a product « common » long relegated to the rank of trim.
Alain Passard, a chef with a three-star kitchentoiles from L'Arpège the revendique: «I want to make a grand cru out of vegetables». When he's not in the kitchen, he's busy at the vegetable garden. Known for his love of rotisserie cooking, the chef talks about his «awakening»rediscovering the richness of vegetables. Although he does not restrict himself to meat or fish, he offers his customers «a vegetable walk ».
In Talloires, guests the’Auberge du Père Bise enjoy a « pure, daring and deeply rooted cuisine »based on wild mushrooms and Lake Annecy fish. The plates are highlighted by the herbs and flowers picked by chef Jean Sulpice. and his wife among a garden of nearly 200 species. Two hours pass between picking and tasting, this commitment to the freshness takes a closer look at the definition of short circuit.
Driven by common sense and aware of the ecological emergency, the chefs are numerous add value to the entire product for a gourmet and sustainable cooking. Shavings and peelings now find their place in the center of star plates a zero-waste cooking thanks to a growing awareness of the impact of agriculture on our carbon emissions. The brigades are now at attention and composting is becoming an increasingly common practice in back kitchens.
A menu in tune with the seasons
Guided by a natural tempo, responsible cuisine enhances a menu that changes with the seasons,Forget tomatoes in winter, make way for celery.
Chefs, like their producers, observe and draw inspiration from nature, sublimating rather than transforming it.. This a return to a natural terroir and gastronomy is at the heart of communications for restaurants and companies alike, such as the Maison de champagdo Louis Roederer dowhose advertising slogan is now «Close to nature»A far cry from the sophisticated evocations of the past.
This seasonality meets in Les Goudes at the chef's Christian Qui. Electing him best table 2021, the guide to Fooding makes a tribute to the table d'hôtes of this chef, also a landscape architect, who, far from fashionable culinary concepts values local fishing and is inspired every morning by the market to compose original dishes based on its finds. This open-mindedness fuels his creativity while making his guests aware of the need to respect nature. An intuitive approach to be adopted without further delay, as the artist duo Renards Gourmet sensibly invites us to do: «Contrary to what some people think, the seasons are just as rich in products as each other. Renewal is permanent, you just have to give up the desire to eat the same thing all year round, which means offering yourself many pleasures».
«Renewal is permanent, you just have to give up the urge to eat the same thing all year round».
From stable to garden, the seasons invite breeders, farmers, chefs and hosts to rediscover humility, to accept permanent change and the unpredictability of harvests, accentuated by the global warming. Now is the time to let yourself be lulled by what Mauro Colagreco, Argentinian chef and triple starred Mirazur nas «the special music of the seasons». It is true that the interdependence of mankind and the earth is hard to find a more blatant example than in the area of food..
Promote your terroir to protect your territory
In the past, the luxury of a well-stocked table could be likened to a long-distance journey with many stops. Refined or rougher, cuisine now pays tribute to its terroir, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the chefs of our regions. Some go so far as to mix farm and restaurant in a ecological self-sufficiency approach.
By promoting its terroir, gastronomy plays a key role in the recognition and economic and tourist development of its region. A chef for whom popularity and commitment go hand in hand, Marc Veyrat prefers to define himself as a peasant cooking. Visit gourmets come all the way to Manigod, in the heart of the Aravis mountains, to discover the «mineral, pastoral and biological»The chef «liberated» from his stars, which were returned to the red guide following the loss of his third star.
Other chefs claim a cuisine they call primitive, but the idea remains the same: paying tribute to a terroir, honor the fruits of the earth and the labor of small-scale producers to find pleasure and awaken consciences through the plate. This promoting a local taste heritage is necessarily accompanied by a locavore consumption which in turn favors short circuits and local products.
Changing scale to get back to what's closest to home, a philosophy that the first confinement had exacerbated by putting small producers in the spotlight. What remains of it today, more than a year later?
Put in danger by the health crisis, curfews and lockdowns, chefs have been able to adapt and react. While the palaces had some difficulty bouncing back, the local restaurants have been able to resist by offering take-away or delivered menus..
Alain Passard and his team have composeds «Alain's baskets»This is an opportunity to bring home vegetables and herbs from the chef's kitchen gardens. This initiative, reminiscent of AMAP baskets, is also available in its marine version thanks to Poiscaille, the entreprise française offers «sea traps»of forgotten species, thanks to a local, fresh and ethical fishing. The online fish and seafood sales service promotes 120 small-scale French fishermen to over 8,500 subscribers in France. The initiative preserves jobs and seabed by offering a a concrete alternative to intensive fishing, aquaculture and imports. In the Mediterranean, 62% of species are overexploited (2018, FAO), while in France, seafood farming and imports meet a growing demand for around 34 kg of seafood per inhabitant per year (Agrimer, 2016).
In essence a meal can be part of a sustainable approach without compromising gourmet pleasure.. The ecological transition is now pushing open the doors of increasingly transparent kitchens. More human, gastronomy is evolving thanks to bold initiatives.es to discover in the final chapter of this editorial tasting.