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By Root 2191 0

event today—were the Guérards, the Vergés, the Troisgros, of the age of Louis XV. They wrote in strikingly similar terms of the newer, healthier, more delicate cuisine practised by themselves, and in the same vein made their admissions that successful innovation is based on a sound foundation of traditional methods. Marin remarked that as he was writing for everybody he must include a recipe for the pressed extracts of half-raw beef and mutton regarded as the basis of the ancienne cuisine Gauloise. So too do our present nouvelle cuisine chefs give their formulas for the concentrated fonds blancs and fonds brun which are the sauce foundations of Escoffier’s day, even if in practice some of them—Guérard and Vergé—evidently prefer bouillon cubes. Should that preference be regarded as a logical progression from the bad old days of the ancienne cuisine and its pressed meat juices? Or is it, on the contrary, an illogicality incompatible with the obsessive insistence, characteristic of all today’s nouvelle chefs, on the impeccable freshness and first-rate quality of every ingredient which passes through their kitchen doors? It’s quite a puzzle to decide. Fortunately, as Roger Verge obligingly remarks—and I would suggest his book is the best one to start with for anyone new to this nouvelle style of our time—a recipe is not meant to be followed exactly and cooking is a matter of interpretation. Reject what displeases you. Make the best use of the good ideas. There is much to learn from the four books listed below. The fads and foibles, sometimes exasperating, may be excused as those of innovators. They need not be imitated. No doubt tomorrow’s moderne or nouvelle school is already forming up, preparing to denounce the excesses and the faults of today’s professionals.

In that context, Kingsley Amis, in a review of a recent book on British restaurant cooking36 remarked that when he goes out to eat he wants properly cooked food, not a history lesson. It would be hard to disagree with him. All the same, even a brief study of French culinary history does help us to an understanding of the ever-evolving styles of French professional cooking, and goes far to put the quirks and the pretensions of our present nouvelle cuisine chefs into perspective. It is not quite a case of tous les ans changent les goûts, but French food fads certainly do come in waves. One of the eighteenth-century nouvelle cooks, Menon, was over-addicted to chives and shallots; Marin’s quintessences became a subject for public mockery; in 1765 Voltaire complained of the excessive use of morels and mushrooms and said he found the fashionable essence of ham detestable.

In today’s nouvelle cuisine it’s chervil and sorrel all the way, raspberry vinegar on every restaurant kitchen shelf, and of course truffles by the basketful and larders bursting with foie gras. Paul Bocuse, whose book is about updated cuisine classique rather than nouvelle cuisine is addicted mainly to his own renown but also to conspicuous waste (see below), and truffle consommé served under a pastry crust. What will be next year’s fad? Little carrot-shaped white turnips are becoming popular, and deservedly so. Hurry on the day they reappear in England. John Evelyn, after all, had them in his garden three hundred years ago. Why did they disappear? Celeriac is on the way up. The Troisgros call it céléri boule and serve it with a saute of duck foie gras. I don’t know how you’d cut celeriac in the shape and size of garlic cloves, but that’s what the Troisgros say. Guérard has his own ideas on celeriac. He makes it into a purée with rice and is so delighted with his invention that he tells us, pofaced, that his purée has une saveur impertinente et presque exotique. Bravo, M. Guérard. If that hasn’t already in France changed the image of celeriac as something that only comes in matchsticks with mayonnaise, then the French have lost their capacity for grasping at a wayward novelty and transforming it into high fashion.

Cuisiniers à Roanne, les recettes originales de Jean et Pierre Troisgros. Editions