Steak - Mark Schatzker [39]
And so my search for steak took me to a bunkerlike edifice in a Paris suburb known as the Alain Ducasse Formation (ADF). Here, Ducasse’s international team congregates and, dressed all in white, develops the advanced culinary weaponry—sauces, emulsions, searing techniques, and so forth—used in the battle for Michelin stars. There are four different kitchens at the ADF, all enormous and featuring dark countertops and stainless steel cabinetry. The look and feel is both luxurious and scientific, reminiscent of one of those secret laboratories you see in James Bond movies.
Assigned to me was one of Ducasse’s top chefs, a friendly up-and-comer named Christophe Raoux, whom a personal ad might describe thus: “Strapping amateur rugby player who likes farms, abhors pretension, and can whip up legendary demi-glace.” This is a man who, some years ago, had gone out for a walk during his break when two mysterious men attacked him and demanded his wallet. The first assailant he bested with a series of hard punches to the head. The second fled. Christophe returned to work with his face and shirt bloodied, but nevertheless ready to pare vegetables, braise meat, melt butter, and reduce sauces. His kitchen mates gave Christophe a round of applause, and the head chef instructed him to take the week off.
It hardly comes as a surprise that Christophe is a man who loves steak. He ate the best steak of his life at the age of twelve, and the experience left an indelible mark in his memory. The meal took place in the city of Vichy, a few hours’ drive from Lascaux, where Christophe was visiting his grandparents. He was taken to a restaurant where an old woman who never spent so much as an hour at cooking school or reading about the latest in fusion spicing trends in some glossy magazine prepared traditional dishes in the traditional manner. Christophe ordered a rib eye, and it was served in a wine and mustard sauce. When he put the first bite in his mouth, he was struck dumb by how it tasted. “It had the taste of beef,” he told me. “You could taste the hay. You could taste the nuttiness.”
That steak had everything to do with the era, he explained. “It was a different time. Farmers still wore wooden shoes. No one raises beef now like they did back then. If you bought a steak, there was no invoice. If you ordered a whole cow, it was a handshake deal. They treated the cows with love. Now it’s a business. It has nothing to do with feelings today.”
The disappearance of feelings is something Christophe feels strongly about. The old woman from his memory had passed on, and the steaks in her fridge had long ago been cooked and eaten. The breed, on the other hand, is still around. It is called Aubrac, and is one of France’s less famous beef breeds. Paris, luckily, is a city of considerable culinary diversity, and among its many steak houses we found one specializing in Aubrac beef. La Maison de l’Aubrac, which can be found on rue Marbeuf (Old French for “Beef Pond Road”), is rustic, woody, and cozy, and on its walls hang large photographic portraits of Aubrac cattle—snapped in a well-lit studio, by the looks of things. A huge and muscular bull stares straight out at diners. A cow, suckling a calf, is less menacing, but looks guarded all the same. After sixteen thousand years, the French still enjoy eating steak next to pictures of big cattle.
We drank half-pints of draft beer and studied the menu. For the main, I ordered an entrecôte, which is what the French call a rib eye, and for a starter chose steak tartare. I was going a bit heavy on the steak, but the waiter assured me