The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [172]
Most of the problem is probably price. Meals at places like Gagnaire’s run two hundred dollars a person, much more if you buy a very good wine. Though the French economy has been in the doldrums for most of the nineties, prices at Michelin-rated restaurants have climbed by 900 percent since 1974, more than double the rise in consumer prices. In 1994, the madness stopped. For the first time in more than twenty-five years, tabs at the better restaurants rose by less than the cost of inflation.
Gastronomic pundits list other causes of the collapse of traditional French eating habits: longer workdays, le stress, shorter lunch hours and vacations, diets, le cocooning. And there is a more ominous and foreboding possibility. With fewer women free to cook at home and restaurant prices out of reach, the French are forgetting how to eat.
But not if Yves Camdeborde and the other young chef-owners of les bistrots modernes continue to have their way. They aim at nothing less than the revalidation of French culture. At least that is what Camdeborde told me over a plate of sautéed sweetbreads.
These young chefs begin with classic regional fare full of the deep, strong flavors of provincial France. Then they apply their training in modern French cooking—really the discoveries of the nouvelle cuisine in the 1970s before it took a disastrous turn into preciousness, luxury, decoration for its own sake, and intellectual pretense. Pan juices replace meat glazes and cream sauces. For the most part, cream and butter are used as flavorings, not as major ingredients. Vinegar supplants sugar in savory dishes, and desserts become less sweet. Much of the cooking is done at the last minute. And the plate has been simplified down to three elements: the main ingredient, a sauce, and a vegetable or two as a garnish. Giving pleasure has returned as the aim of cooking.
By charging thirty dollars for a meal, the young chefs attract a mixture of workers, artists, businesswomen, pensioners who watch their pennies, and gourmands who would squander any amount for food like this. To keep costs down, they have had to reinvent the methods of la cuisine moderne. It is easier to please with a pot of caviar, several of these chefs told me, than with a plate of potatoes. At the central market every morning, they insist on the finest fresh products—nothing frozen, precooked, or packaged. But instead of searching for the best ceps and truffles, our chefs look for the finest carrots and potatoes. They use the top butchers but buy only the cheaper cuts—oxtails, ham hocks, and beef cheeks. They purchase excellent bread, but usually in large loaves instead of rolls, which turn stale in half a day and go to waste. They use the stems of herbs for broths and pan juices, saving the tender leaves for soups, sauces, and garnishes. By offering only one cheese—a perfect Camembert or Brie or sheep’s cheese that can be easily divided without any waste—they avoid charging extra for the cheese course. They shop at the central market, not because they have keener eyes than the leading suppliers, but because they can afford the more costly ingredients, such as langoustines, asparagus, and cheese, only by waiting for bargains. And they work all the time, keeping employees in the kitchen to a minimum. This means that they must know precisely what cooking can be done in the morning and what must be done at the very last minute.
I have eaten at twenty-five bistrots modernes in Paris over the past two years. The five best, in addition to La Régalade, are La Verrière, L’Os à Moëlle, L’Épi Dupin, Chez Michel, and Le Bamboche, which all opened this year or last. Three of them are owned