The perfect meal

Cooking the perfect meal is such a big challenge. First, because perfection does not exist in our human world ; second, because high expectations always lead to disappointment.

For this reason, I expected to be disappointed of my perfect meal. Oddly enough, I wasn't.

My first demand was to cook for my significant other and no one else. This was our last dinner together before my return to France so I did not care about the food; I just wanted the moment to be unforgettable.

For this special occasion, I wanted to plan and prepare the dinner in duet: nothing should have been made without our 4 hands touching it. The initial menu, which we eventually did not follow, was :

• a 'tomato tornado', the speciality of my boyfriend: a tomato soup/stew enlivened with chopped vegetables and spices
• toasts of home made pesto and sardines
• roasted scallops with a white wine sauce
• a purée of potatoes and celery
• steamed leeks
• fava beans
• asparagus
• tiramisu
• wine

Of course, this was a too ambitious menu, especially if you don't have a car to go to the supermarket. The afternoon before our dinner, nothing was ready and my lover was at work. I had to revise downwards the menu and dropped the soup (I did not know how to prepare it), the toasts (the pesto would have taken too long to be made), the purée (the day was too hot to eat warm starches) and the tiramisu (I made one the day before for a family dinner.)

Driven by my boyfriend's roommate to Whole Foods, I carefully chose most of the produces I wanted. To have my cart full of fruits and vegetables made me feel healthy and satisfied.

I decided, seduced by the fresh figs and the fennel, to change even more my plans: instead of the asparagus and the fava, I would reuse Katherine's recipe to make a fennel-apple-raisin salad. I added pecans and improvised completely for the sauce (olive oil, lemon juice, maple syrup.) Nothing was more pleasant for me than improvisation.

As for the dessert, I wanted something efficient: good and simple. The figs, roasted with butter, on a scoop of vanilla ice cream would be a great deal. Sold !

Back home, I started the marinade for the scallops: garlic, fennel, salt, pepper, olive oil and white wine. I also prepared beforehand the steamed leeks, cut in little squares, and chopped the vegetables and fruits for the salad. And that was it. Barely more than half an hour. I would have to do later the dessert and the white wine sauce with the scallops.

This was actually my biggest fear: the main course of the meal was something I never cooked before. The scallop is a very delicate see food and with a bit too much heat, it turns chewy and bland. Moreover, wine sauces are easy to fail and I never saw anyone make it, neither in front of me nor at TV. I just knew that it exists and that it is something big in French food culture.

After getting ready myself, it was time to open the bottle of wine and wait for my guest, who was charged to buy lemon and cream. I could not find the bottle opener and the cream has been forgotten. After finding back the former, drinking a glass of wine and smoking a cigaret, my boyfriend left to go to the supermarket: the cream was essential for our dinner and could not be avoided. I made the sauce for the salad, turned on the oven for the scallops and started the wine sauce, with vinegar and white wine in a pan. 30 minutes later, my guest arrived, sweating and annoyed: after going to 3 different stores (the 2 first were closed), my significant other finally found the cream. Plus a baguette, some cheese and a tomato as an appetizer. He gave me bites of toasts while I was cooking: nothing could have been more encouraging.

I continued my sauce. While following the steps on the first online recipe I found, I was puzzled to learn that the sauce required 170g of butter (6oz, if my conversion is right). It was absolutely out of question to do that: sickness guarantied. So I added a certain amount of fat until I decided it was already really too much. I tasted: it was actually good. No secret but the butter... Without keeping an eye on the watch, I put the scallops in the oven and put them out around 5 minutes later, when the table was set. We filled our plates with a bit of everything: the leeks -still warm- and the scallops (5 each) topped by the wine sauce and the salad. The dinner was ready.

The first bite of scallop was amazing: it was PERFECTLY cooked, their flesh being savory and delicate. In spite of my nonchalance and taste for improvisation, I could not have made them better. And even if I wanted, I would not know how: this culinary success was a pure random.

The association with the sauce was very fortunate as well, the leeks were melting in the mouth and the salad, refreshing and just acid enough to balance the butter in the sauce.

“Marie, this dinner is perfect” did I hear several times. But it was not over yet and the dessert, while not very risky (everybody likes ice cream), could still ruin the dinner. After washing together the dishes, I peeled the figs, made the butter (again!) melt in the pan and threw the fruits in it. At that point, I was already tipsy and did not care any more about being a careful cook: this was just messy. But delicious. Even though the maple syrup I added in the pan was not necessary, the dessert was up to the rest of the meal.

However, this dinner, as perfect as it was for us, was only the trigger of a much more perfect evening spent together, driving in the deserted streets of Detroit, stopping eventually at the place of our first kiss. Then, I realized something: food is not an end in itself, it opens up to much more. I would say so about travel and in particular about my stay in America: it is not the end, it is only the beginning.

Eating with full consciousness

In the third part of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan narrates his experience of cooking a meal entirely made by himself, that is with hunted meat and gathered mushrooms, fruits and vegetables. From the salt -yet the experience was unsuccessful- to the wild yeast for the bread to the bones-made broth, the journalist tried to cook what he qualifies as unrealistic in the daily life: a real homemade lunch.

This experience went beyond the learning of hunting and the knowledge of the fauna and flora. It was first a human adventure. The sharing of Angelo's skills in natural life, the common risks taken with a friend to fish abalone, the patience endured while waiting for the prey to hunt,… Nothing, from the starter to the dessert of Pollan's perfect meal, could have been made without the help of his accomplices. The perfect meal, as the journalist qualifies his dinner, does not have so much to do with the food itself but with this gathering of friends passionated by nature and food and with the accomplishment of something "real".

On page 391, he writes this: "I seriously doubt that any of my guests, assuming I was out of earshot, would declare this a 'great meal'. But for me it was the perfect meal, which is not quite the same thing." And later on, "No, little if anything about this meal was what anyone would call 'realistic'. And yet no meal I've ever prepared or eaten has been more real." Indeed, despite the difficulty of the task, nothing could make you more aware of the process of eating than a full preparation, from the hunting/gathering/gardening-harvesting to the cooking in itself, the human sublimation of Nature.

"Cooking doesn't only distance us from our destructiveness, turning the pile of blood and guts into a savory salami, it also symbolically redeems it, making good our karmic debts: Look what good, what beauty, can come of this!"(405) 

However, what was probably the most striking about the reading is the attention paid to consciousness while eating. Michael Pollan, with this completely -or so- homemade meal, got aware of what it actually means to eat, and in particular to eat meat. The killing part involved in eating meat is ignored for most of us. We buy our steaks at the supermarket without thinking a single second to the beast, alive, full of hair and with sad eyes (that's just for the dramatical tension) whose flesh made our lunch. The honesty of the journalist, when he describes the succession of feelings after shooting the pig (joy, disgust), refreshes the reader and underlined this fact: would we eat meat if we would have to kill the beast that it comes from ? Probably not. To meditate. 

Rock City Eatery, part III

I did not imagine that being a food critic would be even close to what we commonly call work. I was wrong. I thought the task of reviewing a restaurant would consist of eating and saying whether or not it is good. It is actually way more complex than that. The work of a food critic requires a perpetual attention to details with a fast and lively mind (and hands !) The waiter dropped a plate on a customer ? Note taking. The restaurant setting is unusual ? Note taking. The seats are uncomfortable ? Note taking. The biggest difficulty is to get a global understanding of the place and its customers within the less time possible, which means being careful about the menu while not eating all of it, looking at the others' plates while tasting your own, tasting the alcohol while staying sober enough to write about it and so on. I found out that being a food critic is not as easy as one might think.

About the place, I had very low expectations (barflies, dirty restrooms) and could not but be positively surprised, which is exactly what happened when I entered this popular restaurant.

Since I did not see any coherence in the Rock City Eatery -regarding either the menu or the decor- I would hardly consider the restaurant unauthentic: since the place does not claim any belonging (of origin or of quality), it cannot be but authentic for its uniqueness. When there is no norm to rely on, there is no risk of overstepping them. As for the question of tourism (is dining in a restaurant a kind of tourism?), I would say that it depends on the restaurant. As long as the restaurant allows the customer to experience otherness -foreign food restaurants in particular-, it can be seem as tourism. However, if tourism is, as Long's suggested, getting out of your daily routine to see the other's daily routine as very exotic, dining in a restaurant could be seen as tourism only insofar eating out is an unusual practice. Eating out, when it is part of your daily routine, is not properly tourism for me.

As an international student in Kalamazoo, all my experiences here have first felt foreign to me. The ice in the water, the A/C or the tips have been some of the most exotic things I encountered when I arrived in America. But people change and so I did. I can say that I start now, after 9 months of immersion in this culture, to feel a belonging and a familiarity regarding American food. I am crazy about peanut butter/jelly sandwiches and bacon-based brunch on a Sunday morning. Tourism (or the lack of) has to do with time. It also has to do with home. What is home cannot be tourism. The home I found here prevents me today to consider myself as a tourist in America. However, I do not feel fully integrated yet. I guess, it is the perks and the drawbacks of biculturalism.

After a messy making out, find the seventh heaven at the Rock City Eatery

Like a lovers' room, the ground being scattered with clothes and a purse flippantly half- empty on the coach, the Rock City Eatery -a storefront in the Hamtramck neighborhood in Detroit- offers a chaotic view at the first sight. Don't trust this apparent mess, a treasure of surprise is contained in this hipster-affordable restaurant.

From the pickled roasted beets to the Nicole's poutine to the Sichuan chicken wings, the menu of the RCE might disconcert the followers of consistency. There is none to expect from this place which is not devoted to any theme except diversity.

On the full-of-oil-stains sheet that is the menu, there is no separation between appetizers and mains, just a succession of dishes whose price goes from $7 to $12 and that are to share or to keep jealously for one.

The names of the courses are as exotic as varied. The traditional American Mac & Cheese stands alongside the Mexican Chicharron and Patacones and the Thai shrimp. The keyword of this menu is: condiment. Cilantro, curry, thyme, scallion, ginger, jalapeño, garlic, Harissa color the dishes and awake the taste buds. They can disturb or overwhelm them too, like a hot boyfriend. Maybe too hot.

This variety of tastes -in all the senses- also applies to the décor. It consists of a superimposition of raw materials -one part of the wall is made of red old bricks, another of cheap plywood-, luxury items like a magnificent glass chandelier, punk posters and mismatching tables and chairs, the whole being surprisingly contained in a 30m² rectangular room.

If your dining companions are boring, you can still have fun with the cutlery system, which is playful: you pick either silverwares or chopsticks from a glass jar put in the middle of the table. Help yourself, like at home. Like at home as well, the dishes don't match and each plate displays a new painting pattern and new sizes and shapes. As kitschy as nostalgic: Among past lovers, there are also all kind of sizes and shapes.

In this scenery, you'll find a flowerbed of red, blue, green and purple haired and tattooed people, half of them bearing big beards (the other half being women.) A very hipster audience that will make a lot of noise. Well, that's good because it is preferable not to be heard after a gin fizz -well-balanced between sweetness and basil- and two pints of a syrupy local beer. Thanks to this loud and relaxed atmosphere, it is not embarrassing to be drunk here. Nor to wear a sparkling dolphin-printed T-shirt.

But this lack of coherence does not make the Rock City Eatery a mess. The restaurant -run by its chef Nik Santches-, is quite popular in the dirty-reliving Detroit, so expect the place to be busy. In spite of a reasonable waiting time if you don't have any reservation (around 20 minutes), the service is efficient and the waiters, very friendly.

It might be hard to read the entire menu before the orders are taken. However, no pressure to choose, eat, drink and leave the restaurant. Going to the Rock City Eatery is like having a very convenient sex partner: it can go fast; it can also take hours. It depends on your needs.

The intensity of the (inter)course depends as well on your desires. For the very lustful eaters, the Bourdain Dinner ($12), a bone marrow topped with raw urchins and assorted with homemade bread is a pure ecstasy. The way the bone is cut -in two vertical sections rather than in one piece, like two branches of celery- is surprising. Topped on the marrow, the orange urchin color the dish which is seasoned with chimichurri, a South American condiment made of parsley, garlic, chili, oil and vinegar. The bread, both firm and fluffy, can be stuffed with this preparation but the marrow and urchins do not need any addition, they can easily be eaten with a spoon.

This astonishing combination of products, once in the mouth, will explode in a multitude of flavors. The creaminess of the marrow is soon overcome by the salt of the seafood. The fresh urchins lighten the oily meat and spread a subtle smell of ocean on the tongue. Finally, the kick comes from the chimichurri: the astringent garlic, with spicy notes, punches the dish which would have been a little flat without the condiment. The mix of textures -crusty with the bread, melting with the marrow and urchins- as well as the mix of flavors tends to create no less than a bite of heaven.

The brussels sprouts, although a bit soaked in the soy sauce, are well-balanced with the

cilantro -which gives a fresh and lemony note to the dish-, the entire peanuts and the green and red tomatoes cut in halves. Spicy but not too much, the vegetables are cooked in a delightful way: seared just enough to stay fresh and crunchy. (They are all fresh and crunchy, at the beginning.
As for the crusted lamb, it is prettily accompanied with romaine entire leaves, is both cooked outside and rare inside, the crust of spices around the meat impregnating deeply the flesh with flavors. Without the curried Harissa sauce, it would be flawless.

And now, to cap it all, the dessert. It's not complicated to choose, there is only a choice of two sweets, different every day. If you fall on the berries pie, be careful, you could fall in love. The lukewarm dough is thin and barely perceptible, being overwhelmed by the mashed fruits. With or without a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, it is a fulfilling and sincere dessert: no cheating with artificial flavor. It is made by the chef himself, fresh from the day. The bread pudding is a success too. Although maybe too sweet, the texture, moist and tender, testifies of its quality.

At the RCE, you will find better than a plate of food. You will find a partner. And a less flawed one than any boy around. 

The triumph of corn over Americans

In the first part of his essay, the Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan displays thoroughly the many steps food covers, from its production to its consumption.

The consumers, because of all these transformative processes, cannot clearly identity the produce they are eating: A piece of meat at the supermarket does not have anything to do any more with the animal that grew stuck among many other fellows in a farm. How can we be fully conscious while eating, when what we eat doesn't look like food any more ? A tighter producer-consumer link would on the contrary support and encourage such a mindfulness in our consumers' heads.

Beyond that alarming fact, there is worse. While the system of overproduction of corn is working well economically speaking, its consequences over the producers, the consumers and the nature are catastrophic.

Based on scientific datas, historical facts and economics strategy plans, Michael Pollan proved this terrible -although strange- statement: corn is killing Americans.

On the page 34, he writes that “American farmers like Naylor are the most productive humans who have ever lived”, “feeding some 129 Americans.” In spite of that, they're going “broke”, as Pollan explains.

To simplify the complex mechanism of self-destruction farmers have been pushed to pursue, we could say that governmental farm policies, for the sake of the country's economical stability, encouraged the monoculture and overproduction of corn, creating both a decrease of the corn's price, synonym of the impoverishment of farmers, and an increase of obesity and alcoholism, a result of the very cheap price of corn-based produces and alcohols.

More over, the single use of corn in the fields of the MidWest destroyed the biodiversity and created ecological problems such as the water pollution due to the massive use of fertilizer and the exhaustion of the soil resources, among other things.

The question we can ask is: Who benefits from that overproduction of corn, except the corn itself ? Because it seems that neither producers nor consumers, the principal concerned parties in that vicious game, do.

Pollan notes that “in 2000 the number of people suffering from overnutrition -a billion- had officially surpassed the number suffering from malnutrition -800 million.” He adds, a few lines below, “when food is abundant and cheap, people will eat more of it and get fat.” (p. 102).

It is remarkable to see that such a global health issue, not only isn't taken into consideration by the government, but is maintained for the sake of economics, through farm policies.

 We can wonder: What can we do against that ? If the problem cannot be solved at an individual scale, to boycott processed food, most of which comes from corn industry, would be a starting point. To refuse to eat something we ignore the origin and transport until our plates is another idea. To read The Omnivore's Dilemma is a requirement.  

Between hell and heaven

Like a lovers' room, the ground being scattered with clothes and a purse flippantly half-emptied on the coach, the Rock City Eatery -a storefront in the Hamtramck neighborhood in Detroit- offers a chaotic view at the first sight. Don't trust this apparent mess, a treasure of surprise and delight is welcomed in this hipster-affordable restaurant.

From the pickled roasted beets to the Nicole's poutine to the Sichuan chicken wings, the menu of the RCE might disconcert the followers of consistency. There is none to expect from this place which is not devoted to any theme except eclecticism.

On the full-of-stains brown thick sheet that is the menu, there is no separation between appetizers and mains, just a succession of dishes whose price goes from $7 to $12 and that are to share or to keep jealously for one. The names of the courses are as exotic as varied. The traditional American Mac & Cheese stands alongside the Mexican Chicharron and Patacones and the Thai shrimp. The keyword of this menu is: condiment. Cilantro, curry, thyme, scallion, ginger, jalapeño, garlic, Harissa color the dishes and awake the taste buds. They can disturb or overwhelm them too.

The crusted lamb loin chop is a delight, particularly without the Ras El Hanout sauce, the perfectly-cooked flesh of the meat being sufficient in itself. However, the add of cilantro to the roasted brussels sprouts gives a delicate lemony freshness to the vegetables, soaked in a too present soy sauce.

As for the décor, it consists of a superimposition of raw materials -one part of the wall is made of red old bricks, another of cheap plywood-, luxury items like a magnificent glass luster, punk posters and unmatching tables and chairs, the whole being surprisingly contained in a 30m² rectangular room.

The system of the cutlery is both surprising and playful: you pick either silverwares or chopsticks from a glass jar. Help yourself, like at home. Like at home as well, the dishes don't match and each plate displays a new painting pattern and new sizes and shapes. As kitschy as nostalgic, especially if your grand-mother was fond of tableware collections.

In this scenery, you'll find a flowerbed of red, blue, green and purple haired and tattooed people, half of them bearing big beards (the other half being women.) A very hipster audience that will make a lot of noise. Well, that's good because it is preferable not to be heard after a gin fizz -well-balanced between sweetness and basil- and two pints of a syrupy local beer. Thanks to this loud and relaxed atmosphere, it is not embarrassing to be drunk here. Nor to wear a sparkling dolphin-printed T-shirt.

But this lack of coherence does not make the Rock City Eatery a mess. In spite of a reasonable waiting time if you don't have any reservation (around 20 minutes), the service is efficient and the waiters, very friendly. It might be hard to read the entire menu before the orders are taken. However, no pressure to choose, eat, drink and leave the restaurant. Going to the Rock City Eatery is like having a very convenient sex partner: it can go fast; it can also take hours. It depends on your needs.

The intensity of the inter-course depends as well on your desires. For the very lustful eaters, the Bourdain Dinner ($12), a marrow bone topped with raw urchins and assorted with homemade bread is a pure ecstasy. The way the bone is cut -in two vertical sections rather than in one piece, like two branches of celery- is surprising and playful. Topped on the marrow, the raw urchin color the dish which is seasoned with chimichurri, a South American condiment made of parsley, garlic, chili, oil and vinegar. The bread, both firm and fluffy, can be stuffed with this preparation but the marrow and urchins do not need any addition, they can easily be eaten with a spoon.

This surprising combination of products, once in the mouth, will explode in a multitude of flavors. The creaminess of the marrow is soon overcome by the salt of the seafood. The urchins, raw and fresh, lighten the oily meat and spread a subtle smell of ocean on the tongue. Finally, the kick comes from the chimichurri: the astringent garlic, with spicy notes, punches the dish which would have been a little flat without the condiment. The mix of textures -crusty with the bread, melting with the marrow and urchins- as well as the mix of flavors tends to create no less than a bite of heaven. A culinary orgasm.

The brussels sprouts, although too soaked in the soy sauce, are well-balanced with the cilantro, the entire peanuts and the green and red tomatoes cut in halves. Spicy but not too much, the vegetables are cooked in a delightful way: seared just enough to leave them fresh and crunchy.

The crusted lamb, prettily accompanied with romaine entire leaves, is both cooked outside and rare inside, the crust of spices around the meat impregnating deeply the flesh with flavors. Without the curried Harissa sauce, it would be flawless.

And now, to cap it all, the dessert. That's not complicated to choose, there is only a choice of two sweets, different every day. If you fall on the berries pie, be careful, you could fall in love. The lukewarm dough is thin and barely perceptible, being overwhelmed by the mashed fruits. With or without a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, it is a fulfilling and sincere dessert: no cheating, no artificial flavor. It is made by the chef himself, fresh from the day. The bread pudding is a success too. Although maybe too sweet, the texture, moist and tender, testifies of its quality.

  At the Rock City Eatery, the making out is messy but the pleasure, guarantied.  

Expectations about the Rock City Eatery, Detroit

For my review, I finally chose the Rock City Eatery, a little restaurant in the heart of the Hamtramck neighborhood in Detroit. I mean, choose is a big word. Until 5 minutes before we entered the place, I did not know where I was going. In the car, on our way to eat in a Polish restaurant (that was decided a few minutes previously as well) my companion received a call from a friend who recommended him the Rock City Eatery, allegedly a very unique place. After a change the GPS' directions, we arrived in J. Campau Avenue curious and hungry. The short amount of time that I had before going into the restaurant did not allow me to have a lot of expectations. The name of the place, the Rock City Eatery, foretold the worst. It reminded me some of the sketchier bars of Strasbourg, France. Not to speak about the menu: I was absolutely unable to picture any food in a spot named like that. Expect toilets full of pee, barflies and hard rock music, I could not imagine anything. However, I hoped to be surprised. A restaurant recommended by a friend cannot be that bad, right ? I had good company as well. So I was more than ready to have a good time, even though I did not what kind of good time it would be. 

Regarding the experience of writing a review, I expected to take less notes than I actually did. At some points, this task just prevented me really appreciate the moment: I was so absorbed by taking notes than I was unable to keep a consistent conversation with my companion. Being a food critique is a real job, definitely. I did not expect for example to be overwhelmed by ideas, rushing to write them all at the same time. Naively, I thought that I could calmly speak about the decoration while drinking a cocktail; then, that I could briefly describe the appetizer while waiting for the main course. The reality is completely different: the waitress dropped a plate on a customer while I was already trying to write about everything that was going on over there. And then, the food arrived faster than expected. And also, I interrupted my work to be a nice dining companion and entertain the conversation. That was messy and tedious. I did not realize that being a food critique required a real method of work. You cannot just come and take some notes. It does not work like that. To be fully honest, I did not expect either to be less efficient in my analysis after several drinks. It sounds obvious but I just never thought about it before. The adjectives to describe the dessert in particular were reduce to this one (and the worst is that I've been helped to find it !): moist. You better hold your alcohol if you want to be good at reviewing a restaurant. Finally, the food, since it has to be analyzed, is not as appreciable as when you eat out as a non-professional eater (i.e. almost everybody.) Such a hard task to recommend a place for the pleasure of others when yourself are at work. 

This experience dramatically challenged my perception of the work of a food critique, already altered by Sam Sifton's article about calories. I am glad to know more about reviewing and journalism.

What's a good restaurant ?

What is a good a restaurant ? If you read carefully the pieces of critique of Pete Wells, Sam Sifton, Jonathan Gold or François Simon, you will be struck: a good restaurant does not necessary serve good food. Vice versa: good food does not necessary make a restaurant great. At the Lincoln Ristorante, the pastas are delicious, but, come one, they're overpriced and the place does not have a real identity. At Guy's American kitchen, it is easy: nothing works. The menu of Kenmare is not worth it but you like to eat over there because of the atmosphere (the club, in the basement of the restaurant is likely to influence your judgement.) Even at the best-rated French restaurants, you might be disappointed: the pressure of entering a place of perfection will simply ruin your evening. The critique of the Figaro's magazine, François Simon, says wittily that "sometimes the food isn't great and the wine is mediocre, but the atmosphere is authentic and it's difficult not to be charmed by it."

So, what are we looking for when we go to the restaurant ? If it's not (not only) about food, what is it about ? Of course, depending on our companions, our mood and the place we are at, the adventure of eating out can dramatically vary. Nothing will indulge me more than a kebab at the corner's hash house, shared with the tattooed people I just met at this black metal concert. It is 3am and I reach a nirvana of food-gasm. However, it was not less amazing when I ordered those appetizers -lobster, cream and vegetables- at the top of the Hancock building in Chicago. With cocktails I don't remember the name and two charming men in front of my friend and I, what to wish in top of that ? A good view ? Checked. It was not less amazing in Arles either, when I ate those entire garlic cloves, surrounded by candles on a cozy terrace and soothed by the sounds of the bugs: the magic of south France in the summery twilight. It was as much as amazing, after being starving for more than two hours, to savor the rustic pea soup accompanied with thick brown bread, in a Canadian farm while it was 0°F outside. And there are many more like that.

Is it to say that food criticism is not worth it because eating is an eminently subjective adventure ? Maybe. Food critics clear our horizon of the false idols and, pragmatically, save us from wasting our money. However, the magic of food is never guarantied and to be honest, most of time, it comes where we do not expect it. So, my advice would be: never expect too much.

 My initial question was: what is a good restaurant ? Well, I think it is a restaurant that will surprise you. Another question now is, will you accept the surprise ?

What is French cooking, really ?

To be honest, I don't really know what to think about Adam Gopnik's article, “Is there a crisis in French cooking.”

How singular it is to read an article about French cooking written by an American critique when you are French yourself. There is always a feeling of both curiosity and distrust when comes the moment of truth : here's what France is, here's what French do. The fact that what is said is both true and false (true in general, false in particular - like all stereotypes) gives me an unpleasant sensation of awkwardness. It makes me wonder: what is French cooking, really ?

What the critique seems to reproach to French cooks is their lack of innovation. He compares new French cooking to a reformation: “A revolution can sweep clean but a reformation points forward and backward at the same time.” In other terms, French cooking has a hard time getting rid of the recipes of the old times. Well, thanks goodness ! Would French cooking still be French without this attachment to the past ? That's a rhetorical question.

Gopnik gets further in his explanation: “With movie (…), with airplanes, and now even with cooking, France has again and again made the first breakthrough and then gotten stalled. (…) The Enlightenment took place here, and the Revolution worked out better somewhere else.”

More spices, more grill, says Gopnik. French, please imitate and emulate British and Australian cooks ! Get rid of the heavy butter-cream-fat lobster ! Would he still call it French cooking, then ?

Well, here's my response to Gopnik. You cannot ignore the World War Two. You cannot ignore Carême or Escoffier either. Even if you want to. Because they are French cooking. There is no French cooking without heaviness. There is no French cooking without rules. There is no French cooking with saffron or cilantro or grill roasting. So, let's leave French cooking in peace, in its golden showcase. It is dusty and old-fashioned. You don't insult a dead man, do you ?

This French traditional cooking is not the one French people eat. Even the new French cooking is not the one French people eat. Because people eat at home, not in restaurants.

So, I would like to pay tribute to the all the cookings which allegedly do not deserve to be called “French.” To be true, which allegedly do not even deserve to be called “cooking.” It includes North African recipes, Spanish food, German tradition, Italian influence. It includes all the products that comes from the rest of the world: coffee, bananas, chocolate, spices. It includes all the practices and utensils that were brought during colonization. The pressure under France's shoulders about good food is unfair to me. One day, someone declared it was the best cooking of the world. Another day, it is the worst. To them, I would like to say: go to France, you will find the best and the worst. Both French cooking. Or neither one.

 There is no French cooking and there are many of French cookings. For me, they all deserve credit and respect. Maybe even more than the great chefs' butter-ness.  

The Secret Ingredient

I have watched my father making crepes probably more than 50 times. His pride was the old-fashioned way (that is extremely slow) he made the batter. First, he sieved the flour into a big bowl made of glass. The children my siblings and I were at that time loved the second step: digging a well, just so that the milk was surrounded by a snowy collar of flour. But first you only added half of the liquid in the well. Too much of it would create an avalanche of lumps, implying a culinary disaster. With a wooden spoon, my father would start to stir, making very small circles in the center of the bowl. The point was to avoid to touch directly the floor; it would merge into the milk naturally with the push of the milky waves. That being done (at least 5 minutes of careful wrist dancing), you could add the beaten eggs, the sugar, a pinch of salt and some oil. Stirring again, but energetically now that the flour was integrated in the milk. Eventually, my father would reach the step of adding the second half of milk. My father's batter was finally ready after 20 minutes of attention. My mother made hers in 30 seconds with the exact same ingredients thrown carelessly in the Kitchen Aid. Of course the taste was never the same.

When I moved out from my parents' house to live on my own, it did not last a week that I needed to eat crepes. An acute form of nostalgia. Or maybe just hunger. I followed my father's recipe religiously, to the point that I had to go back to the supermarket to buy a wooden spoon (I only had a plastic one.) As the reader can expect at this point of the story, the result of my efforts was disappointing: my crepes weren't the same than my father's. I tried it again and again, some times being more successful than some others. But it never tasted exactly the same. So I asked my father what was his secret ingredient. He summarized his recipe as I wrote it above: no more, no less.

M. F. K. Fisher in her article “the secret ingredient” compares this kind of mysterious cooks -the ones that cannot be imitated- to wizards and witches. She finishes his piece, writing that “perhaps that was the Secret Ingredient: the blind strength of timeless passion.” While this beautiful idea applies very well to Bertie, Fisher's sorceress of food, the ending of my story is way less poetic. My father has nothing of a wizard. Even better: there was a secret ingredient. It took me years to find out that it was the butter. The bubbles of the hot butter would indeed prevent the batter to spread all around the pan, creating tiny holes in the crepes which were the secret of their fluffiness. I used to cook my crepes with oil. Stupid mistake.

 So if you too want to find out the secret ingredient, first try butter. If you are into French cooking, I bet it's going to work !

The 'piuk-party' revision

Twelve. The ring bells. Like a horde of elephants, starving children rush out of the classrooms, reaching finally a democratic state of equality in this primitive race towards food. I am part of it. After going down the stairs, jumping the steps two by two, our human mass overcome the schoolyard.

Since there is not enough room in the dining hall for all of us, we are assigned a 'wave'. The first wave is allowed to eat at 11:30; the second at 12 and the third at 12:30: the hated one. We are released by groups of 15 but it feels like a drop to drop. Every day, it is likely that this waiting never comes to an end.

In rank under the covered playground, some of us try to cheat, overtaking the younger and being overtaken by the older, like links in the food chain.
Neither among the babies nor the daddies, I am ignored -and happy to be- into the social hierarchy that reigns in my middle school. As a 7th grade kid, I am left alone by the tyrannical 15 years old, the appealingly helpless 6th grade little snots being preferred to me. However, I better don't show off. This new freedom, gained at the return from the summer vacations, has to stay quiet. If I stand out, it could be seen as an insurrection and would excite the fury of the tyrants, breaking this status quo. No, being invisible is great. Being invisible is a luxury after being martyred for an entire school year.
Several supervisors are there, keeping a close eye on us while we queue. They pretend we are civilized. We all know -including them- it is not true. We all know it is the survival of the fittest.

Thus, every day it is a feeling of surprise and relief that seizes me, when I eventually enter the cafeteria, surrounded by my friends. They too, after the same struggle, managed to pass the door and to join the very selective group of the 'chosen.'

After picking my food (I stopped to be exigent a long time ago, being grateful to sustain myself, action without which I would pitifully die during recess under the wide-opened eyes of my companions of misfortune), I choose my seat among what is still available: most of time, some 4-spots tables (not enough for my friends and I), some isolated chairs here and there or the counter (but then, you can only talk with your sides neighbors). Never mind, it is better than nothing.
Here as well, a hierarchy prevails. A group of 11 years old is forced to split to let the big ones take the 8-seats table; they reign on the dining room like masters, spreading themselves everywhere. They are a plague, except that their power is not contagious.

When finally everybody has found a spot, more or less satisfying, the degustation can start. The program is the following: as a starter, I eat the daily diced vegetables salad. The overwhelming mayonnaise makes me consider the dish as a mayonnaise salad with vegetables and not a vegetables salad with mayonnaise. The main course is most of time a meat drown in a thick and greasy sauce and some starchy food. As for the dessert, I have the choice between the coffee-flavored flan (tasteless actually) and some unripe fruits. In short, a perfect assortment for what we call 'piuk-parties', a funny game consisting in mixing all these dishes and eating them altogether. Of course, it is designed for the braves only: Jeff, Maxim, Martin and some others boys but no girl. Ever.

I decided that I wanted to try. I wanted to prove them I was as able to do this as anybody around the table. To prove them girls could be as gross as boys. To prove them I had guts, for lack of balls.
The day's dishes were peas and carrots, a rubbery piece of pork and some mash. After officially announcing my participation to the game, they -boys and girls- laughed at me, incredulous. No speech would have convinced them. I had to show.
I mixed the daily special in an empty bowl, slowly, each stirring increasing my sudden popularity. When I could not make it last any longer (the kids started to be impatient), I stopped. I was finally done and the preparation, ready to be eaten. When I lift the spoon to my mouth, already dreading what was coming next, all my friends were looking at me, motionless, a smile of challenge and curiosity on their childish faces. The sole smell of this bite was unbearable but it was too late to back up. My heart beat the drum. I looked at them, determined, and went on. 

My first surprise came from the incredible taste of cigaret of this awful mix. I picked the wrong day: somebody from the staff, we learnt that later, dropped a cigaret in the flan's batter. Then came the disgust of the sweet and salty unassorted tastes put together: the watery coffee cream of the flan, the sweet peas and crusty carrots got along with the sour pieces of meat coated in their nauseating sauce, already tasting that way usually. A climax of monstrosity. Or so I thought.

I could not believe it. I did it. Of course, I made a funny face as soon as the spoon entered my mouth but I did it. The other were amazed. Marie, a girl (and not even a tomboy!), having a 'piuk-party'? Incredible. Was this event as much about food as it was about honor ? I doubt so. This day, I gained the respect of my friends, my classmates and even the older, who -I did not realize- gazed at me while I was inoculating the substance. From that moment, I had an assured spot in one of the best tables of the cafeteria. An unexpected reward from the oldest for my brave behavior. From that moment, I also stopped to rush to food: what happened at the cafeteria was definitely more risky than not eating at all.

The 'Piuk-Party'

Twelve. The ring bells. Like a horde of elephants, starving children rush out of the classrooms, reaching finally a democratic state of equality in this primitive race towards food and I am part of it.

After going down the stairs, jumping the steps two by two, our human mass overcome the schoolyard.

Since there is not enough room in the dining hall for all of us, we are assigned a 'wave'. The first wave is allowed to eat at 11:30; the second at 12 and the third at 12:30: the hated one. We are released by groups of 15 but it feels like a drop to drop. Every day, it is likely that this waiting never comes to an end.

In rank under the covered playground, some of us try to cheat, overtaking the younger and being overtaken by the older, like links in the food chain. Several supervisors are there, pretending we are civilized pupils. We all know -including them- it is not true. We all know it is the survival of the fittest.

Thus, every day it is a feeling of surprise and relief that seizes me, when I eventually enter the cafeteria, surrounded by my friends. They too, after the same struggle, managed to pass the door and to join the very selective group of the 'chosen.'

After picking my food (I stopped to be exigent a long time ago, being grateful to sustain myself, action without which I would pitifully die during recess under the wide-opened eyes of my misfortune companions), I choose my table and my seat. Here as well, a hierarchy prevails. A group of 11 years old babies is forced to split to let the big ones take the 8-seats table; they reign on the dining room like masters, spreading themselves everywhere. They are a plague, except that their power is not contagious.

When finally everybody has found a spot, more or less satisfying, the degustation can start. The program is the following: as a starter, I eat the daily diced vegetables salad. The overwhelming mayonnaise makes me consider the dish as a mayonnaise salad with vegetables and not a vegetables salad with mayonnaise. I, child, don't have an elaborated taste so it does not matter, say the adults. I feel the respect or the contempt of the grown-ups in the way they cook for me. But maybe the cheap cost of a meal plays also a role in the poor cooking of the cafeteria. The main course is most of time a meat drown in a thick and greasy sauce and some starchy food. As for the dessert, I have the choice between the coffee-flavored flan (tasteless actually) and some unripe fruits. In short, a perfect assortment for what we call 'piuk-parties', a funny game consisting in mixing all these dishes and eating altogether. Of course, it is designed for the braves only: Jeff, Maxim, Martin and sometimes some girls as well, Justine or Nadège.

I decided that I also wanted to try. I wanted to prove them I was as able to do this as anybody around the table. The day's dishes were peas and carrots, a rubbery piece of pork and some mash. I mixed everything in an empty bowl, slowly, each stirring increasing my sudden popularity. I was finally done, the preparation ready to be eaten. When I lift the spoon to my mouth, already dreading what was coming next, all my friends were looking at me, motionless, a smile of challenge and curiosity on their childish faces. The sole smell of this bite was unbearable but it was too late to back up.

The taste was even worse. You cannot know without experiencing it. My first surprise came from the incredible taste of cigaret of this awful mix. I picked the wrong day: somebody from the staff, we learnt that later, dropped a cigaret in the flan's batter. Then came the disgust of the sweet and salty unassorted tastes put together: the watery coffee cream of the flan, the sweet peas and crusty carrots got along with the sour pieces of meat coated in their nauseating sauce, already tasting that way usually.

 I did it. I could not believe it. Of course, I made a funny face as soon as the spoon entered my mouth. But I did it. The other were amazed. The little Marie, always scared by everything? Incredible. This was not a question of food, this was a question of honor. This day, I gained the respect of my friends, my classmates and even the older, who -I did not realize- gazed at me while I was inoculating the substance. From that moment, I had an assured spot in one of the best tables of the cafeteria. From that moment, I also stopped to rush to food. This was definitely more risky than not eating at all.

What your are looking for is never quite far

When you go further in A cook's tour, new dimensions of Bourdain's experience appear to the reader. The first conclusion to draw is that food is a dangerous leisure (can we even call it leisure again? I have my doubts.) The cook starts the chapter relating his trip to Can tho, Vietnam, as follows : « I just had the closest near-death experience I've ever had. And I'm about to have another one. Then another. » (p. 129).

Stuck in a car crazily driven by a Vietnamese (or a car driven by a crazy Vietnamese, you can choose) Bourdain and his TV acolytes escape narrowly death several times, experiencing the so-wanted local way of living. The secret ? Speed and confidence. Above all, don't look into your rear-view mirror. Cherry on the cake, they also avoid to kill several families, by bunch on 5 on a motorbike along the roadsides. What more could you ask for ? The name of the chapter, “highway of death”, is barely exaggerated.

The lesson is clear for the reader: food is not a completely save adventure. When you commit yourself to it, you are not guaranteed to stay unharmed. While this idea can be taken for what it is, it might also be a suitable metaphor for passion. Once you put a finger into the gears of cooking, it is hard to step back, not to say impossible. Trust me, Bourdain would confirm it.

Through the pages and the roads, the Chef took the path of thinking, a process during which he learnt both alterity and companionship. Sharing with his TV followers terrible nauseas -either provoked by excess of food or disgust- in almost each new destination; sharing amazement when they discovered the magic of exoticism (Japan, Mexico, England, Vietnam); sharing fear when threatened by armed locals, dubious food or angry cooks, Bourdain lived his travel experience through the lens of the “us,” either in conviviality or misfortune.

But the food adventure is also cultural. The confrontation to alterity, through different food and customs (eating pets or cute little animals was probably the toughest pill to swallow), pushed the cook to put things into perspective, considering food in a completely new way. It is not only about aliments, cooking or sugar quantity. It is about being part of something bigger: culture. To find the perfect meal, then, appears vain. Bourdain says it himself: “the whole concept of the 'perfect meal' is ludicrous. 'Perfect,' like 'happy,' tends to sneak up on you. Once you find it -like Thomas Keller says- it's gone.” The perfect meal is not, after all, bugs in the desert, dogs in Vietnam or Japanese dishes. The perfect meal is eating with the people we love. Wherever and whatever. Bourdain just needed a bit longer -one year abroad still- to realize that.

Eating with Tony or how to learn about life

When you read Antony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour, you cannot but recognize that food is not just food. Throughout his trips to France, Portugal, Russia or Morocco, the chef -humbly followed by an array of cameras- has eaten a range of dishes from the finest (oysters in Arcachon) to the most suspicious (a desert bug), experiencing emotions worthy of a roller coaster. His aim ? To find the perfect meal.

Dragged away in his race, we readers feel nauseous as well, when Bourdain suffers the slaughter of the Portuguese pig. We cannot but be nostalgic, when we are brought to the beaches of the chef's childhood. And when he runs through the colored street market of Ho Chi Minh, we are seized by the same feeling of amazement than him.

However, the book does not only display how Bourdain got to learn about local food specialities. It shows also how he got to learn about traditions and customs, landscapes and people. Above all, how he got to learn about himself. Indeed, each chapter works on its own, delivering in the last lines a message -personal realization, moral lesson, political awareness- that the whole experience of food literally engendered.

As he returned with his brother on the coasts of Western France, a place cherished since childhood, all is changed. Like a symbol of time passing, the absence of the house of their old neighbor, Monsieur Saint-Jour, torn and built upon, seized the brothers. Whereas Bourdain tried desperately to set the scene of his old memories (ride through the dune, firecrackers, saucisson à l'ail), “something was missing” (p. 35). As we walk along the narrator through the beaches of Brittany, we see more and more accurately the hole left empty since the death of his father in Bourdain's heart. The moment of the realization is particularly poignant : “I'd come to see my father. And he wasn't there.” (p. 46)

However, the chapter is also scattered with flashes of wit, and humor rubs shoulders with culinary explanations. Let's savor again the metaphor of oysters' reproduction (p.41): “Picture the swimming pool at Plato's Retreat back in the 1970s. That fat guy at the other end of the pool with the gold chains and the back hair ? He's getting you pregnant. Or maybe it's the Guccione look-alike by the diving board. No way of knowing.” Despite his underlying sadness, no bitterness in Bourdain's pot.

Indeed, the richness of the style, alternatively juggling with culinary remarks, sociologic or political observations, memories and jokes, gives the book its playfulness. But A Cook's Tour is not only a light-hearted reading. Whether through philosophical inquiries (p. 122, Bourdain is considering “for the first in a while, the possibility of happiness”) or bucolic descriptions of the landscapes of Portugal (p. 20) and Vietnam (p. 56), the book gained a depth that makes us realize that this adventure is not only a matter of food. It is an experience of life.  

Does childhood lies in a cup of strawberry ice cream ?

In the article The Madeleine effect, Julian Baggini narrates his experience: eating during a whole day food of his childhood. While the attempt of enjoying food he used to love is a failure, the author goes further by explaining how the slight evolution of ourselves through the years conditions our perception of ancient loved tastes and scents, which never feel the same again. The distinction Baggini makes between memory and recollection enlightens this issue.

"Memory is nothing more than a kind of cognitive stamp-collecting. To remember is to recall, as reliably as possible, the facts of the matter. Recollection, on the other hand, is about retrieving the emotional essence of what happened."

Thus, the memory usually associated with food, as underlines Baggini, should rather be called recollection, as the process of finding back a feeling felt a long time ago through the tasting of identical food. It is not food that tastes the same (the author explained his demands got higher and higher as he experienced new and finer food); it is the feeling provoked by this particular food (pleasure, anxiety, security, comfort and so on) that was identical to past experiences of eating. Nothing surprising then in his disappointment: an educated tongue cannot appreciate bland sauce or too-sweet candies. However, a mind can and that's the magic of food and senses.

To learn more about the brain-processes involved in memory and senses, you can read also this article.