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.