A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was reading a book called The Perfectionist, about the life of three Michelin-starred French chef, Bernard Loiseau. I'm about three quarters of the way through it now, and thought I'd pass on what I've learnt so far.
Tragically, Loiseau's life story is defined by his suicide, in 2003. The owner of the Côte d'Or restaurant in Burgundy put a shotgun to his own head, rather than continue to bear the constant pressure of retaining his three Michelin stars.
Is The Perfectionist a good book? For me, it's at least a hundred pages too long, and the prose can at times be terribly overworked (quote: "the black truffle … does for French cuisine what a Wonder Bra does for an ambitious ingénue …"!) But as an insight into the world of French haute gastronomie in the second half of the twentieth century, and, in particular, Loiseau's complex world, Rudolph Chelminski's book works both as history lesson and cautionary tale.
To tell Loiseau's story, Chelminski sets the scene by introducing the Godfathers of French cuisine, whose traditions Loiseau would uphold. First, we hear of Fernand Point, legendary chef-patron of La Pyramide in Vienne, whose "cuisine du moment" - the art of cooking the best produce available at the day's market - set a template so many French chefs would follow. Chelminski traces the "sophisticated simplicity" of Point's cooking through the work of Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Claude Peyrot and the Troisgros brothers - all of whom worked under him. He goes on to introduce Alexandre Dumaine, whose restaurant Loiseau would one day purchase. (The Perfectionist yields many recipes, though none more extravagant than Dumaine's oreiller de la Belle Aurore - a pillow-shaped pâté of hare, partidge, chicken, duck, ham, veal, pork, fois gras, truffles and pistachio that took three days to make. Chelminski reports that dinners at Dumaine's restaurant would close the windows rather than lose any of the dish's aroma).
Even as Point's disciples were graduating to owning their own restaurants, France was entering the Trente Glorieuses, the thirty years of economic development from the sixties to the nineties, when an emergent nouveau riche with money to burn and cars to drive shared their wealth around the great provincial restaurants. This happy period was well underway when Bernard Loiseau was apprenticed to work at the Troisgros brothers' restaurant in Roanne, in 1968. Three months later, the brothers had won their third star, and Bernard had identified his life's purpose: to do the same.
At this point, Chelminski takes an informative detour to the city of Clermont-Ferrand, where André Michelin, son of a family of runner ball-makers, patented the idea of a tire and inner tube for car wheels in 1891. Having helped mobilise the French, in 1900 he published a guide that would help them find hotels and meals on their travels. (We learn that these guides were given out free to motorists until 1919, when André saw one being used to prop up a wobbly table in a garage.) In 1933, stars were introduced to rate restaurants and they quickly became the yardstick of high cuisine - so much so, that chef, Marc Meneau referred to his demotion from three to two stars in 1999 as a "bereavement".
At last we get to know Bernard at this point - 100 pages in! It's easy to like Loiseau - hard-working, loyal, good-natured, generous and entertaining. His apprenticeship with the Troisgros brothers is worth a read - all carrying coal, peeling and turning potatoes, scaling and gutting fish, tending the stocks, killing and skinning frogs, plucking ortolans … Despite setbacks, he qualifies as a certified cook in 1971, and is soon working under Claude Verger in Paris.
Chelminski is interesting on Verger, who was untrained but had a clear vision of how food should be prepared. Verger questioned the complication of French cooking with its overworked sauces and favoured "top-quality ingredients treated quickly, lightly and at the last minute". He shared this philosophy with his friend, Michel Guérard, whose Parisian restaurant, the Pot au Feu, he admired greatly. To illustrate Guérard's ability to transform unremarkable ingredients into memorable dishes, Chelminski details his ailerons de volaille aux concombres - chicken wings with the central bone removed to form a sort of lollipop effect, served with cucumbers tossed in butter with shallots, diced mushrooms, herbs, tomatoes, white wine and cream. Later in the book, Chelminski extensively covers Guérard's development of cuisine minceur, with which he sought to produce dishes at once tasty and healthy by swapping vegetable-based sauces for butter and cream.
Loiseau's quest for Michelin recognition began in earnest when he arrived at the Côte D'Or restaurant, in the mid-Seventies. It's fascinating to track his development of a cooking style he thought would achieve the regularity, quality and personality required by inspectors. This style called for a perfectionism that would come to haunt him, as the commercial burden of his restaurant came to hinge increasingly around winning stars. At this stage, Loiseau's menu was fairly derivative - I was fascinated to read the section where the author traces Bernard's dishes to their origins. So, we learn that his mussel soup with saffron owed much to Paul Bocuse, that his tea-infused prunes were inspired by Alain Senderens, that his salade Côte d'Or was lifted from Michel Guérard, and that his salmon in sorrel sauce had the Troisgros brothers' imprint all over it.
Slowly, le style Loiseau emerges, first in dishes like turbot slices with sautéed cepe mushrooms, and bavaroise of artichokes with a puree of fresh tomatoes; then in his reinvention of the humble nettle soup with snails and in what is perhaps his signature dish, pike perch with beef marrow in a red wine sauce (this last is described in great detail).
Despite his growing culinary confidence, Loiseau is depicted as suffering from deep-rooted insecurities, as a man whose need to be adored by his public was as overwhelming as his desire for three stars. As his development of the restaurant incurs mounting debts, and his work schedule becomes ever more gruelling, so the circumstances of his death become more understandable.
I'll fill you in on my thoughts on the rest of the book when I've finished it …