Yesterday, Chef Philippe Lafargue from Restaurant Philippe in Biarritz, France (Basque Country) made the trip up to Paris to lead one of these guest demonstrations. He had trained under the likes of Alain Ducasse, Joel Robuchon, and Paul Bocuse while working all over the world, so I knew I wanted to go.
This was the second guest demonstration that I have so far attended. The first was led by an older, very accomplished chef who cooked intricate, but rustic Provencal dishes for us to try. We learned a little, but the demonstration was more-so about cooking and plating all three dishes in 2 hours.
Chef Philippe immediately set a different tone. We all file-in to the demonstration classroom wearing our strict uniforms, while Chef Philippe's chef's jacket is more similar to a white button down than the traditional jacket, he is wearing jeans (not houndstooth trousers) and no hair net despite his longer hair!
What is the world coming to?!?
But Chef Philippe turned out to be just as cool and casual as his outfit. He is introduced and begins his lecture by taking a blue dry-erase marker and drawing a smiley face in the middle of a serving plate.
"What makes the perfect plate?" He asks us.
"Fresh Ingredients...?" Someone shyly answers.
"Yes! Product is number 1. There are three parts to a perfect plate, what are the other two?"
After a lot of guessing and probing, we get to all three: Product, Technique, and Seasoning make the perfect plate.
He writes these on the back of the plate: 1, 2, and 3. Then, he goes further, asking us,
"What is the best fish? How do you find the best fish for your product (number 1)?"
A lot of right and wrong guesses finally leads us to these four criteria:
1. Fresh
2. Local
3. Wild (not mass farmed)
4. Line Caught/ The manner in which the animal was killed
These four criteria can also be applied to other meats and produce as well. You should always look to buy the freshest product that has not travelled too far and fits in with your culture. You should buy try to buy meat or produce that has been bred or farmed not in a mass-produce way, but in a more natural environment. And for meat, it is very important to know how your meat was killed. For fish, line caught fish are the best because the large trolling nets cause stress, suffocate, and bruise the flesh of the fish before it is eaten. Line caught fish on the other hand die much more quickly and less stressfully giving their meat a much better taste. The same goes for beef, poultry, pork, etc. If the animal is stressed out before it dies, it will not taste as good. (I knew this already having grown up in the home of a large animal veterinarian).
About an hour into the two hour demonstration, the chef began cooking. WHAT?!? This is unheard of. Usually, it's a mad-dash to finish and he's just chatting about freshness of product.
The Menu consisted of two dishes:
1. Soupe D'orge Safrannee/Seiche (Barley Soup with Saffron and Cuttlefish)
2. Mon Foie Gras D'Automne 2012 (The Chef's Autumn 2012 Foie Gras)
He taught us about how to buy the best foie gras and why he thinks it's completely humane and delicious. He taught students about Barley and Saffron since that was not well known by many (however cuttlefish, the most out-there ingredient in my opinion was pretty universally accepted...) and then made two delicious dishes. He also has some of his recipes online at the restaurant's website.
Midway through the demo, I just casually looked over at the guy sitting next to me's notes. Then I did a double take. They were in Hebrew. So I asked him in Hebrew, "Is that Hebrew? Are you Israeli?" He looked at me like I was an idiot (it was two genius questions) and said "Yes, do you know Hebrew?" So then we had a quick conversation about how I lived in Jerusalem.
About five minutes later, the chef called the Israeli up to the front. Turns out, the Israeli is a superior (the last course before you graduate) student and as he had known a lot of the chef's answers throughout the day, Chef Philippe thought it would be fun to have a "plate-off" of sorts for the Foie Gras.
Here are two pictures of the two different plates. Can you guess which one was the Chef's and which one was the Israelis?
Okay, so it's not that hard. The first picture is the student's and the second is the chef's. But, the chef created the elements of the dish with this plating in mind and he got the better plate to use as well. The Israeli just walked up there, was given ingredients, and went. So, we were all pretty impressed. I was just SO glad they didn't miss the Israeli's chair by one seat and ask me instead.
In the end, Chef Philippe left us with a few pointers about becoming chefs:
"if you are afraid, you will fail"
"cooking is a friendly game"
"pleasure comes from the repetition of eating- not a single bite"
"something new, something that you are tasting for the first time will not satisfy you because you have no memory of it"
and finally:
"you should only eat to satisfaction and satisfaction only comes when you follow the three rules- product, technique, and seasoning."
So, there you have it. And if you ever find yourself in Biarritz, France, I would give Restaurant Philippe a chance. They are only open for dinner.
(There was only one plating of the Barley Soup)
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