{"id":58,"date":"2018-02-05T13:22:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T13:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/2018-2-5-paul-bocuse-larger-than-life\/"},"modified":"2024-03-03T15:59:14","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T15:59:14","slug":"2018-2-5-paul-bocuse-larger-than-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/2018-2-5-paul-bocuse-larger-than-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Bocuse: Larger than Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Taken at the 2014\u00a0<\/em>Carnaval de Nice\u00a0where the theme of the parade of floats was gastronomy.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When a living legend is no longer living, the air immediately after the demise is filled with no shortage of eulogies, remembrances, idolatries, and platitudes. Never is heard an oft-told discouraging word until someone writes an unauthorized biography of the subject in question. The loss of Paul Bocuse<\/strong>, while waiting for such a biography, is no exception. As I have a gastronomically-oriented Facebook feed, nearly half of the posts I received on January 20 were chefs\u2019 tributes to Bocuse or obituaries from publications throughout the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giving a lot of thought to the task, I was hard-put to find a reasonable comparison of someone in another creative field I could compare to Bocuse\u2019s stature. In jazz music I thought of Louis Armstrong<\/strong> who, after his immortal recordings in the 1920s, became an ambassador for jazz around the world, as were Duke Ellington<\/strong> and Dizzy Gillespie<\/strong>. Luciano Pavarotti<\/strong> had a Bocuse-like impact in the world of grand opera. Salvatore Dali<\/strong> also came to mind since after painting such surrealist masterpieces as \u201cThe Persistence of Memory\u201d, which was his \u201cSoupe de Truffes VDG\u201d, so to speak, he ended up, not unlike Bocuse; less a profound artist than a one-man print-making factory turning out 2000 print creations (many of which were counterfeited ) for otherwise-uncultured buyers who wanted to let their friends think they were, at least, somewhat cultured. For sure what Bocuse, Dali and Pavarotti shared was an outsized personality who represented a field that a vast majority of those attracted to them knew little about. Still, comparing Bocuse to cultural icons is flawed because Bocuse was the first culinary figure to become just that. For those possessing some knowledge of gastronomic history as it pertains to France, the cradle of haute-cuisine, Bocuse is the latest in a line of immortal chefs dating back to Taillevent<\/strong> (1310-1385); Marie-Antoine Car\u00eame<\/strong> (1784-1833); Brillat-Savarin<\/strong> (1785-1826); Auguste Escoffier<\/strong> (1846-1935); and Fernand Point<\/strong> (1897-1955). But for those not versed in food history, Bocuse was the first to break through into the popular culture, not that popular culture as we know it existed until relatively recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rudiments and major accomplishments of Bocuse\u2019s life have been stated time and again in the scores of his obituary. That 1500 chefs all dressed in white came from everywhere to attend his funeral symbolizes how far-reaching his influence was. He was as well-known to the Japanese and Americans as he was to the French. With eight restaurants and brasseries, a foundation, a culinary and hotel institute of higher-learning and a legendary food hall named after him, in addition to the flagship restaurant and catering hall 7 km. outside in Collonges au Mont d\u2019Or, Bocuse seemingly owned the city of Lyon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just before Bocuse, there were a few well-known chefs in France, the most prominent of which was Fernand Point whose Restaurant de la Pyramide<\/strong> in Vienne where Bocuse apprenticed for six years. Alexandre Dumaine<\/strong>\u2019s restaurant La C\u00f4te d\u2019Or<\/strong> in Saulieu was a revered stopover for people driving from Paris to the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur; and Raymond Oliver<\/strong>, one of the first TV chefs, lorded over Le Grand Vefour<\/strong> in Paris. Nonetheless, these were restaurants patronized by the well-heeled elite that including a sprinkling of well-to-do sophisticated Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subsequent social, economic and cultural circumstances that allowed Bocuse to come into unparalled prominence haute-cuisine dining in France is at least as interesting as the man himself. How this happened was a confluence of both culinary and extra-culinary factors beginning in the early 1960\u2019s which saw an increasing awareness of the sophisticated glories of the French way of life, especially its wine, food, fashion and Nouvelle Vague cinema. 1961 was a turning point with the publication of Julia Child<\/strong>\u2019s and Simone Beck<\/strong>\u2019s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and the embracing of French cuisine in John F. Kennedy<\/strong>\u2019s White House. While the elites could stuff themselves with French food crossing the Atlantic on one of the French Line ships, jet planes took over the trans-Atlantic journey providing a cheaper and faster way to get to France to enjoy the real thing. Yet, one shouldn\u2019t overlook the emergence of fine dining in general. Newspapers, the New York Times in particular, began to recognize the restaurant and home-cooking universe, with the Times beginning weekly restaurant reviews in 1963. (For a detailed and entertaining exposition of key aspects of the early migration of food and wine from France to the USA, read Justin Spring<\/strong>\u2019s recent book The Gourmand\u2019s Way: Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In France, the early 1960s continued what eventually become known as Les Trentes Glorieux, 30 years of strong and sustained economic growth between 1945 and 1975. Restaurant formation was one of its manifestations, and at that time a new generation of chefs would start to appear. The roots of what was to become known as La Nouvelle Cuisine Francaise and La Bande \u00e0 Bocuse began in the late 1950s when Bocuse took over his family\u2019s restaurant and Jean<\/strong> and Pierre Troisgros<\/strong> theirs. Yet, it was not until the late 1960s, and especially the 1970s, when French restaurant cuisine at its highest level could be found throughout the country, particularly from Paris to the south of France, which in turn created a few dozen or more \u201cdestination\u201d restaurants visited by foreigners young and old, wealthy and middle-class. How Bocuse became and remained the overwhelming symbol of this is rather remarkable. He was eclipsed in culinary talent by nearly every chef in the Bande \u00e0 Bocuse. While journalists make light of the 53 straight years of three-stardom, knowledgeable people who have dined at his flagship restaurant have for years judged it to be mediocre at best with only Guide Michelin\u2019s unwillingness to downgrade it during Bocuse\u2019s lifetime keeping the stars intact. Not surprising therefore, unlike Alain Chapel<\/strong>, the Troisgros family and Alain Ducasse<\/strong> is the relative lack of Bocuse-trained apprentices (particularly after the mid-1970s) who became chefs at the highest level. Because of who he was, these matters of connoisseurship never counted against him. While Bocuse in a business suit looked as though he could cash your check at the Credit Lyonnais or open your account at France Telecom, once he put on his white vest and covered his head with his higher-than-normal toque, he was like Charles de Gaulle<\/strong> wearing his kepi. (Not for nothing did people call Bocuse the \u201cEmperor\u201d). Bocuse also had what most chefs lack\u2014a sense of humor and the theatrical that gave his restaurant. with its hyper-decorated fa\u00e7ade, his name in lights and circus atmosphere, a sense of entertainment, gaiety and frivolity unlike any other. His personality was so outsized that whatever was dark or mysterious about him bothered just about no one. So diminished now in high-end restaurants is a joie-de-vivre that one can confidently say that we will never see Bocuses\u2019s like again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a living legend is no longer living, the air immediately after the demise is filled with no shortage of eulogies, remembrances, idolatries, and platitudes. Never is heard an oft-told discouraging word until someone writes an unauthorized biography of the subject in question. The loss of Paul Bocuse, while waiting for such a biography, is no exception. As I have a gastronomically-oriented Facebook feed, nearly half of the posts I received on January 20 were chefs\u2019 tributes to Bocuse or obituaries from publications throughout the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":59,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[79,80,81],"ppma_author":[279],"authors":[{"term_id":279,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"robertbrown","display_name":"Robert Brown","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2_Gastromondiale_3_A4.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/2_Gastromondiale_3_A4.jpg"},"first_name":"Robert","last_name":"Brown","user_url":"","description":"

When I was born, I was destined to dine. When I was a child, my parents began collecting fine wine, ate the food in France of Fernand Point and Raymond Oliver, and often took my brother and me to New York from our house in Western Massachusetts to New York to eat in the best restaurants. When I started my rare books and posters business in 1970, I made (and still make) frequent trips to Europe with my wife where we traveled the length and breadth of France and Italy (and often Japan) to visit and revisit the great and interesting restaurants. While obtaining a Master\u2019s degree at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, I did my research in mass communication and mass and popular culture. It shaped my unique way in writing about and conceptualizing gastronomy.<\/p>\r\n<\/br>\r\n

I look at, and keep a constant eye on, how restaurant gastronomy in particular has evolved over the past 50 years in terms of innovation and change; the ways in which it is portrayed in mass and social media and their effects on dining preferences and tastes; the influence of new technology on creativity; the role that access to capital and restaurants as economic entities in influencing the state of dining; how people make decisions of where and how to spend their time and money on dining; the result of gastronomy moving from an elite to a mass phenomenon; and the myriad of real and conceptual matters that come into my mind on an almost-daily basis. This experience has made me vigorously represent the autonomy and well-being of my fellow diners, an aspect that is inexorably being diminished and thus taking its toll on integrity and connoisseurship. How all of this affects my gastronomic opinions and decision-making is apparent in what I have contributed, and will further contribute, to Gastromondiale.<\/p>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7791,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/7791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}