An Introduction to French Cooking

The most influential culinary tradition on Earth comes from France. This sounds debatable – maybe even the kind of statement that leads to heated arguments, weaponized soups, and thrown cutlery – but it is simply true. The 20^th century was the story of food becoming global, and the language of that story is French.

Our tale begins, as they so often do, with a singular genius. His name was Escoffier, but to the public he was ‘roi des cuisiniers et cuisinier des rois’, the chef of kings and king of chefs. A man versed to his very soul in the traditions of French cooking, his food at London’s Savoy and Carlton Hotels was considered the best in all of Europe. Getting a seat for dinner service became a competition worthy of Game of Thrones – especially as many of the people competing for reservations were actual royalty.

Escoffier quickly realized he would need a bigger kitchen, and that to teach those working in this kitchen all that they had to know, he would need to create a system where the food would be perfect every time. He wrote a book, Le Guide Culinaire, which organized the kitchen as a team; each chef with a role that had to be played perfectly, or the whole service would fail.

This method would go on to be the way that every professional restaurant kitchen on Earth would be organized around, to this very day. The French cooking academies that sprang up to instruct chefs in Escoffier’s methods made Paris the capital of food for almost fifty years. The very concept of haute cuisine was born at that very moment, turning food into a regimented art.

The old master died in 1935, having changed the world. The young French chefs that grew up in Escoffier’s shadow slowly-but-surely began to substitute much of the previous generation’s elaborate preparations and old school menu selections, but the obsession with repeatable perfection became permanent. The professional kitchen was here, and it was going nowhere.

Vive la France.

Feeling a certain ennui over the lack of French dining in your life? A table at Le Mieux, Amuz, or Lyon is simply a click away.

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