Good morning!
(Applause)
Good morning, everyone!
(Audience) Good morning!
Claudine and I are delighted to be with you this morning
to be the first one.
I left home when I was 13 to go to apprenticeship,
that was in 1949.
Actually, home was the restaurant where my mother was the chef,
I was already in that business.
In fact, there was 12 restaurants through the years in my family
and 12 of them owned by women,
I'm the first male to enter that business in my family.
I went into apprenticeship from Lyon, where my mother had her little restaurant
to Bourg-en-Bresse, where I was born a few miles away.
Prior to that, when we were about 8-9 years old,
my mother had that little restaurant
so, my brother and I, before going to school,
would walk with my mother to the market,
the St. Antoine market along the Saône river,
and she would walk the market one way, about 1/2 a mile, and buy on her way back.
Buying a case of mushrooms which was getting dark,
maybe for a third of the price or less.
We carried, of course, we didn't have a car at the time.
She'd get home and start doing her vegetables, peeling for the day.
She did not have a refrigerator at that time.
She had an ice box, that is a block of ice into a little cabinet,
so she'd have chicken of the day, meat,
fish, usually, whiting or mackerel or skate -- inexpensive fish,
and that she has to use it that day.
And the day after, we start all over again.
Everything was organic, everything was local.
The word organic did not really exist,
chemical fertilizers did not exist either,
or fungicides, insecticides, pesticides, all that stuff did not exist,
so everything was, local and organic.
I went into apprenticeship, I was 13 years old and, at that time,
it was very structured, well, still is to certain extend,
you got to be there on time, you got to be clean,
you have to be willing,
it's discipline, it's structure, that's the way a kitchen can work.
We learn through a type of osmosis.
The chef never really explained anything, he'd just say, "Do that".
And if you say, "Why?", and he'd say, "Because I just told you".
That was about the end of the apprenticeship.
Probably, just as good for someone 13-14 years old.
So, we worked, repeating, and repeating, and repeating those techniques ad nauseam,
we were not allowed to go to the stove for a year.
So, during that year, I plucked a lot of chicken,
eviscerated a lot of chicken, scaled fish, chopped parsley,
all of that type of things, and then the chef called me --
My name was "you" at the time,
then by the time I went to the stove they called me Jacques, so I got the name.
He said, "You start tomorrow".
"I start tomorrow?" I didn't know how to do it,
but when I went to the stove, I knew how to do it.
It was through that type of osmosis, things that you show,
I've got a book called, "La technique", that I published in 1975
so, it's 40-year old, and I don't cook the way I did 40 years ago.
But the way I did an egg white, or sharpen a knife, or bone out a chicken,
to [inaudible]... it is that kind of permanence, that kind of continuity
that you'll learn in the kitchen.
To be first a craftman.
And very often it's very difficult to explain in words
something that you can show --
It's easier to show --
than to explain in words --
You can do that to chocolate as well --
You'd do that at exactly the right temperature --
and we used to --
put the butter in a little container and that on top,
and now you can charge 20 bucks for it --
(Laughter)
Put that in water that's cold --
(Applause)
Thank you, Titine.
For me, first you have to be a craftsman.
You have to be a craftsman, and it's that repeat, and repeat, and repeat,
that is very important.
Just like --
you spend a 1-2 years in a studio in art school
and learn the law of perspective -- it is perfectly fine,
and you learn how to mix yellow and blue to make green,
what to do with your sand, with your spatula, with the brush --
then you can come out and do one painting after another.
So that makes you a chef? Not really.
But you're by then, a good craftsman, and that's very important.
You have to first know your trade,
whether you are a shoemaker, or a cabinet maker, like my father,
first, you know your trade.
So, those things that we boned out I learned as a child --
Then, I learned this from... I don't remember where I learn that but
when you learn something you learn it a certain way
and after a while, you don't remember where it comes from,
and you do it your way, eventually.
To do a type of lollipop like that as we used to do that you --
So, those techniques, as I said, first make you a craftsman,
and if you are a good craftsman then you can run a restaurant.
There are about 20,000 restaurants in New York
and 100 are well known, maybe 200, maybe 300, maybe 400 even,
but what happen to the 19,500 is that they are run by artisans,
people who know how to work properly,
and this is the only way if you become, in my opinion, a good craftsman,
if you have that type of knowledge then you can express yourself.
This is half of yourself, the other half has to do with talent.
If you happen to have talent like, if you have taste, a bit of a vision,
if you have a little bit of creativity,
then you can express yourself,
you now have the means to express yourself,
if you've gone through those techniques.
You have to repeat those techniques, as I said, long enough
so you can afford to forget it after.
Here we are, half of this, now the filet --
(Claudine) If you have any questions you should shout them out,
it's a good opportunity.
There's going to be a test.
(Laughter)
(Jacques) This way --
There's my carcass.
Now, [inaudible] filet, you remove it here --
This one here --
So, you free your hand by learning those techniques
and as I said, you can think in term of texture and other things
because, as I said, you free your hand by repeating and repeating.
Now, this is one part of yourself,
half of yourself is there, it's the craftsman,
and the other part of yourself
will depend on whether you have talent or not,
and even if you have a little bit of talent, not too much,
you can still run a little restaurant by being a good technician.
If you have a lot of talent, then you can take it further,
but not all the chefs are René Redzepi, or David Chang, or José Andrés --
Here we are --
(Applause)
(Jacques) At that point you really don't want to cut the bone
because the skin will shrink all over the place so, we break it.
And you know, the interesting part, if you carve in the dining room,
or if you do a quail or a pheasant or a goose,
the morphology is the same.
If you cut a chicken in pieces to do a skew,
you cut exactly in the sample place, at the shoulder joint, at the hip joint.
Okay.
Now, you have to be very proud of what you're doing
but you also have to be humble to a certain extend
because there's always someone
who can think with more creativity than you,
or who can think harder than you do.
We're all limited by the extent of our taste
and they are different,
and sometimes you have a food critic who really doesn't know how to cook
but maybe can taste better than you do.
We follow on that and sometimes it's difficult to take
but that's the way it is.
For me, a young chef should work with a good chef, in a good place,
and at that point your [inaudible] is to try to visualize what that chef does,
if he or she works with you then you try to see --
Yeah, where there's no bones --
a little bit here --
you try to see the food through his or her sense of aesthetic,
their sense of taste,
and even if it doesn't coincide with you,
most of the time
it won't coincide with your sense of taste or your sense of aesthetic,
but it doesn't really matter at that point,
you have to look at it through that,
and you do it for a year or two,
then you work with another chef for a year or two,
and again looking at things from a different point of view,
different sense of aesthetic,
and then maybe with a third one a few more times,
then at some point you're going to give it back.
You're going to give it back,
and now you're going to filter it through your sense of taste,
through your sense of aesthetic,
that's how it works
because ultimately, at some point, you cannot escape yourself,
you are who you are, and that's the way how you are going to do it.
It's always a bit of a paradox for me
because I work with young chefs at Boston University
and everyone wants to do something special and different.
I do a class which I call a perfect meal,
which is a roast chicken, a bol of potatoes and a salad.
It used to be this way --
they all go to the stove to do the same type of things
and I say, "Don't try to blew my mind because I know that I have 12 people here
and I'm going to have 12 different chicken."
That's the way it is so --
you don't really have to torture yourself to be different,
you are different,
there's no way that you can do
exactly the same thing than the person next to you.
This is a good beef stuffing but --
just to give you an idea.
Okay, Titine --
We have our galantine, that is if we poach it,
and our ballotine if we roast it.
Thank you.
So, we put it this way --
(Claudine) No questions?
(Jacques) Okay.
- (Jacques) Very quiet here -- - (Claudine) I know --
(Claudine) Do you want some wine?
(Jacques) Ah, my daughter knows me -- (Laughter)
(Jacques) Our galantine, so --
(Applause and cheering)
(Jacques) Up to that point -- (Claudine) You have five minutes --
(Jacques) Oh yeah... okay.
the technique to do something remain fairly constant --
but at that point this is what it'll change,
when you're happy with the way how you cook it, what you do with it,
the seasoning and all of that become your own.
Okay -- (Eggs cracking)
- (Jacques) Pepper, Titine? - (Claudine) Yep --
- (Jacques) That's your salt -- - (Pepper mill grinding)
(Claudine) Everyone needs one of me in the kitchen, you all need me --
(Laughter)
(Jacques) Now I cook with my granddaughter as well.
(Claudine) She's twelve.
(Jacques) Yes, when I did a TV show with Claudine many years ago --
(Jacques) Why did you give me two of those?
(Claudine) I get... I offer whatever you want it --
(Jacques) Okay, good.
(Jacques) I learned to make three different types of omelettes.
A flat omelette, à la piperade or omelette basquaise and so forth --
Western omelette or in the US,
and then we did an omelette that my mother would do
with very large curd, brown,
and then we did a more classic omelette - like this one -
and loose, we want to make very small curds like scramble egg --
Now there are three different types of omelettes that I would do,
one is not better than the other, it's just different
A few weeks ago I did that for television,
they came to my house and wanted me to do the three types of omelettes,
which I did --
and then they realized they only have a minute and a half when they edited,
so they just took some stuff from one omelette to the other,
to the other, and mix the whole thing together --
(Laughter)
(Jacques) What a waste!
Here you bring it back here
which you're rolling really like a carpet --
so you're just bringing one lid --
one lid here and a half moon --
nice half moon... bring that here --
bring the other lid on top --
this is the time when you want to stuff it,
change hands,
and that omelette should be --
to the edge --
Ooooh!
- The chefs in my kitchen -- - (Applause)
The chef in my kitchen would have seen the pleads on top
and he would have done some reference to the behind of his grandmother --
(Laughter)
As you can see it should be pale right on top, very creamy,
very soft inside, like scramble eggs,
and that's what a classic omelette is.
(Jacques) Yes, Claudine? (Claudine) Yes, papa!
(Jacques) Ok, will you drink to that? (Claudine) I will!
(Applause)
(Claudine) Whatever you take away from here, I hope --
and it's so wonderful that you're taking the time to be here,
I hope you share your knowledge with everyone
because that's how the craft continues,
that's how our trade continues, that's how it gets better.
(Jacques) Yeah, I realized quite well, all of you know those techniques,
some better than me, yet I thank you for coming
and listening to me, but for me the permanence is there,
to teach, to explain and to show at least the basic structure,
and at that point, when you have that type of manual dexterity
or technical knowledge,
then you can run a kitchen quite well.
As I said, if you happen to have talent,
then you bring it to a another level
and, like the person who works in a studio for a couple of years,
as I said, after that, you know how to mix all your paintings
and know what you can do with a brush,
then you step outside you do one painting after another --
Does that make you an artist?
Not really, at that point you're a good craftsman.
If, however, you have talent,
now you have the means to express that talent
and take it somewhere.
As I said, you do have to transcend that level
in which you have to concentrate on the manual task that you're at.
You see a beginner coming around and you said: "Do you have any parsley?"
and he sayd: "Don't disturb me" - someone is slicing something -
So you have to transcend that level you don't have to think about it,
things are there so you can think in terms of texture,
combination of ingredients, or things like that.
- Right, Titine?
(Claudine) Right. Do you have any questions?
(Jacques) I think I was there at one and a half minute,
now I'm back to seven minutes?
(Laughter)
(Claudine) Oh, okay.
(Jacques) Yes, any questions? No questions... Yes, sir?
(Someone speaking from audience)
(Claudine) Oh, yeah -- (Jacques) Do I know that man here?
(Claudine) I gave him 20 bucks before to say that. Thank you, Michelle!
(Claudine blowing a kiss)
(Jacques) Thank you, Michelle.
Yes, I know that there are great, fantastic chefs here --
we had an extraordinary, extraordinary meal at Noma,
I'm gratified to be here,
I know I'm the oldest of the group
and now that I'm passed 80 years old I'm supposed to be wise --
I don't think that I'm wiser than when I was 30 years old
but this is what happens when you get old.
You think I'm wise, Claudine?
(Claudine) Yes, yes, yes... of course, you are!
(Jacques) Ok, that's a good daughter.
(Laughter)
(Jacques) Now I'm doing shows with my granddaughter, Shorey,