9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Good morning! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Applause) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Good morning, everyone! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Audience) Good morning! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Claudine and I are delighted [br]to be with you this morning 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to be the first one. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I left home when I was 13[br]to go to apprenticeship, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that was in 1949. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Actually, home was the restaurant[br]where my mother was the chef, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was already in that business. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In fact, there was 12 restaurants[br]through the years in my family 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and 12 of them owned by women, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'm the first male to enter [br]that business in my family. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So I went into apprenticeship from Lyon[br]where my mother had her little restaurant 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to Bourg-en-Bresse, where I was [br][inaudible] a few miles away. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Prior to that, when we were [br]about 8-9 years old, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my mother [inaudible] restaurant so, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my brother and I before going to school[br]walk with my mother to the market, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the St Antoine market [br]along the Saône river, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and she would walk the market one way, [br]about 1/2 a mile, and buy on her way back. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Buying a case of mushrooms [br]which was getting dark, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 maybe for a third of the price or less. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We carried, of course, [br]we didn't have a car at the time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She'd get home and start doing [br]her vegetables, peeling for the day. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She did not have [br]a refrigerator at that time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She had an ice box, that is[br]a block of ice into a little cabinet, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so she'd have chicken of the day, meat, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fish, usually, whiting or mackerel [br]or skate -- inexpensive fish, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that she has to use it that day. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And the day after, [br]we start all over again. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Everything was organic, [br]everything was local. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The word organic did not exist, really, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [because] chemical fertilizers [br]did not exit either, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or fungicides, insecticides, pesticides,[br]all that stuff did not exist, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so everything was, local and organic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I went into apprenticeship, [br]I was 13 years old and, at that time, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it was very structured,[br]well, still is to certain extend, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you got to be there on time,[br]you got to be clean, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you have to be willing, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's discipline, it's structure,[br]that's the way a kitchen can work. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We learn through a type of osmosis. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The chef never really explained anything, [br]he'd just say, "Do that". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And if you say, "Why?", and [br]he'd say, "Because I just told you". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That was about the end [br]of the apprenticeship. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Probably, just as good [br]for someone 13-14 years old. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, we worked, repeating, and repeating,[br]and repeating those techniques ad nauseam, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we were not allowed[br]to go to the stove for a year. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, during that year,[br]I plucked a lot of chicken, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 eviscerated a lot of chicken, [br]scaled fish, chopped parsley, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 all of that type of things,[br]and then the chef called me -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My name was [Hugues] at the time, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then by the time I went to the stove[br]they called me Jacques, so I got the name. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He said, "You start tomorrow". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "I start tomorrow?"[br]I didn't know how to do it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but when I went to the stove,[br]I knew how to do it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was through that type of osmosis,[br]things that you show, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I've got a book called, "La technique",[br]that I published in 1975 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so, it's 40-year old, and I don't cook[br]the way I did 40 years ago. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But the way I did an egg white, [br]or sharpen a knife, or bone out a chicken, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to [inaudible]... it is that kind [br]of permanence, that kind of continuity 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that you'll learn in the kitchen. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To be first a craftman. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And very often it's very difficult [br]to explain in words 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 something that you can show -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's easier to show -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 than to explain in words -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You can do that to chocolate as well -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You'd do that at exactly [br]the right temperature -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we used to -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 put the butter in[br]a little container and that on top 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you can charge 20 bucks for it -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Put that in water that's cold -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Applause)