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Good morning!
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(Applause)
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Good morning, everyone!
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(Audience) Good morning!
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Claudine and I are delighted
to be with you this morning
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to be the first one.
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I left home when I was 13
to go to apprenticeship,
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that was in 1949.
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Actually, home was the restaurant
where my mother was the chef,
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I was already in that business.
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In fact, there was 12 restaurants
through the years in my family
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and 12 of them owned by women,
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I'm the first male to enter
that business in my family.
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I went into apprenticeship from Lyon,
where my mother had her little restaurant
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to Bourg-en-Bresse, where
I was born a few miles away.
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Prior to that, when
we were about 8-9 years old,
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my mother had that little restaurant
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so, my brother and I,
before going to school,
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would walk with my mother to the market,
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the St. Antoine market
along the Saône river,
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and she would walk the market one way,
about 1/2 a mile, and buy on her way back.
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Buying a case of mushrooms
which was getting dark,
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maybe for a third of the price or less.
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We carried, of course,
we didn't have a car at the time.
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She'd get home and start doing
her vegetables, peeling for the day.
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She did not have
a refrigerator at that time.
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She had an ice box, that is
a block of ice into a little cabinet,
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so she'd have chicken of the day, meat,
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fish, usually, whiting or mackerel
or skate -- inexpensive fish,
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and that she has to use it that day.
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And the day after,
we start all over again.
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Everything was organic,
everything was local.
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The word organic did not really exist,
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chemical fertilizers
did not exist either,
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or fungicides, insecticides, pesticides,
all that stuff did not exist,
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so everything was, local and organic.
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I went into apprenticeship,
I was 13 years old and, at that time,
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it was very structured,
well, still is to certain extend,
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you got to be there on time,
you got to be clean,
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you have to be willing,
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it's discipline, it's structure,
that's the way a kitchen can work.
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We learn through a type of osmosis.
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The chef never really explained anything,
he'd just say, "Do that".
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And if you say, "Why?", and
he'd say, "Because I just told you".
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That was about the end
of the apprenticeship.
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Probably, just as good
for someone 13-14 years old.
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So, we worked, repeating, and repeating,
and repeating those techniques ad nauseam,
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we were not allowed
to go to the stove for a year.
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So, during that year,
I plucked a lot of chicken,
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eviscerated a lot of chicken,
scaled fish, chopped parsley,
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all of that type of things,
and then the chef called me --
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My name was "you" at the time,
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then by the time I went to the stove
they called me Jacques, so I got the name.
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He said, "You start tomorrow".
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"I start tomorrow?"
I didn't know how to do it,
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but when I went to the stove,
I knew how to do it.
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It was through that type of osmosis,
things that you show,
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I've got a book called, "La technique",
that I published in 1975
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so, it's 40-year old, and I don't cook
the way I did 40 years ago.
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But the way I did an egg white,
or sharpen a knife, or bone out a chicken,
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to [inaudible]... it is that kind
of permanence, that kind of continuity
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that you'll learn in the kitchen.
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To be first a craftman.
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And very often it's very difficult
to explain in words
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something that you can show --
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It's easier to show --
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than to explain in words --
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You can do that to chocolate as well --
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You'd do that at exactly
the right temperature --
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and we used to --
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put the butter in
a little container and that on top,
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and now you can charge 20 bucks for it --
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(Laughter)
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Put that in water that's cold --
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(Applause)
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Thank you, Titine.
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For me, first you have to be a craftsman.
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You have to be a craftsman, and
it's that repeat, and repeat, and repeat,
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that is very important.
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Just like --
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you spend a 1-2 years
in a studio in art school
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and learn the law of perspective
-- it is perfectly fine,
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and you learn how to mix
yellow and blue to make green,
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what to do with your sand,
with your spatula, with the brush --
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then you can come out and
do one painting after another.
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So that makes you a chef? Not really.
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But you're by then, a good craftsman,
and that's very important.
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You have to first know your trade,
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whether you are a shoemaker,
or a cabinet maker, like my father,
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first, you know your trade.
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So, those things that we boned out
I learned as a child --
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Then, I learned this from...
I don't remember where I learn that but
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when you learn something
you learn it a certain way
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and after a while, you don't remember
where it comes from,
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and you do it your way, eventually.
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To do a type of lollipop like that
as we used to do that you --
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So, those techniques, as I said,
first make you a craftsman,
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and if you are a good craftsman
then you can run a restaurant.
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There are about
20,000 restaurants in New York
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and 100 are well known, maybe 200,
maybe 300, maybe 400 even,
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but what happen to the 19,500
is that they are run by artisans,
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people who know how to work properly,
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and this is the only way if you become,
in my opinion, a good craftsman,
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if you have that type of knowledge
then you can express yourself.
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This is half of yourself,
the other half has to do with talent.
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If you happen to have talent like,
if you have taste, a bit of a vision,
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if you have a little bit of creativity,
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then you can express yourself,
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you now have the means
to express yourself,
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if you've gone through those techniques.
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You have to repeat those techniques,
as I said, long enough
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so you can afford to forget it after.
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Here we are,
half of this, now the filet --
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(Claudine) If you have any questions
you should shout them out,
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it's a good opportunity.
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There's going to be a test.
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(Laughter)
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(Jacques) This way --
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There's my carcass.
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Now, [inaudible] filet,
you remove it here --
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This one here --
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So, you free your hand
by learning those techniques
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and as I said, you can think in term
of texture and other things
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because, as I said, you free your hand
by repeating and repeating.
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Now, this is one part of yourself,
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half of yourself is there,
it's the craftsman,
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and the other part of yourself
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will depend on whether
you have talent or not,
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and even if you have
a little bit of talent, not too much,
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you can still run a little restaurant
by being a good technician.
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If you have a lot of talent,
then you can take it further,
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but not all the chefs are René Redzepi,
or David Chang, or José Andrés --
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Here we are --
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(Applause)
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(Jacques) At that point
you really don't want to cut the bone
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because the skin will shrink
all over the place so, we break it.
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And you know, the interesting part,
if you carve in the dining room,
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or if you do a quail
or a pheasant or a goose,
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the morphology is the same.
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If you cut a chicken
in pieces to do a skew,
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you cut exactly in the sample place,
at the shoulder joint, at the hip joint.
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Okay.
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Now, you have to be very proud
of what you're doing
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but you also have to be humble
to a certain extend
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because there's always someone
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who can think with
more creativity than you,
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or who can think harder than you do.
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We're all limited
by the extent of our taste
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and they are different,
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and sometimes you have a food critic
who really doesn't know how to cook
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but maybe can taste better than you do.
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We follow on that
and sometimes it's difficult to take
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but that's the way it is.
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For me, a young chef should work
with a good chef, in a good place,
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and at that point your [inaudible] is
to try to visualize what that chef does,
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if he or she works with you
then you try to see --
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Yeah, where there's no bones --
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a little bit here --
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you try to see the food through
his or her sense of aesthetic,
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their sense of taste,
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and even if it doesn't coincide with you,
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most of the time
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it won't coincide with your sense of taste
or your sense of aesthetic,
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but it doesn't really matter
at that point,
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you have to look at it through that,
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and you do it for a year or two,
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then you work with another chef
for a year or two,
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and again looking at things
from a different point of view,
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different sense of aesthetic,
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and then maybe with a third one
a few more times,
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then at some point
you're going to give it back.
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You're going to give it back,
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and now you're going to filter it
through your sense of taste,
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through your sense of aesthetic,
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that's how it works
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because ultimately, at some point,
you cannot escape yourself,
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you are who you are, and that's the way
how you are going to do it.
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It's always a bit of a paradox for me
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because I work with young chefs
at Boston University
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and everyone wants to do
something special and different.
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I do a class which I call a perfect meal,
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which is a roast chicken,
a bol of potatoes and a salad.
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It used to be this way --
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they all go to the stove
to do the same type of things
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and I say, "Don't try to blew my mind
because I know that I have 12 people here
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and I'm going to have
12 different chicken."
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That's the way it is so --
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you don't really have to
torture yourself to be different,
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you are different,
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there's no way that you can do
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exactly the same thing
than the person next to you.
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This is a good beef stuffing but --
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just to give you an idea.
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Okay, Titine --
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We have our galantine,
that is if we poach it,
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and our ballotine if we roast it.
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Thank you.
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So, we put it this way --
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(Claudine) No questions?
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(Jacques) Okay.
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- (Jacques) Very quiet here --
- (Claudine) I know --
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(Claudine) Do you want some wine?
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(Jacques) Ah, my daughter knows me --
(Laughter)
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(Jacques) Our galantine, so --
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(Applause and cheering)
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(Jacques) Up to that point --
(Claudine) You have five minutes --
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(Jacques) Oh yeah... okay.
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the technique to do something
remain fairly constant --
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but at that point
this is what it'll change,
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when you're happy with the way
how you cook it, what you do with it,
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the seasoning and all of that
become your own.
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Okay --
(Eggs cracking)
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- (Jacques) Pepper, Titine?
- (Claudine) Yep --
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- (Jacques) That's your salt --
- (Pepper mill grinding)
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(Claudine) Everyone needs one of me
in the kitchen, you all need me --
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(Laughter)
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(Jacques) Now I cook with
my granddaughter as well.
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(Claudine) She's twelve.
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(Jacques) Yes, when I did a TV show
with Claudine many years ago --
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(Jacques) Why did you
give me two of those?
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(Claudine) I get... I offer
whatever you want it --
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(Jacques) Okay, good.
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(Jacques) I learned to make
three different types of omelettes.
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A flat omelette, à la piperade
or omelette basquaise and so forth --
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Western omelette or in the US,
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and then we did an omelette
that my mother would do
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with very large curd, brown,
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and then we did a more
classic omelette - like this one -
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and loose, we want to make
very small curds like scramble egg --
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Now there are three different
types of omelettes that I would do,
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one is not better than the other,
it's just different
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A few weeks ago I did that for television,
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they came to my house and wanted me
to do the three types of omelettes,
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which I did --
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and then they realized they only have
a minute and a half when they edited,
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so they just took some stuff
from one omelette to the other,
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to the other, and mix
the whole thing together --
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(Laughter)
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(Jacques) What a waste!
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Here you bring it back here
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which you're rolling
really like a carpet --
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so you're just bringing one lid --
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one lid here and a half moon --
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nice half moon...
bring that here --
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bring the other lid on top --
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this is the time
when you want to stuff it,
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change hands,
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and that omelette should be --
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to the edge --
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Ooooh!
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- The chefs in my kitchen --
- (Applause)
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The chef in my kitchen
would have seen the pleads on top
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and he would have done some reference
to the behind of his grandmother --
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(Laughter)
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As you can see it should be pale
right on top, very creamy,
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very soft inside, like scramble eggs,
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and that's what a classic omelette is.
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(Jacques) Yes, Claudine?
(Claudine) Yes, papa!
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(Jacques) Ok, will you drink to that?
(Claudine) I will!
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(Applause)
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(Claudine) Whatever
you take away from here, I hope --
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and it's so wonderful that
you're taking the time to be here,
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I hope you share
your knowledge with everyone
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because that's how the craft continues,
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that's how our trade continues,
that's how it gets better.
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(Jacques) Yeah, I realized quite well,
all of you know those techniques,
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some better than me,
yet I thank you for coming
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and listening to me, but for me
the permanence is there,
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to teach, to explain and to show
at least the basic structure,
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and at that point, when you have
that type of manual dexterity
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or technical knowledge,
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then you can run a kitchen quite well.
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As I said, if you happen to have talent,
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then you bring it to a another level
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and, like the person who works
in a studio for a couple of years,
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as I said, after that, you know
how to mix all your paintings
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and know what you can do with a brush,
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then you step outside you do
one painting after another --
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Does that make you an artist?
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Not really, at that point
you're a good craftsman.
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If, however, you have talent,
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now you have the means
to express that talent
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and take it somewhere.
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As I said, you do
have to transcend that level
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in which you have to concentrate
on the manual task that you're at.
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You see a beginner coming around
and you said: "Do you have any parsley?"
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and he sayd: "Don't disturb me"
- someone is slicing something -
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So you have to transcend that level
you don't have to think about it,
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things are there so you can think
in terms of texture,
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combination of ingredients,
or things like that.
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- Right, Titine?
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(Claudine) Right.
Do you have any questions?
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(Jacques) I think I was there at
one and a half minute,
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now I'm back to seven minutes?
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(Laughter)
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(Claudine) Oh, okay.
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(Jacques) Yes, any questions?
No questions... Yes, sir?
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(inaudible speaking from the audience)
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(Claudine) Oh, yeah --
(Jacques) Do I know that man here?
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(Claudine) I gave him 20 bucks before
to say that. Thank you, Michelle!
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(Claudine blowing a kiss)
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(Jacques) Thank you, Michelle.
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Yes, I know that there are
great, fantastic chefs here --
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we had an extraordinary,
extraordinary meal at Noma,
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I'm gratified to be here,
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I know I'm the oldest of the group
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and now that I'm passed 80 years old
I'm supposed to be wise --
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I don't think that I'm wiser
than when I was 30 years old
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but this is what happens when you get old.
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You think I'm wise, Claudine?
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(Claudine) Yes, yes, yes...
of course, you are!
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(Jacques) Ok, that's a good daughter.
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(Laughter)
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(Jacques) Now I'm doing a show
with my granddaughter, Shorey,
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which we called "Lesson of a grandfather".
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So, little things,
even how to set up a table,
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eat properly at the table or --
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but no, not enjoying wine yet --
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(Claudine) No, no, no wine yet,
it's just to give us show, so --
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(Laughter)
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(Claudine) Yes, sir?
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(inaudible speaking from the audience)
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It's a very interesting question...
Do you want to repeat the question?
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(Claudine) The question is how
are the kitchens today different than
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the kitchens my father
was an apprentice in.
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Pretty dramatic?
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- Yes, well, no... but, yes!
- (Laughter)
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There is a permanence there,
the point is that
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you still have to come on time,
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you still have to be ready to work,
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you still work in a place which is
very structured, very disciplined,
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like in the army,
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you don't say, "Yes, captain!",
but you say, "Yes, chef!",
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it's about the same thing
and you have to --
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you have to so that
the kitchen works properly.
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You're a member of a team,
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and if you're late or you don't show up
to be part of that team,
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you're going to destroy the structure,
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so that remains the same.
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That being said, when I was a kid,
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when we cut a tomato
we only cut it in one direction,
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we never alternate to the other side
when I worked at the Plaza and in Paris,
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or whatever in the fifties.
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Now, there's a much greater deal
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and innovation is part of yourself too.
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And, of course,
we, up to 20-30 years ago --
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I've been in the kitchen 65-67 years --
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the cook were at the bottom
of the social scale.
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Any good mother would have wanted
her child to marry a doctor, an architect;
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certainly not a cook,
now we are genius.
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- I don't know exactly what happened --
- (Laughter
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- This is great, this is terrific.
- (Claudine) Papa, he has a question.
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23:27