Paul Bocuse, Co-Founder of Les Chefs de France, dies at 91

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excerpt from the NYTimes:


Paul Bocuse, Celebrated French Chef, Dies at 91


By WILLIAM GRIMES JAN. 20, 2018

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Paul Bocuse in the kitchen at L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges, his three-star restaurant near Lyon, France, in 2012. His signature dishes not only pleased the palate; they also seduced the eye and piqued the imagination. Credit Jeff Pachoud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Paul Bocuse, the most celebrated French chef of the postwar era and a leading figure in the pathbreaking culinary movement known as nouvelle cuisine, has died, the French interior minister said on Saturday. Mr. Bocuse was 91.

He emerged as the first among a brilliant band of chefs who developed a modernized version of classic French cooking in the late 1960s and early ’70s, cheered on by Henri Gault and Christian Millau, the publishers of the influential Gault-Millau Guide. Following the lead of Fernand Point, the spiritual father of nouvelle cuisine and a mentor to many of its pioneers, Mr. Bocuse shaped a style of cooking at the Auberge du Pont de Collonges, his three-star restaurant near Lyon, that stressed fresh ingredients, lighter sauces, unusual flavor combinations and relentless innovation that, in his case, rested on a solid mastery of classic technique.

His signature dishes not only pleased the palate; they also seduced the eye and piqued the imagination. He stuffed sea bass with lobster mousse and encased it in pastry scales and fins. He poached a truffled Bresse chicken inside a pig’s bladder.

His most famous dish was truffle soup V.G.E., a heady mixture of truffles and foie gras in chicken broth, baked in a single-serving bowl covered in puff pastry. First served at a dinner at the Élysée Palace in 1975, the soup was named for the French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who had just awarded Mr. Bocuse the French Legion of Honor."



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I often explain to my child about musicians who "took the music someplace new."

Chef Bocuse was a maestro in the kitchen - he took food someplace else and influenced generations.

I had an opportunity to meet Chef Bocuse in 2000 (or maybe early 2001) at the first charity event in NYC for Careers Through Culinary Arts Program (see: www.ccapinc.org).

He was most cordial to a non-French speaker like myself - maybe because I spoke 'food'.
 
I often explain to my child about musicians who "took the music someplace new."

Chef Bocuse was a maestro in the kitchen - he took food someplace else and influenced generations.

I had an opportunity to meet Chef Bocuse in 2000 (or maybe early 2001) at the first charity event in NYC for Careers Through Culinary Arts Program (see: www.ccapinc.org).

He was most cordial to a non-French speaker like myself - maybe because I spoke 'food'.
I heard him speak at a meeting of Les Dames d’Escoffier back in the '80's. His topic revolved around what to expect in a full kitchen brigade as it related to women joining the profession. I was too in awe to speak with him at the time (1st yr student @ NYCCC which is currently called NYCTC) but his lecture helped influence me to go on to Cornell. Very affable man with a droll sense of humor and an inspiration and encourager to one of my favorite chefs, Jacques Pepin.
:cool:
 


WDW-related quoted from the NYT:
"Nouvelle cuisine lost momentum, but Mr. Bocuse did not. In the early 1980s, the Walt Disney Company invited him to create restaurants for the French pavilion at Epcot Center (now Walt Disney World) in Orlando, Fla. With Gaston Lenôtre and Roger Vergé, he developed Les Chefs de France restaurant, which is now operated by his son, Jérôme, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. It serves 2,000 meals a day and generates about $30 million a year."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/obituaries/paul-bocuse-dead.html
 
I heard him speak at a meeting of Les Dames d’Escoffier back in the '80's. His topic revolved around what to expect in a full kitchen brigade as it related to women joining the profession. I was too in awe to speak with him at the time (1st yr student @ NYCCC which is currently called NYCTC) but his lecture helped influence me to go on to Cornell. Very affable man with a droll sense of humor and an inspiration and encourager to one of my favorite chefs, Jacques Pepin.
:cool:
The 1980's.....we're about the same age.....

I eat breakfast at a place in the Hudson Valley run by a woman who went to Cornell....in the 1980's.....

EVERYONE - "it's a small world after all....."
 


RIP Chef Bocuse. The truffle soup is legendary. (Although I'm sure he'd have fired everyone in the place the last time I ate there in Epcot...the food is still amazing.)
 

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