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DUCASSE: Flavors of France
Alain Ducasse with Linda Dannenberg
Photographs by Pierre Hussenot
Artisan, 1998
ISBN: 1-57965-107-0
$60
264 pages
Reviewed by Mimi Hiller
I’ve never been to France. It’s one of the places I’ve always planned to visit some day, along with approximately a dozen others, most being the cities of Europe and their surrounding countryside. After reading and studying Alain Ducasse's cookbook, France has shot to the top of my list.
My first pass through this magnificent book was meant to soak in the pictures and quickly scan the recipes, or no less than read the titles and, perhaps, the ingredients. I swooned at the gorgeous photographs, for which Pierre Hussenot deserves high praise.
One glance will tell you that this is not the average cookbook and definitely not a recipe resource for the casual cook. Yet, anyone who is schooled in or simply appreciates fine food will spend many delightful hours reading it, and years of preparing its carefully crafted recipes.
From the introduction, we learn that Alain Ducasse, one of the world’s greatest chefs of all time, was motivated to learn as much as he could about fine food preparation. There is but a brief mention of his work under the tutelage of Michel Guérard in Eugénie-les-Bains and Roger Vergé at Moulin de Mougins, but it’s clear that his transformation from good to great was as a result of his association with mentor Alain Chapel in Mionnay, near Lyons, with whom he spent two years.
Chapel instilled in Ducasse a “renewed confidence and enthusiasm. From the shoulders of this giant I could see where I was going and at last had the mastery to go there. At its core, my cooking is about clarity of taste, precision in execution, and respect for the product, which to me means retaining its original flavor. At my restaurants a tomato will always taste like a tomato and, when possible, its original shape.” He goes on to explain that it’s easier to hide ingredients with sauces and cream than to create “faux simplicity.”
He describes a technique he uses: “I...incorporate different preparations of the same product in a given dish, each revealing an individual aspect of its flavor. For example, a dish might feature sliced raw artichokes, braised whole artichokes, and paper-thin slices of fried artichokes; a dessert might feature grated raw pear, sautéed pear slices, and puréed and then frozen pear. The palate discerns different facets of the artichoke’s or pear’s flavor in each incarnation. There is no such thing as genius in the kitchen; there is only the work?which is to respect the natural flavor of foods, to reveal their truest natures.”
Alain Ducasse is the inspiration for his three restaurants. Located in Monte Carlo, Moustiers Sainte-Marie (Provence), and Paris, each caters to its unique clientele and maximizes the ambiance of their physical settings: Bastide (Moustiers Sainte-Marie) is a converted farmhouse nestled in the countryside of the 16th-century village; Louis XV, located in a grand palace hotel, exudes the flamboyance of that monarch’s era; and Restaurant Alain Ducasse in Paris feeds the demand of the city’s varied tastes in a backdrop of sophistication and luxury.
The organization of the book is genius in its very simplicity. The five chapters are called “With Apéritifs (Amuses-Bouches), Vegetables (Le Potager), Shellfish and Fish (La Mer), Poultry and Meat (La Ferme), and Desserts (Les Gourmandises). There are followed by a short section containing basic recipes: Stocks, Savory Basics and Sweet Basics.
The last portion is a multi-sectioned appendix. This includes a listing of many of the ingredients he uses in his recipes (and suggested substitutions, when these are not available, such as seafood choices plentiful in Western Europe but missing elsewhere), Ducasse’s Pantry (a listing and description of many basic ingredients he frequently uses in his cooking, such as oils, vinegars, peppers, etc.), a section on techniques, another on conversions, and finally, a list of sources for many key ingredients.
The main portion of the book is a collection of recipes worthy of royalty. We see a variation in the offerings based on the location it is served. For example, the chapter on hors d’oeuvres samples Ducasse’s culinary universe. By careful organization of one’s options, one may dine on tartines, toasted baguette slices topped with an assortment of ingredients reminiscent of the Mediterranean, feast on Tapas à la Française as Ducasse’s Parisian fans do, or enjoy the simplicity of country charm with a simple, elegant spread.
An excellent example of such a spread is the first recipe in the book, a Fennel “Marmalade” (Marmelade de Fenouil), a compote flavored with thyme, garlic and basil, then covered by olive oil, and served with garlic toast. Among the French Tapas is the Multilayered Omelette (Mille-Feuilles d’Omelettes), “a stack of five thin omelettes, each with a different filling?Parmesan cheese, parsley, onions and red peppers, tapenade, and diced tomato. The stack is compressed under a weighted plate while it chills and then sliced into cubes.”
Some of the recipes, such as The Riviera Salad, Like A Niçoise and the Sautéed Sea Bream with Clams, White Beans, and Girolles may scare off all but the most ambitious of cooks due to their immense ingredients listings (the two columns of ingredients alone fill an entire nine-by-twelve page), and frequently, an “ingredient” actually refers us to another recipe in the book.
In the case of the Riviera Salad, one need only turn the page to see the finished product to be drawn to this dish, even if considerable time must be invested in its preparation. To begin, several vegetables are given special treatment, followed by the preparation of a tapenade (using sherry vinegar), the vinaigrette, the toasted baguette slices (rubbed with garlic, spread with the tapenade, and garnished with sliced quail eggs and Niçoise olives), and frying the small, purple artichokes before the entire salad is assembled.
The recipes in the Shellfish and Fish chapter make ample use of the seafood available from the two seas which border France, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, providing a diversity of culinary possibilities. His treatment in each case brings out the maximum flavor of the fish (or shellfish) by the “faux simplicity” of preparation and presentation.
One of the most ingenious and creative recipes in the book is the Scallops Steamed in Their Shells. Large sea scallops and butter are nestled between individual scallop shells, and the shells are sealed closed with strips of puff pastry dough. These are then baked on a bed of coarse salt.
Occasionally, one finds more of menu description than a traditional recipe, such as the Ragout of Salt Cod with Red Peppers, Olives, and Sausages: “This elegant Niçoise stew is made by gently cooking tripettes that have been soaked for 1 week in water and then gently cooked in olive oil with onion, red pepper, garlic, tomato, and dried, ground fragrant Basque pepper. Salt cod, soaked separately for several days, is then poached in milk scented with star anise and dried fennel branch. Just before serving, the dish is seasoned with olive oil, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper, fresh parsley leaves, and tiny Niçoise olives. The poached fish, shredded and gently mixed with olive oil and a pinch of Basque pepper, garnishes the ragout. Each plate is then completed with small, sauted, garlicky Perugina sausages.”*
Then there is a similar narrative involving the recipe Half-Dried Pasta Tubes with Sweetbreads, Cockscombs, and (Cock’s) Kidneys. I wouldn’t begin to know where to come up with the cockscombs and cock’s kidneys, but this also includes such exotic ingredients as Beaufort cheese and truffle juice, and combines the pasta tubes in a cream sauce with lobster meat over a bed of diced vegetables.
The Desserts chapter offers many unbelievable ways to finish off a meal. The elegant, unusual presentations are sure to elicit applause from your guests, and even those who insist they cannot stuff one more bite into their sated bodies will consider “seconds.” Perhaps it is the photos showing all manner of absolutely perfect fruit and impeccably garnished plates, but the reader is drawn to the culinary experience. I only wish I could find the words to do justice to the photo of the Strawberry Tart with Almond Cream.
Each recipe in the chapters on vegetables, seafood, and poultry and meat includes wine suggestions. There is also “a note on wines and desserts” in the last chapter which offers suggestions based on the type (fruit desserts, or coffee, chocolate and cream desserts), organized by French region.
It is often tempting to take shortcuts and make substitutions. On some levels, this might acceptable, such as the case of recipes which call for a particular seafood or mushroom unavailable in one’s locality. The author states clearly in the introduction that he uses “the best ingredients” at his disposal. It would seem logical that when one starts with the best, the end product is also the best it can be. Though the added steps involved in preparing some of the basic ingredients may seem tedious and time-consuming, Alain Ducasse is the living symbol these extra measures are well worth the effort.
Whether you plan to use the recipes or simply enjoy the photos and descriptions, DUCASSE: Flavors of France will bring you immense pleasure. It is a treat to own, and a joy to use.
*Tripettes are the dried and salted strip found behind the innards
and beneath the backbone of cod. Perugina sausages are “small, round, dried
sausages made of pork flavored with garlic…used in the stockfish recipe
because they are a specialty of the area around Nice.”
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