Techniques of the Past for the Future | Jacques Pépin

good morning good morning everybody Jordan and I are delighted to be with you this morning to be the first one I left home when I was 13 to go into apprenticeship at was in 1949 actually home was a restaurant where my mother was the chef I was already in that business in fact there was 12 restaurants through the year in my family and 12 of them owned by woman I am the first male to go into that business in my family so I went into apprenticeship from Lyon where my mother a deli restaurant to walk home West where I was born a few miles away prior to that when we were about 8 9 years old my mother had a tea restaurant so my brother and I before going to school walk with my mother to the market the st. Anthony market around the sonne River and she would walk the market one way about half a mile and by on her way back buying a case of mushroom which we're 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 got home and started doing a vegetable peeling - for the day she did not have a refrigerator at that time she had an icebox that is a block of ice into a little cabinet so she had a chicken of the day meat fish usually whiting or macro skate inexpensive fish and a vegetable and that she had to use it that day and the day again the day after we start all over again everything was organic everything was local the world organic did not exist really but since chemical fertilizer did not exist either fungicide a sector side pesticide all that stuff did not exist so everything was you know locale and again it that's it so I wanted to apprenticeship I was 13 years old and at that time it was very structured Arvid still is to a certain extent you gotta be there on time you have to be clean you have to be willing is discipline a structure that the way kitchen can work we learn through a type of osmosis the chef never really explained anything we just say do that and if you had said why we're after because I just told you that's what about the end of the explanation probably just as good for someone 13 or 14 years old so we work the repeating and repeating and repeating those technique ad nauseam we will not allowed to go to the stove for a year so during the year I did pluck a lot of chicken eviscerate our chicken scale fish shot parsley all of that type of thing and the data chef told me my name was you at the time then by the time I went to the stove then they call me Jax way at the name and so he said you start tomorrow I start tomorrow I didn't know how to do it I went to the stove and I knew ought to do it for the world that type of osmosis thing that you show that you matter that you show I have a book called a technique that I publish in 1975 so it's four years old and I don't cook the way I did four years ago with the way I did an egg white or shaft on a knife or or you know boa or a chicken to eat the same so it is that kind of permanence that tariff continuity that you learn in the kitchen to be first a craftsman and it's very difficult very often to explain in in world something that you can show and it's easier to show than to explain in word you can do that with chocolate as well if they are exactly the right temperature and we used to put the butter in a little container that on top and now you can charge 20 bucks for it so put that in water it was cold so we could thank you the jeans for me first you have to be a craftsman you have to be a craft on and it that repeat and repeat and repeat that is very important just like in you can spend a year two years in a studio in art school and learn the law of perspective it is perfectly fine and you do learn how to mix yellow and blue to make green you know what to do with your son with a spatula with a brush then you can come out and do one painting is there another does that make you a chef not really but you are by then a good craftsman and that very important you have first to 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 born out I learn all I say other child okay and then I learn this from I don't remember what I learned that but when you learn something you learn it that's just anyway and after a while you don't remember where it comes from and you do it your own way eventually to do a type of lollipop like that that we used to do that you so those technique as I said first make you a craftsman and if you're 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 happened to their 9500 they are run by axes own you know people who knows 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 and this is half of yourself there the other half has to do with talent if you have talent you happen to have talent by this I mean if you have taste if you have a bit of vision if you have a little bit creativity then you can express yourself you now of the mean in your hand to express yourself if you have gone through those technique you have to repeat those technique and I said long enough so that you can afford to forget it after after this now the fillet if you have any questions you should shout them out it's a good opportunity so there's going to be a test this way there is my caucus now did it feel a remove it here this one here so you free your hand by learning those technique and as I said you can now think in terms of texture in term of 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 other craftsmen you're the part of yourself now depending on whether you have talent on that and even if you have a little bit of talent not too much it can still run a little restaurant by being a good technician if you have a lot of talent then you can take it further not all the chef's are only that they pee or they be trying or you know 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 party that 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 ask you you cut exactly in the same 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 extent because there is always someone we can think with more creative than you are you can sing follow than you do we hold limited by the external our taste and they are different and sometimes you have people who don't like a food critic who don't really know how to cook but maybe you can taste better than you do go farther than that and sometime it's not easy to take the stat the way it is for me a young chef should work with a good chef in a good place and at that point you ride a is to try to visualize what that chef does if she or II work with you then you try to see here that there is no a little bit here you try to see the food through ease or her sense of aesthetic your 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 through a different point of view different sense of aesthetic and then maybe with a third one a few more time then at some point you are 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 to 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 the way you're going to do it and it's always a bit of a paradox for me because I work with young chef like at Boston University and everyone want to do something special and different I do a class which I call the perfect meal with a roast chicken a boiled potato and a salad you know it has to be done this way so they all go to the stove to do that some type of things and I say you know don't try to blow my mind because I know that I have 12 people here I'm going to have 12 different chicken that the way it is so you don't really have to talk to yourself to be friend you are different there is no way that you can do exactly the same thing and the person next to you so this is that would be suffering it's not pretty but just to give you an idea accrediting so we have our gallant in that is if we post it and our ballotine if we roast it thank you so we put it this way let's dunno no question usually okay yeah quite yeah I know do you want some wine ah my daughter and there wasn't he I'll get on ting so up to that one five minutes oh yeah okay the technique to do something revengefully constant and you need a roll here and but at that point this is very challenge when you have this the way you cook it what you do with it the seasoning and all that become your own okay pepper chicken yep - of salt everybody needs one of me in your kitchen you all need me now I cook with my granddaughter as well she's 12 yes when that did television show was closed in many years ago what did you give me two of those I do yeah I offered whatever you want it okay so I learned how to make basically three different type of omelet the flat omelet occurring from tip a odd or omelet basket and so forth Western omelet call in the US and then we did an omelet as my mother would do with very large code Brown and as I say that you let Brown and then we did a more classic omelet like this one and those you want to do very small curd there is more pure like scrambled eggs [Music] now there is three different type of unrest that I would do one if not better than the other it's just different a few weeks ago I did that for a television came to my house they wanted me to do the three type of omelet which I did and then they realized only had maybe a minute and a half of the edited so they just took some stuff from one of left to the other to the other big the whole thing together we're a mess so here you bring it back here so that you are not rolling really a carpet so you're just bringing one lip one lippy and a half moon nice half moon thing that's here brings the other lip on top she's the time when you want to stuff it Challenge hon and then that room that should be to the edge ooh - chef in my kitchen [Applause] everybody togarashi the plate on top he would have done some reference to the behind of his grandmother and would have kind of put for a term let across so but you see it should be pale red on top very creamy very soft inside that formula x2 and that's what a classic omelet is yes Gordon yes whatever you take away Oh breakfast whatever you take away from here I hope and it's so wonderful that you taking the time to be here I hope you share you share your knowledge with everyone because that's how the craft continues that's how our trade continues that's how we get there better I realized quite well that you know all of you know those techniques some better than me even but yet I thank you for coming and listening to me but for me yeah the pair - is there you know to teach and to explain and to show at it those 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 an i/o level and like the person who work in a studio for a couple of years I said after that you know to mix all your planning and you what you can do with a brush - you step outside you do one panting after another so that make you an artist not really at that point you're a good craftsman if however you have talents now you have the mean in your hand to express that talent to take it somewhere you know and as I said you do have to transcend that level at which you have to concentrate on the manual tasks that you are at you see a beginner coming around and you said do you have any policies that don't disturb be so many slicing something so you have to transcend that levels that you not have to think about it things are there so you can take more intimate texture combination of an ingredient or thing like this write it in right I think I was there at one and a half minute now I'm back to seven minutes yes anyone else any question no question yes sir oh yeah do I know that okay I gave him 20 bucks before to say that thank you myself Thank You Michel yes so I know there is a great fantastic chef here we had an extraordinary extraordinary meal at Nava I'm gratified to be here I know that I'm the oldest of the group and now that I've passed 80 years old I'm supposed to be wise I don't think I'm wiser than when I was 30 years old but this is what happens when you get old you think I'm wise president yes yes that's a good daughter now I am doing show with my granddaughter sherry which we could lesson of a grandfather so little thing even the set up out to set up the table eat properly at the table or no no enjoying amount of wine yeah France yes sir it's a very interesting question now it's a team or part of private the question the question is how are the kitchens today different than the kitchens that my father was an apprentice in pretty dramatic yes well no but yet there is a pyramid there is a pyramid out there the point is that you still have to come on time you still have to be ready to work you still work in a place which is very structured very disciplined like in the Army you don't say yes captain yes chef it's about the same thing - and you have to you have to so that the kitchen works properly your member of a team and it's very important if you don't show up or part of that team you can have destroyed the structure so that remained the same that being said whatever the kid we would never up there - Kura at emiru will only cut it in one direction we would never have turned it the other side when I work at the plaza in Paris or whatever in the 50s now there is a great deal much more innovation for of yourself - and of course we up to 20 30 years ago I mean I've been in the kitchen 65 years 67 years the cook well at the bottom of the social scale any good mother with a more adore child to marry a doctor an architect you know certainly not a cook now we are genius I host no actually what happens but who's this great this terrific so it is quite different yes [Music] yes it is I have a question for you yes you said you more than 80 right yes yes so I'm 39 and I think a lot of cooks that deal with this hmm what can I say like guilt sometimes they feel like you know they should be yearning for something in the past that in the past things were better kind of can you please tell us how it used to be in a kitchen and whether you think that the life in the chin is better today and actually do you think that food has become better and is becoming better or was it better back in the old days no it is better there is a cycle also certainly as I said my mother use only organic product - well that's what we had we didn't have anything else so we going back to that which is a great thing of course to be in communion with the earth and inconvenient where you work and the local and so forth yeah absolutely the cook now still had say the structure that we used to have but you have much more freedom than we ever had before certainly I got kick in the rear and a few time by myself a minute was the type of thing it's Sybil's at that time it was supposed to be difficult you had to go to a rite of passage and all that which is not really necessary you don't need to get yelled at I feel that you know I see a lot of show on television certainly reality show and the kitchen is like mayhem and the chef is yelling all over the place this is not conducive to good work certainly there was a great deal of love a great deal of yourself that you put in that food and the yelling at other people too lack of respect that are in the thing is not conducive in my opinion to learning well and teaching people how to cook at a certain age when I was twelve thirteen the best way of learning were probably through that kind of automatic way you look you repeat you look repeat and so forth we pass that level now chef come from cooking school calm they come out from college - they're older and they want to know how to do it they want to explain so it's a different way of teaching than what we used to and people of course not for in a hurry and we were - we are at least three years of apprenticeship without pay or anything so you know you have six apprentice in front of you so this is much better now a much greater respect for the chef for what we do for our tradition and this is why I mean we're here today yes yes okay well I still see one minute me I don't know what the right I don't know whether I answer your question or whether I what not specific enough but thank you you'll be the first one to ever get that answer if it's possible if you look back when you were 30 right and you should look at kitchens and chefs yes and cooking now right do you believe that it's better now oh yeah absolutely no question thank you no pressure at all thank you of course to the mad team for working their tuchus is off to an extent that I find extraordinary and rather inspiring so I hope that everybody feels really good about the work here but of course thanks to all of you for caring so much about what we do and about what you do and bringing it to the next level we hope you have a wonderful wonderful couple of days thank you and drink drink a lot of wine [Applause] [Music] [Applause] nice outer clothing I'm gonna bring this in the back for okay good I'm Michel okay house is not here he's here okay everything I know I learned from him you know okay hey be careful

Channel: MAD

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Keywords: jacques pepin, chef, international culinary center, french kitchen, french culinary cooking style, celebrity chef, noma, René Redzepi, yummy, cooking techniques, the complete pepin, jacques pepin: fast food my way, fast food my way, heart and soul, jacques pepin heart and soul, french chef, famous chef, a french chef cooks at home, complete techniques, french cooking, french cooking techniques, simple and healthy cooking, simple cooking

Id: eXg3xAdtBNY

Length: 28min 22sec (1702 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2018