The Bocuse-Atchez Dichotomy

The work is an analysis of the development of cooking as an art as well as introducing a philosophical dichotomy of different chefs. The purpose is to change the developing chef's mind from that of following a recipe to understanding how cooking can become an art and how one can create their own place in it by studying the philosophies of the current leaders of gastronomy.

In the current world of gastronomy and fine dining, most restaurants fall between the dichotomy of tradition and innovation. This dichotomy is not a historical trend, but instead a recent development within the world of cooking. Like any philosophy, there isn’t a singular path towards excellence and beauty, however, this essay will explore the two dominant ways food presents itself as art, as well as historically analyzing how this trend developed in the modern age.

The history of cooking is long and complex, however, to understand how food has progressed from Epicurean sustenance to that of fine art, one should first look towards the history of necessity.

Pleasure, for the longest time, was not a priority when it came to food. The purpose of food was more akin to how the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus described it: as a source of nourishment (Konstan). Food was cooked not for it to become tastier, but for it to become edible. The rise of humanity beyond our hunter-gatherer forefathers came from the discovery of cooking meat, but the act of cooking itself was purely for necessity. The late food critic A.A. Gill described this best, stating that the thought of a cooked animal was quite abhorrent, since to the neological peoples, fire represented death and destruction, not transformation (Gill, A.A.). The bravest man he said, was the first to eat cooked meat.

After the discovery of transformation by fire, the neolithic discovered that one could consume more meat in its cooked form than raw, thus it allowed them an edge in survival. This emphasis on the practicality of cooking became the dominant approach until food became less scarce, and societies became less dependent on hunting and gathering.

Cooking truly became an art form when it became less about the practicalities of its usage and more about its transformative properties. How can one use something as common as the air we breathe or the water we drink and transform it into art? Shall a potato or a leek remain simply that, or can the chef, like the painter, apply it unlike how one applies acrylics and marble, and make something beautiful? Like how the readymades of Duchamp questioned and expanded what could be considered art, food ascended towards the artistic platform when began to appreciate what has been cooked, rather than simply consuming it.

Thus begins the art of cooking. The first chefs were innovators, attempting to create something beautiful and tasty, rather than simply edible. They wanted to use raw foodstuffs as their oil and canvas, combining and transforming them to give them flavor and emotion. Innovators, however, would become traditionalists once they have found their thing, the dish that they can develop a career off of this was in juxtaposition to those who, with the basic skills of cooking, were discontent with the slow progress of refinement, and thus instead chose to rapidly innovate and develop new dishes, combinations, and techniques.

In modern gastronomy, I describe this phenomenon as the dichotomy between Paul Bocuse, the late Lyonnais chef, and that of Grant Atchez, head chef of Alinea. Bocuse is known for his ultra-traditionalist and orthodox recipes, such as the bygone Livre a la Royale, or his renditions of the pot au feu. Atchez, on the other hand, is the pioneer of molecular gastronomy, who has dedicated his craft towards creating radically new dishes. Through these two different philosophies towards the art of cooking, chefs create their own artistry and define what cooking is to them.

The essence of Bocuse’s philosophy of cooking can be found throughout the world, but the most prominent example comes from Japan, in the basement of the Tsukamoto Sogyo Building where Anthony Bourdain ate with Jiro Ono’s and asked him if perfection was possible to attain (Bourdain). He responded that perfection to him was like a platonic ideal and that for him it was something that could never be actualized. Jiro however, has spent the majority of his life making the same Edo style sushi, in the hopes of reaching the higher levels of perfection. His art lies fully in the path of refinement, of chasing the idea of perfection through repetition.

Bocuse himself learned through a lineage of famous French chefs, reading the works of Escoffier and being a protege of Eugénie Brazier. The dishes he cooks have been around for hundreds of years, with Bocuse personally refining them over the decades through his restaurant L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges. One can see how on this side of the dichotomy, beauty is found through repetition and a sense of consistency.

The other side of the world of gastronomy is best represented through Grant Atchez, the head chef of Chicago based Alinea. Labed the Chef who couldn’t taste due to his extensive battle with oral cancer, Atchez created dishes which stunned the traditions of conventional cooking. He was skeptical of the repetitive style of mainstream cooking, which can be seen through the dialogue between Atchez and his mentor Thomas Keller of The French Laundry (Atchez, Grant). Atchez, cooking under Keller, criticized how they seemed to cook the same dishes every day. Keller responded that the dishes were in fact, new to all of the customers of that day, to which Atchez replied, “What about us?”.

Atchez would then recreate his Alinea menu every few months or so, constantly revamping his already revolutionary menus. On the debut days of a new menu, the price of dinner would be halved in order to tease out his newest creations. His desserts resemble Jackson Pollock paintings more than they do any conventionally cooked meal. Atchez represents the experimental spirit of chefs, the Malevich or Kandinsky of the culinary world.

All of the important figures of modern gastronomy fit somewhere between this dichotomy. The head chef of Noma, René Redzepi, embraces Atchez’s experimental nature, however, he restricts himself by limiting his produce to those locally grown in his Nordic region (Bourdain). Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal introduced the perfectionism of haute French cuisine, though they transformed it and adapted it through a fusion of influences.

I will finish this essay by examining a couple of cooking episodes Marco Pierre White did for Knorr. Although panned by his contemporaries for his endorsement of a multinational stock cube manufacturer, White introduces a concept that might seem foreign to the field of artistic cooking, but in fact is a revolutionary insight towards food. Over the course of the many episodes, White has demonstrated to the home cook many dishes, from a vegetarian spaghetti sorrentina to a spicy steak au poivre, and in cooking all of them, he constantly reiterates the fact that cooking should not be a recipe, but instead a philosophy (White). Cooking is not the mathematical application of ingredients but is instead the personal application of touches and tastes which produces a perfect dish. It is producing a work that does not satisfy the recipe, but the individual chef. Although a chef can be measured on their style of cooking, the artistic value of the dish falls solely on who cooks it.

One should view the cooking styles and strategies of the following chefs above not as binding commitment to cook a certain way, but instead to read them like philosophers and artists, deconstructing their work to find aspects that relate to the chef in you. Study the chefs of the aforementioned dichotomy, and find how you can personally create art through cooking.

References

Bourdain, Anthony. "Japan Sukiyabashi Jiro 3-Star Sushi." YouTube. December 26, 2008.

Accessed February 10, 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asH4jhr8E20&t=294s.

Bourdain, Anthony, writer. "Copenhagen." In Parts Unknown. Netflix. October 6, 2013.

Gilb, David, writer. "Grant Atchez." In Chef's Table. Netflix. September 2, 2016.

Konstan, David. "Epicurus." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. April 16, 2018. Accessed

February 10, 2019. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/

Gill, Adrian Anthony. "A.A. Gill @ 5x15 - The Meaning of Food." YouTube. April 03, 2016.

Accessed February 10, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_dBCsbgyq0.

White, Marco Pierre. "Spaghetti Sorrentina - Marco Pierre White." YouTube. June 18, 2013.

Accessed February 10, 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weRpA0jifYg&t=36s.