Perhaps
it’s a sign of my philistinism when it comes to architecture,
but I was surprised to learn that Le Havre has Unesco World Heritage
Site status. It was bombed flat during WWII, leaving 80,000 people
homeless, according to Wikipedia, and rebuilt from 1945 to 1964
by Auguste Perret, a Belgian-born architect with a thing about
reinforced concrete who, according to one source, “effectively
blended modern themes with Gothic form.” Unrelentingly dreary
and gray it is, however, and, unless you’re an architecture
buff, you wouldn’t want to go there.
Unless you’re
a food buff, that is, because Le Havre is where the second Omnivore
Food Festival was held on Feb. 12 and 13 in the huge warehouses
along the port, empty now that Le Havre is being outshone by Rotterdam.
The acronym
“OFF” is not the most fitting word to use when it
comes to food, but it’s typical of the way the young bloods
running Omnivore spice up their utterances with English words
and phrases. The festival also included a lively wine show called
Divinomnivore, attended by around a hundred producers of natural
tipples, and a trade fair for restaurant professionals, Expomnivore.
Omnivore
Food Festival is a good description of the event, however: “Omnivore”
evokes the boundless curiosity about food of its creators, “Food”
(yes!) speaks for itself, and “Festival” is exactly
what it is: a two-day food party with chef after chef getting
up on stage to strut his stuff during a 40-minute stint in front
of the cameras and a fascinated audience of mostly food professionals.
Each chef puts together up to three dishes during that time, while
manfully coping with a TV-style presenter’s relentless,
inane gastro-babble.
Unfortunately,
“manfully” is the correct word. I would have preferred
the more politically correct “personfully,” but of
the 26 chefs lined up for the demonstrations, only one was a woman:
Anne Sophie Pic, who runs the kitchen in the legendary Maison
Pic in Valence.
During the
day, after the lengthy, disorganized and patience-trying process
of actually gaining entry, we managed to take in five demonstrations,
sample intriguingly delicious nibbles prepared hot on the spot,
slurp some interesting “natural” wines, and take a
very long lunch break – not by choice but because the “Restoff”*
was overrun with festivaliers with raging appetites after
seeing all that food being prepared. Our 45-minute wait to be
seated, and a similar wait for orders to be taken and served were,
however, enlivened by conversations with food and wine professionals
attending the event.
I won’t
give you a blow by blow account of all the demonstrations (I do
have a life), just a taste of a couple. The first we saw was Claude
Bosi, who currently runs the Hibiscus in Ludlow on the Welsh borders
of the United Kingdom and will soon be moving to London. He concocted
a carpaccio starter of veal and cod with black winter radish,
a powdering of lime zest and herbs (chervil and chives), plus
a dash of a truffle vinaigrette made with smoked olive oil, the
whole decorated with sprigs of borage. It looked gorgeous on the
big screen above the stage where the demonstrations were being
conducted.
His main
dish was mackerel, rhubarb, fennel and wasabi (this last much
in evidence throughout the day). The mackerel had been vacuum-cooked
at 35°C and had kept its raw aspect, while the fennel had
been poached in water for three hours at 70°C, with a dash
of olive oil, and then quickly caramelized in a fry pan. This
was served on a coulis of dill with potato added for body, and
sprinkled with radish shoots, not only for effect but also to
get the peppery hit that Bosi reckons sustains perceived flavors
for longer. All that in 40 minutes.
Perhaps the
oddest thing we saw all day was the making of what chef Alexandre
Bourdas calls “massaged sugar.” He runs the Sa.Qua.Na
(which stands for Saveur, Qualité, Nature, and also sounds
like ‘fish" in Japanese) in Honfleur. He basically
makes a light syrup and adds butter and then a savory ingredient
– curry power in this case – and puts it through a
sieve to get a powder that he uses for decoration or to season
the likes of yogurt, cream cheese or sorbet. (Savory
sweets are evidently much in vogue;a nother chef served up his
langoustines with savory cotton candy.)
One of the
nibbles I tried consisted of a miniature filet mignon of pork
that had been rolled in roasted, crushed nuts and coffee beans;
flash fried; and served with a coffee-flavored cream of foie gras.
It wasn’t half bad, and gives an inkling of how this new
generation of young chefs is trying to escape the constricting
embrace of the great French culinary tradition.
The Omnivore
people are doing a good job of waking people up to the exciting
things taking place around France and have put together a guide**
to their favorite restaurants, most unstarred but all serving
high-flying food. It’s written in florid, hip French, of
course, and the layout is unbelievably busy, but you can at least
extract some addresses from it. They also have a Web site (www.omnivore.fr)
and a subscription magazine ominously called oMni.
I’ll
be going back next year to see if they’ve improved the basic
logistics, and next time round, I’ll go and party for the
whole two days instead of just one.
Richard
Hesse
* The Restoff
was run by Fabrice Biasiolo, who in his saner moments is chef
at Une Auberge en Gascogne at Astaffort in the Lot-et-Garonne
department (une-auberge-en-gascogne@wanadoo.fr).
** Carnet
de Route: Les 200 Tables de la Jeune Cuisine. Omnivore, les
Editions de l’Epure, September 2006. €24.
©
2007 Paris Update
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