Passard looks to gardens for kitchen inspiration
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ALAIN Passard, the holder of three Michelin stars, is an artist in the kitchen and has spearheaded a movement in Paris toward vegetarian cuisine.
He says his love affair with meat ended suddenly 13 years ago.
“One day I felt like it’s over with meat,” he said. “It’s just like a book in front of me that closed.”
He says the variety and beauty of colors attracted him to exploring vegetables in greater detail.
Although vegetarian food is trendy in Paris now, Passard admits it has taken time to build interest in the cuisine.
“There’s nothing difficult when you do things with love,” he said, leaning languorously on the back of a sofa in Park Hyatt Shanghai ahead of his gala dinner at the hotel.
Nowadays he cooks about 500 different vegetables a year. More importantly, he has brought some vegetables that were nearly extinct back to dinner tables thanks to his contacts with people in French villages.
He says he tastes produce from gardens all over France and if he likes something, brings back seeds to plant in his gardens in Paris.
He has brought back both topinambour (a Jerusalem artichoke) and panais (parsnip). Passard uses the artichoke to make a smooth soup that is served with clams.
He has three gardens — in Sarthe, Eure and Manche — to provide his restaurant L’Arpege with fresh and seasonal ingredients. Each garden has a different soil type to give produce distinctive flavors. The soil in Sarthe is good for carrots, leeks and asparagus, while Eure is best for cabbage and celeriac. Manche’s soil adds intense aromas to herbs.
Every morning Passard asks his staff to pick vegetables and arrange them by color.
“Color tells much about its flavor,” the chef said. “When pairing ingredients to make a recipe, if their colors look harmonious, their flavors basically go well with each other.”
He especially loves white asparagus in spring, red tomato in summer, celeriac in fall and black truffles in winter.
Recently, he has explored a new connection in color and flavor by pairing a vegetable with a fruit. He’s tried leek and kiwi, beet and blackberry, carrot and orange.
Still, he places a great deal of emphasis on cutting produce in the right way.
He usually cuts vegetables into quarters and cooks them quickly to preserve the color, texture and flavor.
But for his signature celeriac risotto, he dices celeriac in order to fully release its flavor.
Seasoning is his final touch of genius. Passard prefers ingredients such as cheese to build savory flavors. He also likes fresh herbs such as tarragon, chervil and chive to enlighten vegetables. Sometimes he prefers dressing. French mustard is his favorite.
Not just vegetables
His preference for vegetables makes many people mistakenly believe he cooks nothing else.
“I do cook red meat and poultry, even Peking duck,” the 58-year-old said.
It’s his fourth time visiting China. He recalls how Peking roast duck impressed him during his first visit. So much so, he says he even tried to practice this oriental technique, spreading syrup over the skin and blowing it up after returning to France, but wasn’t satisfied with the result.
“The taste wasn’t the same as here,” he admitted. “I think it’s because of the French duck.”
His artistic style and unrestrained personality mean his use of technology is often ignored.
He quit school at 14 to start his apprenticeship at Michelin-starred chef Jerome Kerever’s Hostellerie du Lion d’Or, a restaurant where he was exposed to the fundamentals of classic French cooking.
“He (Kerever) taught me how to work with a flame, to be creative and precise, and most importantly the right working attitude,” Passard said.
Krever is known for being strict on his cooks, but Passard says he dared to create something of his own and didn’t always follow the recipes. “Each time I invited him to taste mine, he said he loved it. I win!” Passard said, laughing.
When a chef is inspiring other chefs, it’s a sign of true genious.
David Kintch, a Californian celebrity chef, refers to Passard as “the chef who has most inspired me” in his book “Manresa: An Edible Reflection.”
“He’s the only chef I’ve ever met who I can unequivocally call a true artist,” Kintch writes.
Passard comes from La Guerche-de-Bretage, a small town in the northwest of France. His mother was a tailor and his father a musician and he credits them both for his “artistic” leanings in the kitchen.
“From throwing the vegetables into a pot to spreading spices and herbs evenly on food,” he said, “every motion in the kitchen can be elegant.”
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