Remembering Paul Bocuse - by Rupert Swyer

The death of Paul Bocuse brings back memories of the night I went to dinner there with Martine, and her brother, in November 1973. I was feeling unwell, the beginnings of flu, and the Yom Kippur war had just broken out. But we'd booked, and this was an opportunity not to be missed.

Faithful to his legend, Bocuse himself was at the door with a jovial greeting for us. We opted for the 5-course menu at 120 francs, about 19 euros. It might be a bit more expensive now. The Saint Amour was the best Beaujolais I have ever tasted, full-bodied, long in the mouth, with a heady bouquet. Forget the vocabulary of modern wine-tasting: woodland fruits, wet dogs and grilled potatoes, or whatever.

I can't recall everything on the menu, but it did include écrevisses à la nage and a poularde de Bresse en demi-deuil, neither particularly nouvelle cuisine. My wife and brother-in-law are small eaters, so, helpful as always, I piled into their dishes too. The dessert trolley was a riot of puddings of every kind-- tarts, gateaux, fruits alone and in salads… again, not especially nouvelle cuisine. How to resist trying everything? Then came the mocha coffee, with a sort of creamy, smoky texture. Oh yes, and the accompanying chocolates!

As I started on my second cup of coffee, suddenly I began to feel cold, then hot, then cold again. I went to the gents and woke up about 15 minutes later, on the floor. I had fainted. The incipient flu, surely.

As we left, Bocuse was at the door again, looking concerned. “Was everything alright?” Definitely so, though the meal perhaps more so than I. Now I was fine, though. No food poisoning here. Not like some other so-called temples of haute cuisine.

Bocuse was renowned as a pioneer of nouvelle cuisine, which I shan't attempt to characterize here, though it had already gained a reputation for Lilliputian portions and outlandish marriages of ingredients. For
the high priests of nouvelle cuisine, dining was less a comfort for the stomach than an exercise in aesthetics and philosophy. We were supposed to become gastrosophes, à la Charles Fourier.

Rumour had it that top nouvelle cuisine chefs were repairing to Chez Allard, on the rue Saint-André- des-Arts in Paris, for a "proper" meal and the warmth of a traditional restaurant.

In 1973, though, the atmosphere chez Bocuse was relaxed and friendly, and the servings abundant.

I was describing the meal at a dinner party in Paris a few weeks later.William Christie, recently arrived in Paris, was there too. He was making a living accompanying master classes for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, I think. In a thick American accent he asked me: "Est-ce que tu parles aussi bien du sexe que de la bouffe?" "To intimates only", I replied, evasively.

We didn't know then, but the connection between food and sex was especially apposite in the case of Bocuse. He was a voluptuary in the great French tradition: he loved food and women, like a well-upholstered man in a Picasso engraving, reclining in the arms of a sensual female. Only in his case we are told he was living with three women, not to mention other lovers.

If that isn't enough to drive red-blooded men into the kitchen, I don't know what is.

Rupert Swyer   rupertswyer@gmail.com

Lafayette nous voilà!

One of the staples of transatlantic relations is the enduring friendship between France and the United States of America. In a TV interview in November, President Macron, as a preface to his comments on President Trump’s attitude towards global warming and Iran, declared: “the Americans are our allies. We helped the American people to win independence and they helped us every time our security was threatened”.  He was referring of course, among other things, to the role of Count Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette alongside George Washington during the American war of independence and the famous words attributed to General Pershing  (but probably uttered by his aide-de-camp) at Lafayette’s grave after landing in France at the head his troops in 1917: “Lafayette nous voila!" In his New year’s address to the French people, Macron even went so far as to echo John F. Kennedy’s words at his inaugural address in January 1961: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” In the U.S, countless streets, towns and cities are named after Lafayette and many statues have been erected to honour his memory. There are no less than three in New York, one in Union Square Park, sculpted by Statue of Liberty sculptor, Bartholdi, one in Lafayette Park, Harlem and one on an impressive frieze along the wall of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, commissioned by Henry Harteau, a Brooklyn citizen of French ancestry, who had these words inscribed on it: … “an enduring tribute to one who as friend and companion of the immortal Washington fought to establish in our country those vital principles of liberty and human brotherhood which he afterward labored to establish in his own.”

Relations between the two countries have not always been as warm as such tributes would suggest. A book published in 2004, written by an American journalist, John J. Miller and a historian, Mark Molesky (“Our oldest enemy”- “a history of America’s disastrous relationship with France”) romps through the history of bilateral relations with a distinctly jaundiced eye.  The book’s provocative title is only a prelude to the blackening of France’s reputation in the body of the text. France is accused at many junctures in history of deviousness, crude anti-Americanism and frequent attempts to thwart American, and by extension, the world’s interests, in pursuit of its own devious ends. From France's attempts to establish itself in the New World by conspiring with Indian tribes to massacre English settlers, to Napoleon Bonaparte’s designs on Louisiana, Napoleon 3rd’s support for the Confederacy during the Civil War and his failed attempts to install a puppet regime in Mexico, the thwarting by Clemenceau of Woodrow Wilson’s urge to  “make the world safe for democracy” by working for a more balanced version of the Versailles Treaty than the one that was eventually imposed on Germany in 1919, the obstructionism and “gallic pomposity” of Gaulle, after World War 2, the condescending arrogance of  the French cultural elite towards American popular culture in the 1950s and 60,  and finally  the "duplicitous" behaviour of Jacques Chirac in expressing unending sympathy for America  after 9/11 but refusing to take part in President Bush’s invasion of Irak. Published in 2004, the book was of course intended to surf on the wave of anti-French sentiment  following France’s refusal to participate in the "war on terror”, and it is therefore understandable that the authors did their best to cast the French in the worst possible light.  However, even George Washington, as recorded in the book, noted that: “…it is a maxim founded in the universal experience of mankind that no nation can be trusted further than it is bound by its interests”. The authors go to great lengths to blame the French for thwarting American interests but, unsurprisingly, make little attempt to explain or justify them. Little matter, the book makes entertaining reading!

Even these authors, however, warm to Lafayette. During America’s struggle for independence, they write, “there was at least one Frenchman however, whose concern for America seemed motivated by something other than raw self-interest”, even if they add, a couple of pages later, that, "in truth it is not altogether clear how well Lafayette actually understood the principles he was fighting for ”, and by extension therefore that, “for more than two centuries, whenever tensions arose between the United States and France, the French rarely missed an opportunity to invoke the memory of Lafayette as a way of shielding their true motives”.

Indeed, Lafayette might not have expressed the principles he was fighting for at the time of the American Revolution in the way historians have done since, but there is no doubting the sincerity of his convictions. And in the ultra turbulent times of the French revolution, some 20 years later, it was certainly not easy to “establish those principles of liberty and human brotherhood”, in the words of Harteau’s tribute. By all accounts, Lafayette was a moderate at a time of extremists, a bringer of order at a time of anarchy, in favour of establishing a constitutional monarchy in the aftermath of a monarch’s bloody execution. As the revolution spiralled out of control, he only saved his head by being outside the country, having been taken prisoner by the Austrians during the revolutionary wars. And while his wife, from the de Noailles aristocratic family, was able to escape from revolutionary Paris and join her husband, her sister, mother and grandmother all fell victim to the reign of terror, during which more than 1300 people were executed on the same guillotine in June and July of 1794.  During the post revolutionary period, Lafayette's relationship with Napoleon Bonaparte was strained, to say the least, and he spent the remaining years of his life as a moderate member of the Chamber of Deputies, playing a pivotal role in the mini Revolution of July 1830 when the “citizen king” Louis-Philippe was installed on the throne.

Lafayette’s last resting place, since his death in 1834, is the Picpus cemetery in Paris. I found it a strange place in many ways when I visited it recently, a small haven of peace and quiet, next to a noisy building site for a new university and across the road  from a large car dealership. The small number of elaborate tombs holding the remains of some of France’s most aristocratic families stand just yards away from three mass graves in which the bodies of many of those executed during the reign of terror were hastily and secretly buried in land that was consecrated only years later. Lafayette’s grave is easily recognisable in the far corner, with inscriptions in French and English and decorated with an American flag. It also holds American soil, brought back for this very purpose by Lafayette himself from his triumphant tour of America in 1824. Every year on July 4^th, an American delegation runs up a fresh flag over the grave of its honorary citizen and lays a wreath. As to the ideals of liberty and human brotherhood, the universalist message of both France and the United States, they continue to resonate and inspire throughout the world, from China to Russia, from Iran to Tunisia, to name just a few of its more recent manifestations.

Authority is back!

The month of May 2018 will mark the 50th anniversary of the “events”, as they are still euphemistically called in France, of May 1968.  There has been some talk in the media about whether the anniversary should be celebrated and if so how. Especially as most people old enough to remember them have images of disruption and chaos uppermost in their minds. The mini revolution culminated in what some consider a near coup d’état, thwarted only by the failure of the student and workers’ movements to find common ground and the reluctance of political leaders like François Mitterrand or the leadership of the powerful (at the time) French communist party to exploit the situation, overthrow de Gaulle and form a new government. After some initial hesitation, President de Gaulle eventually put up a spirited defence of the regime he had founded, dissolved parliament and won a resounding victory in the subsequent elections. The political crisis at least was over by the end of June.

It can be argued though that the effects of May 1968 are still being felt in France today. It was after all a revolt against authority that had been brewing for some time, similar to revolts in other western democracies during the same period. A revolt against the authority of parents, teachers, bosses, the church, political leaders and the powers that be in general. One of its best known slogans was: “it shall be forbidden to forbid” (“il est interdit d’interdire”) Anybody like myself who brought up children in France in the 1970s and 80s knows only too well that notions of authority were profoundly different after May 1968 than in the 1950s and early 60s. For better or for worse, previously imposed, and often grudgingly accepted, authority gave way to widespread liberalisation in almost every area of society, as the perceived balance of individual rights and obligations underwent a radical shift. And so it has been ever since, so deeply ingrained in the prevalent culture that nobody seems to notice any more. 50 years on however, and particularly since the election of Emmanuel Macron to the presidency, there are signs that the pendulum may be swinging back. Three examples come to mind.

The first concerns reactions to the recently announced ban on the use of mobile phones on the premises of primary and secondary schools from September 2018. Interviewed on TV, a teachers union leader, clearly ill at ease with the proposed measure, claimed that it would be difficult to enforce, referring to the need to “search pupils” or require them to lock up their phones in individual custom-built lockers. In a discussion about this over the Christmas turkey, one of my daughters-in-law, born in 1977, the same year as Emmanuel Macron, and certainly no sympathiser of the Front National, simply said this: “why can’t schools just tell pupils that the use of mobile phones on school premises is forbidden and if they are caught using one it will be confiscated? That’s what they do in privately run schools and I know for a fact that it works!” My conclusion from this brief exchange was that at least one 40 year-old parent today is not convinced that forbidding should be forbidden, nor that authority cannot and should not be exerted, and respected, when it serves a specific purpose.

The second example concerns the on-going national debate about the reform of unemployment allowances and vocational training. Under the current system, a job seeker is required to accept a job offer or a training opportunity if his or her employment counsellor judges it reasonable. After two refusals, the job seeker can be struck off the unemployment register for two to six months. In addition, their allowances can be cut but this decision can only be taken by a prefect, the direct representative of the state. The sanction is hardly ever applied and therefore exists largely on paper only.  As part of the reform being mooted by the government, the employment agency will be empowered to take that decision itself. Unions and left-wing politicians have protested loudly with hard-hitting sound bites like: “the government should be tackling unemployment and not the unemployed”. In reality, fewer than 15% of job seekers would be liable for this kind of sanction but the state has clearly been reluctant, so far at least, to exert its own authority and apply the existing law.

The third concerns the vexed, emotionally charged and infinitely more complex issue of immigration and how to deal with the mass of migrants who end up in France and apply for asylum here. France of course has a long and generous tradition of welcoming and integrating foreigners, but the squalid and well publicised encampments in Calais or under the bridges of overhead metro lines in different parts of Paris suggest, at the very least, that the welcoming tradition is being overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. Again, the law is clear: once an asylum request has been rejected, disappointed claimants should be returned either to their home country or to the first EU country in which they landed. But again, the measure is hardly ever applied. The vast majority of migrants whose asylum claim has been rejected manage to stay on as illegals, making the situation of overcrowding even worse and putting increased pressure on the authorities and the volunteer organisations that do their level best to alleviate their plight.

Once again it is the state that is reluctant to apply the full force of the law and use the police to deport those who have been told they can no longer stay. President Macron announced recently that he would tighten up regulations on migrants who are not allowed, after due process, to stay in France. Predictably, political opponents on the left have protested that France’s welcoming tradition is being trodden underfoot and that that the police have no right to enter premises housing immigrants in order to identify and arrest illegals. On the far right of the political spectrum, the Front National has been saying, with a smirk of satisfaction, that Macron is only about to do what it has been advocating for many years.

In any democratic society of course there must be public debate, and in France there always is - and it is always heated - about the rights and obligations of the unemployed or whether economic migrants should enjoy the same status as refugees from war zones, on what criteria that distinction should be made and what should be done about those who fall on the wrong side of the dividing line. That being said, once the debate has run its course and legislation has been passed, a government that does not apply it loses credibility and is rightly accused of doing nothing – a charge that can be levelled at many governments since May 1968. During Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency, for example, a number of brutal murders were committed by convicted criminals who had been released on parole or whose prison sentences had been reduced.  At Sarkozy’s instigation, and under pressure from public opinion, parliament voted no less than six new laws in an attempt to prevent a recurrence of such events.  The widely held view is that they have made precious little difference to actual sentencing and parole practises, simply because they are not applied.

By contrast, President Macron has gone on record more than once as saying: “I will do what I have said I will do”. During his presidential campaign he did indeed say that the unemployed should be held to greater account in exchange for fairly generous allowances and more recently that he will tighten up the immigration laws. Looking back over his first few months in office, he has certainly not been afraid to assert his authority. One remembers, for example, his very public dressing down of the army’s Chief of Staff before the summer holidays (See my post: “Hail to the Chief!” - July 16).

Perhaps he will celebrate the 50th anniversary of May 1968 by reminding the French, in word and deed, that the authority of the state is being restored and that he will continue to set an example at the very top. A Head of State who was born nearly ten years after “the events”, may finally be consigning their legacy to history!