Review of "A life in the kitchen, by Michel Roux Jr"

A life in the kitchen, by Michel Roux Jr (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2009)

Probably the greatest disappointment of my life was the realisation that very clever people are not necessarily very likeable, that cleverness does not always, or even often, equate to goodness. That this is evidence of naiveté goes without saying, particularly now that in the age of continuous media it’s clear that some people have given up entirely on the effort of trying to be nice, even through gritted teeth. But it is problematic all the same: I’d rather cook from a book written by someone I warmed to than not – it’s simply human nature – and I’m just not sure about Mr Roux.

Take the name for starters. It’ s all very well saying that the “Jr” is to avoid confusion with the famous uncle, but come on, Michel, you’ve been round the block a bit: we know whose son you are and how old, we simply don’t need the american-style suffix. Do we really need to be told, reinforced with photographic evidence, that you have a job reference from the Elysée Palace, “glowing as you would expect!”? Let’s gloss kindly over the occasional bout of swivel eyes and get straight to the point: I hate, loathe, abhor and detest, in no particular order, the words “fine dining”. All food should be fine: if it is not, it should not be polluting our insides. “I have just eaten a really unfine burger” are words which, though undoubtably often true, would be superfluous. If you are not producing food which is fine then you have no business producing it at all, still less selling it. It is the attempt to set “fine dining” apart, to differentiate it from our ordinary experience, which is so galling, so insulting, reminiscent of “lifestyle apartment” (crumbling polish-built eyesore) or “business lounge” (not mine).

And yet.

I have to be clear here: this is not a book that has changed my life, like Simon Hopkinson’s “Roast Chicken and Other Stories” (Ebury, 1994) or simply enchanted me into another state of appreciation, like Rick Curry’s “The Secrets of Jesuit Soupmaking” (Penguin, 2002). But it is a book which has changed the way I cook. Thomas Carlyle’s often quoted remark, “genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains”, could have been written for this man. This is the evidence of a lifetime of taking pains, of trying, tasting, assessing, re-assessing, balancing flavours, adjusting techniques finely to the absolute degree, and then, (because he has truly, genuinely, understood them as only a genius can) putting them down in simple statements, easy to follow stages, the elegant logic of a great mind leading the cook inevitably to a perfect dish. He makes the complex understandable and the simple, achievable.

Here, with thanks to Orion Books for permission to quote, are some of his instructions for the cooking of an omelette (his words in italics): I use a cast iron omelette pan, 20cm across. Why? Cast iron transmits the heat more evenly than thinner, non-stick pans, anything bigger than 20cm would spread the omelette too thinly, causing it to overcook, anything less would squidge it up and you would end up with a semi-raw, liquid interior. Once the pan is hot, wipe it with a lightly oiled piece of cloth or absorbent paper. Why? Oil applied to a hot cast iron pan (or heated in it) will give the metal a non-stick quality. This means (if you want) that you can use less butter. Put a generous knob of butter into the pan and turn up the heat. Why turn up the heat at this point? Because the act of putting butter in the pan will have caused the temperature to drop. When the butter is foaming (note, not simply melted, which would cook the eggs at too low a temperature, making a rubbery omelette, or beyond the foaming stage, at which point it would burn, but simply foaming. The result is a light brown beurre noisette, delicious), pour in the eggs and cook for twenty seconds. This is the single most important of all the instructions, allowing the eggs to form a first layer at the base of the pan, giving coherence to the whole. I have never seen this in any other book. Using the back of a fork, scrape the sides towards the middle… Other writers will tell you to use a fork, not the back of a fork, but this is so vital – the back of a fork scrapes and moves, the tines scramble. Once the eggs are cooked but still runny, stop stirring and take off the heat. Such a simple thing to say, such a world of difference to the finished dish. Made this way, it will gently finish cooking as it is served, forming a soft, plump yellow pillow of perfect goodness.

It doesn’t stop there. A recipe for lettuce soup is as economical as it is elegant as it is delicious, a classic Salade Lyonnaise properly advises dandelion leaves and is balanced a few pages later by a modern, spicy, Salade Marocaine. The onions in Oeufs à la tripe are cooked until lightly browned and tender (who else would have thought tenderness so important? And have written it down?), then drained on kitchen paper. This last detail neatly averting greasy, slippery onions assaulting the nutmeg-scented, cheesy gratinéed eggs, instead lending discreet smooth sweetness to the finished dish. There are whimsical recipes (Lager and Lime sorbet) which just simply work, the odd nod to sustainability (Fried Pollack) and a complex, brilliant dish of hot foie gras with a duck pastilla and a sweet cinnamon- flavoured wine reduction.

There are a further 114 recipes, striated like seams of rare metals through the 300 odd pages of prose. This is a book so worthy of its author in its recipes, its formidable attention to detail and its approachability that it is almost priceless. That it is so descriptive of its author in other ways is, according to your point of view, a failing or a pleasure. Though disappointed by the ordinariness of genius, I shall treasure this book.

With thanks as ever to Nick Butters for his muse taken from creamandbacon.com