Jacques Pépin -- the Apprentice

I've just finished reading two food memoirs, 'the Apprentice' by Jacques Pépin and 'My Life in France' by Julia Child. The confluences are interesting: a frenchman who came here, an american who went there. They went through the same port, Le Havre in Normandy, though Julia went in '48, he in '59. I'll write up Julia's book in a day or 2; today Jacques' book as I just finished it, so it's fresh. He is a wonderful writer, especially when you consider that english isn't his first language. But he's been in the States since '59; went to Columbia University to learn english, and got a BA and MA there, too; and has an american wife... Some highlights, I'll try not to give too much away, cause there are some surprises and some really funny anecdotes/jokes:

He was born in '35, near Lyon. WW2 had a huge affect on his life. His father was part of the french resistance, so was away. His mom sounds pretty amazing. They were poor, but got by. The kids were outsourced to local farms during the summer so they could get better/more food; writing about his first drink of milk from the milking pail he says he realized that "food could be much more than mere sustenance." Some of his other food memories from the war years: cow lungs were a delicacy, boiling up beets for a sweet syrup, their community garden, and bread making. The bread story was cool. The woman he was staying with took 3 days to make bread, making a sour-ish dough.

His family had a tradition of gathering food, there's a great story about mushroom hunting in a pasture with cows and 1 bull. The money bit: "papa ran toward the fence. he got there just ahead of the bull, threw his basket over ahead of him - there was no question of abandoning the mushrooms - and, without slowing, dove over the fence, following the trajectory of the muchrooms, barely clearing the barbed wire."

He didn't enjoy school that much, and tested out at the age of 13 1/2. He had worked at his mother's restaurants all through his early youth, and started working as an apprentice, on a 3 year contract. It was totally hands on learning, "recipes were immaterial and in any case nonexistant." He had to cook a meal solo one night for late arrival's at the hotel. He was 14. He moved to Paris at the age of 17.

He bounced around initially, then worked steadily at Le Plaza Athénée, which was a very high end classical french restaurant. He got drafted, and was the personal chef for the secretary of the treasury and then the president of France. The stories in this section of the book are all amazing. "it was the longest night of my life, a night when no one knew who would be the leader of france when the sun rose. as french democracy hung in the balance, I did what I had been trained to do. I cooked."

At the age of 23, in August of 1959 he took the boat to NYC. He worked in a number of solid french restaurants, then had to decide between being the White House chef for the Kennedy's or working for Howard Johnson. He went with HoJo! There were Howard Johnson's on Long Island when I was growing up. They were a joke. This section of the book was crazy! But apparently when he was working for them the father still owned the company and was committed to high quality convenience food. When he died his sons took over and cut quality, and that's the HoJo's that I knew about. So he went to work trying to figure out how to make good food that could be successfully frozen and defrosted. He was there all through the 60s.

Some anecdotes from that time period:
"you're fired" the twerp said.
I suggested he do something anatomically impossible.

Occasionally, a food snob took a cheap shot at what we did for a living. For that reason, Pierre and I always got a kick out of serving our creations, most of them reheated from the frozen state, at home to other famous french chefs.

So instead of enjoying a taste of home, Pierre and I were stuck with the problem of how to dispose of a dozen rapidly decaying calves' heads in the Hamptons.

A friend of his in publishing let him see the manuscript of MtAoFC to check out: Someone had taken the training and knowledge that Jean-Claude and I had acquired as apprentices and commis and codified it... I was a little jealous, this was the type of book I should have written.

The story of his bungling efforts in meeting his wife are great. This is about their first Valentine's day: I didn't think it necessary to ruin the ambiance of the evening by telling her that the entire production had come packaged and frozen... from HoJo's.

When they got married they bought a house in Woodstock in upstate NY, and he commuted to the city. Lots of hunting of fowl & deer, fishing, frogging, mushrooms. Hunting and gathering is a big theme in the book.

I found discussion of how he and his wife got along in the kitchen fascinating. It's something I think I've written about in the blog, certainly it's something I think about. I don't share kitchen space/kitchen knowledge well in person. Hence the blog. I'm trying. there were inherent difficulties in learning how to share a kitchen with a professional chef. perhaps because of the scarcity of food during the war years, or perhaps because i grew up in a series of small restaurants where recycled scraps and leftovers were often the source of our slim profits, I was obsessive about not wasting a morsel of food. Sometimes when his wife was cooking it was
don't touch anything, sometimes how long do you think that roast needs?

On meeting Julia Child in person: even though i'd read her book, i wasn't in any way prepared for the woman I met that night. with Julia, who could be? and her french was more fluent than my english

They stopped at a 'farm' that advertised ducks for sale, the woman there thought she was selling pets, Jacques' daughter and her friend knew they were getting dinner: are these for you? both nodded eagerly, all but licking their lips.

His daughter at her first sleepover: As everyone else began to eat, Claudine sat immobile before her asparagus. In a gentle voice, the friend's mother said, Claudine, these are asparagus, you don't like asparagus? With an earnest, serious look, Claudine replied, I'm waiting for the hollandaise. It wasn't snobbery. The few times she had tasted asparagus in her short life, it had been served that way.

The story behind "Jacques, what in the hell are you putting in your paté?" is awesome. I won't spoil it.

In the 70s he started a restaurant in NYC, and later started teaching alot of cooking classes all over America. There are some awfully funny stories about snails and stock making.

On the food revolution started by Alice Waters: the philosophy she was promulgating with such zeal was so commonplace in France that I took it for granted. On the food itself: the quality and simplicity of all the food at Chez Panisse impressed me.

He was part of the French Culinary Institute from the beginning. My friend Chris learned his chops there, he is pretty high up in the pecking order at Tabla in NYC, now.

On the aftermath of cooking with Julia Child on live tv, where she cut herself: that was the inspiration for Dan Akroyd's famous spoof on SNL, dressed as Julia he merrily cuts up a chicken, with blood spurting all over the place. As he collapses, he screams heroically, Save the liver!

I loved this book.