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Lettres d'Uzès #35: eating in (and out of) Uzès

8/7/2013

14 Comments

 
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Renoir's Guinguette (we didn't take any pictures!)
I used to think that I knew what French cuisine was. But then I started spending time in France and eating out regularly. That’s when I got confused.

In the UK, we are in awe of French chefs. We watch the Roux brothers and their offspring on TV, together with Raymond Blanc and all those guys who have been brought up in the Michelin tradition, and we believe that this is the style to which all great cooking aspires.

But is it? The French are not convinced. And neither am I.

In the Uzège, we are exposed to almost every style of cuisine as well as a culture which encourages eating out and outside. So we have some experience – good and bad - of what constitutes good cooking. We have been lucky enough to have eaten some exceptional meals which would earn high praise had they been served in The Waterside, or Gavroche, for example.

Notable was the menu degustation on Jill’s birthday at L’Artemise, a beautiful meal in beautiful surroundings, which featured as its highlights foie gras in a coating of dark bitter chocolate and a main course of the most exquisitely tender veal. In the same league, although a lower division, were L’Amphytrion in Castillon and Le Castellas in Collias: both using superbly fresh ingredients in a classical, traditional manner and hovering just below or just above a Michelin star standard.

These three epitomize what we understand to be French cuisine, and they charge for it. We do not resent this – we understand the costs of running such immaculate restaurants – but they are not for every day, every week or even every month.

For more quotidian eating out, we can recommend La Table 2 Julian in Montaren, which is not far short of the three mentioned above; L’Authentique in Saint Siffet, which offers no choices but executes each dish superbly; and – a great deal simpler but which also benefits from sticking to the knitting – 30 degrees Sud in our own village of Saint Quentin la Poterie.

After that, it is pretty much the same old, same old in Uzès: a plethora of touristique restaurants where you can get fed, drink a few pichets of the local wine and enjoy the company rather than the cuisine.

Which is why we so excited when Tom and Unity asked us, together with Archie, Tom’s brother Jim and Jill’s sister Carol, to join them last Saturday for a dinner at a guinguette on a camp site just the other side of Goudargues.

A guinguette is an outdoor drinking establishment which also offers traditional cooking, and this met the definition precisely. It is a bar and grill on the bank of the River Cèze. We ate very well indeed: steaks, barons d’agneau, and Toulouse sausages, all served with huge quantities of the best frites one has ever eaten and washed down with equally huge quantities of a very young (2012) and very quaffable Côtes de Rhône Villages.

It was packed – primarily with French families. And as darkness fell, and the lights came on and the kids ran between the tables and the adults had just a couple too many and laughed and joked, I realized that French cuisine is not about the exquisite subtleties and nuances of flavours of cuisine nouvelle.

It is about fun and family and friendship.

P.S. Our thanks to Tom and Unity for asking us, and to Jim Cantwell, Archie Robertson and Carol Stanhope for their company. And especially to Jill for driving.

P.P.S. To all those asking when the next baseball blog will appear, it will be during the All-Star break. Lots to write about after 100 games of the season.

Today from the every smith vault: Honeyboy Edwards. This is what the blues is about.

14 Comments
Matt
8/7/2013 07:23:14

Love it. Sounds a great evening and an evocation of French culture as much as cuisine. Is this a class thing? Good honest grills rather than the cleverness? Just a thought ...

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Max
12/7/2013 01:38:46

Just for once, it's not a class thing. It's a French thing!

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Anders
8/7/2013 07:46:40

I think the whole Michelin thingies finished - even in the industry itself. Today, it's about good food of whatever style, sans pretension. Isn't that what Les Routiers is concerned with? Proper food, good wine, good value. Nothing more to be said.

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Max
12/7/2013 01:40:37

Agree. Good food, good wine, good value, good company. See Les Routiers and see Wilde's!

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Mark Davis
8/7/2013 10:02:25

The broader point which you are making is that of culinary imperialism. The French used it as ruthlessly as did McDonald's. But their objective was a cultural objective. They exported their food, their recipes, their chefs to the UK, Russia, Germany in order to make the point that they were more civilised, more sophisticated. Their food was a parallel to their art, their music, their literature. Glad you had a good time, though.

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Max
12/7/2013 01:43:10

I think there is a point here, which hadn't occurred to me before. Maybe an analogy is with the British and cricket - it's a means to the end of cultural hegemony. I remember daughter Lara telling me that the best French food she ever ate was in Laos!

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John Hill
8/7/2013 10:40:52

The prime mover of culinary imperialism, if such a thing exists, is Michelin itself.

It encourages chefs to create (?) this overly-formal food, based on classical traditions, and which is - worse - served in overly-formal environments by condescending staff.

That's the three star stuff. There is a one star category which, in theory, is for "very good cooking in its category". But they only look at certain categories which are akin to their preferred taste.

What you have discovered is that, even in France, good chefs are not caring about Michelin, but going for good food in a fun environment.

Your guinguette sounds great.

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Max
12/7/2013 01:46:32

This is true. There seems to be a consensus that one star is for food, and the other two are for degrees of ponciness. But it is also true that the single stars go to places which would attract Michelin-style diners. I know they never set foot in basement wine bars!

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Ray Benjamin
8/7/2013 10:58:06

Max is teasing us again. He's discussing high and low again. He's done often before with art, literature, culture. Now with cooking.

He's waiting for us to fall into his trap. Haut cuisine versus - i don't know - good cooking.

They are both excellent in their own way and should be judged according to their genre (category in Michelin speak).

The guinguette would appear to be an excellent example of a ... well, guinguette. Not to be compared with Michelin.

Good try, Max!

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Richard
8/7/2013 12:04:32

Is this about food or restaurants?

When I go out to eat, I'm looking for something that I cannot cook at home.

I can do steak and chips, thank you. Can't do Michelin stuff.

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Max
12/7/2013 01:49:47

A good distinction. I think that sometimes we eat out as foodies, sometimes for fun and sustenance. Agree that one of the reasons for eating out is to experience the 'Michelin stuff' but with Michelin it has to come in a stuffy, formal ambience.

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Archie
10/7/2013 01:51:29

Great piece. Very accurate. Saturday nite was just the blessing of great friends in a setting which displayed all the positives of French life. Keep on scribbling. Aye Erch.

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Max
12/7/2013 01:50:53

It was a great night, wasn't it? Thanks copain. Will continue scribbling ...

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Sean
15/7/2013 03:01:08

Personally, when it comes to how good food or a restaurant is I've never understood how the opinion of a tyre manufacturer has any relevance at all.

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     Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father. and grandfather. Resident in Warwick, England.

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