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In 1973: the ten commandments of Nouvelle Cuisine
"Cooking is when things taste like what they are," exclaimed Curnonsky, thanking the maid Mélanie for the meal she had just given him for his 81st birthday.
The meal included stuffed clams, lobster with cream sauce and partridge chartreuse, all of which must have been very good, but the shellfish, lobster and partridge certainly didn't taste like what they were. The first would have had to be eaten raw, the second would have had to be swum and the third roasted... It's with ambiguities like these, with these paradoxical aphorisms, that pre-war cuisine, and especially its spokesman Maurice Sailland, known as Curnonsky, alias Prince élu des gastronomes, have been able to maintain their reputation right up to the present day. But this cuisine, this style, overloaded with a certainty and stuffed with truisms, is dying. Just as well. All the more so as another cuisine is taking its place, emerging before our very eyes and bursting with health, common sense and good taste. French cuisine is dead (don't you agree, Mr. Times?). Well, long live the new French cuisine!
We're not icono-sclasts, and we defend, even with some bad faith, certain glorious old restaurants whose downfall would be too painful for us. Contestation in itself is negative, childish and jealous. But the blocking of taste and spirit by embellished memories is no less foolish and dangerous.our aim, therefore, is not to throw Curnonsky off his pedestal, but to beg this fat, joking gentleman to come down gently and sit in the ranks, with his comrades Brillat-Savarin, Carême and other fine talkers. Curnonsky was not lacking in certain graces, and if this chosen prince was fed all his life at the expense of the princess, he was said to be generous, indifferent to the solicitations of publicity. He was what we still call a "bon vivant". And it's precisely this image of bon vivants, fat people, napkins tied around their necks, dripping with veal stock, béchamel sauce and vol-au-vent, decorés, knights of vinous, bachique and oeno-philic brotherhoods, drinking singers and soubrette feelers that we'd like to erase from our memories. It's disgusting, and we're not afraid to say that these people didn't know how to eat. How, for example, could real gourmets lend any credence to the recipe books of the twenties, whose advice still holds sway over the post-war generations?
Take Mme Saint-Ange, a paragon of bourgeois virtue, whose "La bonne cuisine" is still considered a good book today. Attentive to describing in detail meat jellies, rouxes and white sauces, she settles in a few lines the fate of court-bouillon, good, she tells us, for any fish of doubtful freshness. How could anyone write such colossal nonsense? It has to be said that the cooking times indicated in this book, as in the others, are such that, fresh or not, the fish was transformed into papier-mâché.
This problem of cooking times will allow us to get to the heart of the matter and draw the lines that separate old and new French cuisine. It's not us, poor cooks, who invent and decree these ten new commandments. We're simply outlining the contours of a cuisine perfected by the new school of French chefs, whose names include Bocuse, Troisgros, Haeberlin, Peyrot, Denis, Guérard, Manière.minot, Chapel, etc. and in other capacities, Girard, Senderens, Oliver, Minchelli, Barrier, Vergé, Dela-veyne, etc. These laws cover a dozen or so essential points that place the new cuisine at the antipodes of the pre-war style, itself derived (but deformed) from the 19th-century style so admirably described and analyzed by Jean-Paul Aron in his "Mangeur du XIXe siècle" (Robert Laffont, ed.).we can well imagine the cries and jeers that will be heard in the old backrooms when these laws are announced. But we have our references and our new gods to defend us.
Short cooking times (Chinese style)
For most fish dishes, all shellfish, dark-fleshed poultry and roast game, veal, certain green vegetables and pasta. Roasted spiny lobster and rack of veal from Denis, green beans from Bocuse, fish from Le Duc, frogs from Haeberlin, duck from Guérard, crayfish from Troisgros, woodcock from Minot, among others, illustrate this.
NEWS
It happened..
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In 1973: the ten commandments of Nouvelle Cuisine
"Cooking is when things taste like what they are," exclaimed Curnonsky, thanking the maid Mélanie for the meal she had just given him for his 81st birthday.
The meal included stuffed clams, lobster with cream sauce and partridge chartreuse, all of which must have been very good, but the shellfish, lobster and partridge certainly didn't taste like what they were. The first would have had to be eaten raw, the second would have had to be swum and the third roasted... It's with ambiguities like these, with these paradoxical aphorisms, that pre-war cuisine, and especially its spokesman Maurice Sailland, known as Curnonsky, alias Prince élu des gastronomes, have been able to maintain their reputation right up to the present day. But this cuisine, this style, overloaded with a certainty and stuffed with truisms, is dying. Just as well. All the more so as another cuisine is taking its place, emerging before our very eyes and bursting with health, common sense and good taste. French cuisine is dead (don't you agree, Mr. Times?). Well, long live the new French cuisine!
We're not icono-sclasts, and we defend, even with some bad faith, certain glorious old restaurants whose downfall would be too painful for us. Contestation in itself is negative, childish and jealous. But the blocking of taste and spirit by embellished memories is no less foolish and dangerous.our aim, therefore, is not to throw Curnonsky off his pedestal, but to beg this fat, joking gentleman to come down gently and sit in the ranks, with his comrades Brillat-Savarin, Carême and other fine talkers. Curnonsky was not lacking in certain graces, and if this chosen prince was fed all his life at the expense of the princess, he was said to be generous, indifferent to the solicitations of publicity. He was what we still call a "bon vivant". And it's precisely this image of bon vivants, fat people, napkins tied around their necks, dripping with veal stock, béchamel sauce and vol-au-vent, decorés, knights of vinous, bachique and oeno-philic brotherhoods, drinking singers and soubrette feelers that we'd like to erase from our memories. It's disgusting, and we're not afraid to say that these people didn't know how to eat. How, for example, could real gourmets lend any credence to the recipe books of the twenties, whose advice still holds sway over the post-war generations?
Take Mme Saint-Ange, a paragon of bourgeois virtue, whose "La bonne cuisine" is still considered a good book today. Attentive to describing in detail meat jellies, rouxes and white sauces, she settles in a few lines the fate of court-bouillon, good, she tells us, for any fish of doubtful freshness. How could anyone write such colossal nonsense? It has to be said that the cooking times indicated in this book, as in the others, are such that, fresh or not, the fish was transformed into papier-mâché.
This problem of cooking times will allow us to get to the heart of the matter and draw the lines that separate old and new French cuisine. It's not us, poor cooks, who invent and decree these ten new commandments. We're simply outlining the contours of a cuisine perfected by the new school of French chefs, whose names include Bocuse, Troisgros, Haeberlin, Peyrot, Denis, Guérard, Manière.minot, Chapel, etc. and in other capacities, Girard, Senderens, Oliver, Minchelli, Barrier, Vergé, Dela-veyne, etc. These laws cover a dozen or so essential points that place the new cuisine at the antipodes of the pre-war style, itself derived (but deformed) from the 19th-century style so admirably described and analyzed by Jean-Paul Aron in his "Mangeur du XIXe siècle" (Robert Laffont, ed.).we can well imagine the cries and jeers that will be heard in the old backrooms when these laws are announced. But we have our references and our new gods to defend us.
Short cooking times (Chinese style)
For most fish dishes, all shellfish, dark-fleshed poultry and roast game, veal, certain green vegetables and pasta. Roasted spiny lobster and rack of veal from Denis, green beans from Bocuse, fish from Le Duc, frogs from Haeberlin, duck from Guérard, crayfish from Troisgros, woodcock from Minot, among others, illustrate this.
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Hotels & Bed & Breakfast
Top 5 hotels within an hour of Paris
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Hotels & Bed & Breakfast
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Top 5 hotels within an hour of Paris
Fancy a real nature weekend without a long train or car journey? Nothing could be easier with these five refuges perfect for a beautiful escape. Warm, cosy and close to the capital.
Pâtiss'Art announces its first edition with Nina Métayer as godmother
Normandy goes pastry. From October 26 to 28, 2024, the first Pâtiss'Art show will be held in Deauville. For the occasion, the godmother will be none other than Nina Métayer.
Live algae
Ewen Frin, 28, founder of Omanori, is revolutionizing Breton gastronomy by supplying it with fresh seaweed thanks to an innovative system of preservation in ponds.
8 terraces to eat well and enjoy the sun in Paris
Spring is well and truly here in Paris, and the urge to dine al fresco is growing. Here are eight addresses where you can soak up the sun and enjoy a good meal at the same time.
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Gault&Millau Tour Bourgogne-Franche-Comté 2025
On the occasion of the presentation of the latest guide dedicated to the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, Gault&Millau honored the chefs and players in these territories on Monday June 30, 2025.the event took place at the Hameau de Barboron in Savigny-lès-Beaune. The day before, award winners and Gault&Millau partners attended a dinner at the Table de Levernois.
5 hotels that combine chic and ecology
Perfect for guilt-free travel, these five refuges combine contemporary elegance with respect for all eco-responsible standards. From Brittany to Corsica, from Belle Ile to the Loire Valley, five warm, luxurious addresses committed to a truly ecological approach.
8 chenin cuvées tasted and approved
From Île-de-France to Saumur, Montlouis-sur-Loire and Chinon, our selection of tasted and approved Chenin cuvées.
Ewen Frin, 28, founder of Omanori, revolutionizes Breton gastronomybreton gastronomy by supplying it with fresh seaweed thanks to an innovative system of preservation in ponds. Based in Saint-Malo, Omanori meetsa growing demand from restaurateurs for a local, healthy and sustainablehealthy and sustainable.Fascinated by the ocean since his childhood in Brittany, Ewen Frin has long been an avid scuba diver anddiving and spearfishing. After studying business in Normandy and five yearsyears in Paris as a consultant, he decided to return to his roots. "In Brittany,i had an intimate knowledge of the richness of marine resources, particularly seaweedalgae," he confides. When I discovered that seafood cuisine in Paris was often limited toover-fished products like salmon or tuna, I wanted to promote local, virtuous species.he quickly became interested in seaweed, a natural product with gustatory and nutritional properties that are often underestimated.nutritional properties that are often underestimated. "Brittany is home to 700 speciesof seaweed, around thirty of which are authorized for consumption. Each has a unique flavor, texture and color. They are not widely promoted because they are not part of ourgastronomic heritage.Traditionally, seaweed is marketed either dehydrated or "fresh", but preserved in salt.but preserved in salt, which presents major drawbacks for chefs."Salt, which is used to preserve seaweed, requires it to be rinsed abundantly before cooking.cooking them, which spoils them, causes them to lose nutrients and alters their texture", explainsthe seaweed grower. This is where Omanori breaks new ground with a revolutionary principle.Thanks to a partnership with a local company specializing in algae cultivationfreshly harvested seaweed (such as sea lettuce, dulse and aonori) is preserved in tanksare preserved in basins, recreating their natural environment. This allows them to live for severalweeks after harvesting. First picked by hand during high tides on the foreshore, they are then cleaned and purified,they are then cleaned and purified in various basins. "This process enablestheir taste and nutritional properties intact, as if they had just been harvested.as if they had just been harvested, even outside high tide periods",Ewen Frin quickly won over prestigious restaurants such as Maison Vermer inSaint-Malo (2 toques), Ombelle in Dinard (2 toques) and Iodé in Vannes (3 toques).
Charming hotels in listed villages: irresistible getaways in France
Escape between ancient stones and cobbled streets, sleeping in small establishments in the heart of listed villages. Here are ten discreet and authentic addresses, for those who love the comfort of a night under historic vaults, far from the hustle and bustle of tourism.
A refuge between land and sea
There are places that make you never want to go home again once you've pushed open the door. Solène and Nicolas Conraux's La Butte is one of them.
Tomorrow's chefs
Gault&Millau Tour Nouvelle-Aquitaine 2025
On the occasion of the presentation of the latest guide dedicated to the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, Gault&Millau honored the chefs and players in these territories this Monday, June 16, 2025.the event took place at Hangar 14. The day before, winners and Gault&Millau partners attended a dinner at the Table de Pavie.
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