THE LAST WORD
FIVE THINGS I LEARNT FROM FRED!
BRIAN MCCUNE
O
ne of the world’s great chefs recently passed away and he brought back many memories. It was of course Paul Bocuse, a giant on the world culinary stage and someone with whom I had spent some time. In the mid-eighties I was appointed opening Executive Chef of the ground-breaking Johannesburg Sun and Towers. Three restaurants included Suki Hama which introduced the teppanyaki style of dining to South Africa and the St James which introduced Paul Bocuse to South Africa. Despite his stature as a leading 3-star Michelin chef, a worldwide icon and so called “Father of Nouvelle Cuisine”, very few South Africans outside of the chef’s fraternity knew anything about Bocuse. It was a bold move by Billy Gallagher to engage the services of this unknown, and then to tirelessly promote him so that by the time of his first visit to Johannesburg he was feted as the super star that he was! Of course there was a frantic
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scrambling of PR, media and food commentators to find out exactly who this giant was and it even extended to the very top of the Southern Sun management team demanding briefings, all desperate to appear fully informed. Billy and I were bemused by all these antics and developed our own little in-joke: everytime Paul Bocuse’s name came up in conversation we would always grin knowingly and refer to him as Fred Bocuse. Yes we said, his name is Paul but his friends call him Fred – no-one ever dared to call him Fred to his face. Hosting Fred on his visits to Johannesburg and sitting with Billy and the maestro in his kitchen in Lyons I was privileged to learn many lessons which shaped my culinary thinking. Firstly - If you’re gonna sell something give it a catchy name. Fred beat the drum of the forward thinking Nouvelle Cuisine and profited greatly. There was little new about the new cuisine, it had in fact been practised since the fifties at La Pyramide, the restaurant of the man who taught Bocuse, Ferdnand Point and the name had even graced a culinary tome published the previous century. But Fred gave it the catchy name and chefs have been copying him since with mottos like California Cuisine, Molecular Gastronomy and even Rainbow Cuisine. Lesson two – One trick ponies don’t last. Consistency is the key to success. Bocuse’s temple to French gastronomy, L’Auberge du Pont de
Collonges, outside the city of Lyon in southeastern France, has held three stars – without interruption – since 1965 in the Michelin guide, the bible of gastronomes. Lesson three – If you’re gonna stick your name above the door then make sure you put in the hours. In a 2011 interview with The Associated Press, Bocuse said he slept in the room where he was born above the dining rooms. “But I changed the sheets,” he added with his characteristic wry humour. Lesson four – Make sure you’re comfortable with your song sheet. “In cooking, there are those who are rap and those who are concerto,” he told the French news magazine L’Express before the publication of his 2005 biography. He added that he tended toward the concerto. And finally – Make sure you’ve got a great wingman to cover your back. Fred travelled the world self promoting and drumming up business but the guy who cooked your meal was a brilliant chef called Roger Jaloux, himself a Meilleur Ouvrier de France. There are Freds everywhere and there are Rogers everywhere who allow the Freds to be Freds! Bocuse never forgot the value of Jaloux but unfortunately many of the Freds nowadays have ignored the value of their Rogers! Brian owns the Food Biz, a Cape Town based food consultancy, and instead of working spends his time telling other people how to work. Contact him at www.thefood.biz, foodwizard@ iafrica.com, 082 492 9239