WEBVTT - From the Archives: Jacques Pépin 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.520 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:10.640 Thing from iHeartRadio. My guest today has worked in the 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:14.280 best restaurants in the world, taught thousands of hours of 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:19.120 culinary technique, authored over thirty cookbooks, and at the age 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:23.840 of eighty eight, shows no signs of slowing down. Legendary 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:29.240 French chef Jacques Pepin Chef Pepin has enjoyed, by all accounts, 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.800 a most extraordinary life and career. By twenty two, he 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.200 was the personal chef for French President Charles de gaul 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.760 In nineteen fifty nine, he immigrated to America and worked 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:45.320 at Le Pavillon, the best French restaurant in New York City, 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:50.960 before moving to Howard Johnson's. His next frontier was the 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:56.279 American home, instructing audiences on proper French cooking methods. This 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.800 began with his cookbooks, including the groundbreaking La Teche, and 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:05.800 then through multiple PBS series like Today's Gourmet and Cooking 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.319 at Home. Here, Chef Papin taught the home chef both 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:15.800 the basics for everyday meals and experimentation with gourmet flourishes. 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.480 His most recent cookbook is called Jacques papine cooking my 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:25.880 way recipes and techniques for economical cooking. I wanted to 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.440 know how growing up in a small town in France 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.120 with his mother working in restaurants put him on the 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:33.800 path to where he is today. 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.440 Where we were in the film country, we had a 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:42.160 little restaurant just outside of Lyons. The life was quite different. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.560 I mean, I tell Nady eight yesterday, so I'm thinking 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:50.080 about over eighty years ago. Life was relatively easy. My 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.919 father with a cabinet maker, my mother with a cook. 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.120 So my choice in life was I'm a cabinet maker, 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.600 I'm a cook, within of the telephone, within the radio 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.160 revision of course, any of this. So life was probably 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:08.600 much easier for kid than he is now. And we 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.480 took the dog, my brother and I go into the 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.760 forest and all that on all day off and the 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:17.680 parents never you know, we came back at night and 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:18.519 no one. 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:19.839 Worried about where you were. 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:20.320 It was. 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.000 It was quite different than now. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.560 Did your father take his cabinet making practice out into 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:28.280 the country with you just outside of the or did 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.600 he stay in the city and makers products. 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.600 No, he did that in the country, but after he 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:35.760 gave up anyway, at some point to work in the 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:39.600 restaurant with my mother. But my father was a cabinet maker. 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.440 His father was his brother was what we could in 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:47.800 France ebonist from the world ebony. So it's fancy cabinet maker. 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:48.120 You know. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.760 He used noble wood like cherries, oak and so forth. 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.160 Never use any nail. It's always you know, curt and 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.240 joint and glue and a sculpture on the wood to 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.480 that type of work. And the weally the sixteen with 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.959 seventeen kind of furniture. I should have a couple of 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.640 peace from him actually in my house. 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.600 Now, your mother got into the restaurant business when you 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:13.160 were how old? 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.160 Well after I was born, because I have exactly twenty 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.440 years different with my mother. I mean she got married 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:22.920 I think she was seventeen and a half then at 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:24.880 my brother with a year and a half older than 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.160 me than me and anotherwise, so she got into the 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.639 restaurant business before the war straighttly before the war. She 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:36.000 was a waddress, working different restaurants, stelf helping in the kitchen. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.720 It was pretty common in France, I mean in the family. 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.160 In France, I come twelve restaurant, twelve of them run 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.960 by women. My two aunts and sister in law, cousin, 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.480 a niece, a mother. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:49.320 They all had. 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.560 I was actually the first male to go into that business. 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.160 And those kind of a formidable women who were not 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.360 very empressed by me. I remember when I was the 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.560 chef to the president in France. Go back down to 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.400 Leono to my aunt to a little restaurant. I get 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.360 into the kitchen. She drove me out. She said, you 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:11.000 used too much. Better get out of here. They were 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:12.280 not very unpressed by me. 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.080 And who's managing all this enterprise? Your mother? 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:18.920 Oh, they didn't have twelve restaurants at the time. I'm 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.520 calling you general. And my aunt at a restaurant in book, 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.880 another aunt at a restaurant somewhere else, my mother at 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.080 three four restaurants actually at some point. 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.240 And what was it about? I mean, so, I'm assuming 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:32.680 you feel like you were born to this. There's no 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.440 way you could escape. And you said cabin making or cooking, right, 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.480 But you found the kitchen more seductive. 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:43.560 Correct, absolutely more exciting, more seductive, And so I went 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:45.880 into this. I mean now, I said, the choice was 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:50.200 relatively easy for kid at that point, and France, we 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.400 were supposed to go to school in teenage fourteen, which 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.719 I did at thirteen, and I took all the exam 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.839 you know at the end of primary school, the front exam. 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:02.840 So I took all of those and I finished when 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:03.960 I was early thirteen. 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.080 So I say that's it. I'm going into a frightdiceship. 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.600 My older brother became an engineer, so he worked, you know, 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.440 so it was not a question of me that I 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.840 had to go to work. That's what I wanted to do, 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.480 so and I went to school later. 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.920 So do you think that people, I mean, there's next 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.039 to no association between what I do for a living 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:26.880 and what you do for a living. But in the 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:31.320 world of acting in theater and so forth, people will 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.000 often say, I can't make you a good actor, but 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:35.800 I can make you a better actor than you were 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.279 when you walked in the door. But there needs to 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.839 be some inherent inspiration. That is that thing true about 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:44.520 food and cooking? Do people have to have an inherent 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:45.680 gift for that kind of thing? 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:47.080 Yes, certainly. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.720 I mean for me, I'm talking about professionalism, professional chef 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.800 and on a professional chef. I did those books called Technique, 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.880 which is an illustrated my doorit of cooking. Technique to 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.440 know to bon out. You can to poach an egg 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:03.159 and it's not a question of knowing. 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:04.080 How to do it. 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.400 It's eleven o'clock and you have one hundred people sitting 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:07.159 down for lunch. 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:08.320 You really have to move. 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.920 So this is the difference between a professional chef and 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.159 a home cook. You know, the speed and all that too. 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.359 So you have to be a good technician to be 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.240 a chef first. But I know a fair amount of 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.159 a chef who a good technician, run a good kitchen 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.520 and are relatively lousy cook. The food is all right. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.720 But conversely, I know people who cook at home who 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:31.920 wouldn't be able to run a restaurant speed and all 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.040 that to But food is fantastic, great, you know. So 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.960 to be a great chef like Tomas Keller or Daniel Buru, 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.240 well you have to be a technician first, but then 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.719 you have to have other things after. You know, you 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.200 have to have imagination talent to bring it to another level. 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.920 You know. I think eventually you moved to Paris, yes, 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.800 and I don't want to quote the number here because 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.640 I find this fantastic. You work in many, many, many 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:58.840 restaurants during that period, correct. 0:06:58.920 --> 0:06:59.880 Close to one hundred. 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:01.760 How is that possible? 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:04.880 Its possible because I work at the Plaza and in 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.839 Paris for like seven years, put my day off. 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:09.040 Each day off, I. 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.400 Work at a different restaurant most of the time, and 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.000 that two day of a week. There is an organization 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.239 called associated the Quasi Society of the Chef of Paris, 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.120 which I would a member. In fact, I don't know 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.200 why we don't have that in New York. But you 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.280 go in the morning or someone your cook doesn't come 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:26.400 or whatever doesn't come. 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.080 They call they say I need one cook for the day. 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.080 So you know I will end up like at Messi, 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:33.440 you know, Galley la Fayette to and do like three 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.840 thousand plate with a slice, a piece of salad in 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.200 between and an egg, you know, and the next time 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.680 I end up in a two star restaurant and next 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:43.880 so you never know where the society is going to 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.520 sign you. But that was great experience, you know, of 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.200 working because in case like this, it's not like you 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.920 have to wait for the day to learn the habit 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.680 of the house. I mean, within fifteen minutes you're there, 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:58.119 the chef say you got to work. 0:07:58.360 --> 0:07:59.600 So it's great training. 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.160 Really, So you have a job in one where you 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.560 were at Tatanay. Yes, and you have a job. But 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:06.880 it sounds you sound like we've had guests on the 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.160 show who were some of the most legendary sessions musicians 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.240 in history, right, and it sounds like you have the 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:14.880 same kind of thing you're you're going to go in 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.960 for a day and and is the culture there, I 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.240 don't want to say uniform, but approachable where you can 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:24.800 walk in and you're just accepted you walk in there 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:26.800 or do you see the other conflicts with the way 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:27.440 things are done? 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.080 Sometimes no, No, if you work on a job to 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.000 stay for a couple of years, you may get involving 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:36.640 into that type of thing. But when you work for 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.640 the day two days, no, And remember that at the time, 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.760 the cook was really at the bottom of the social scale. 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.080 Any good mother I wanted a child to marry the lawyer, 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:50.839 you know, a doctor, certainly not a cook. So now 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.440 we are genius. I don't know what happened at that time. 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.680 It wasn't okay. So when you went into a restaurant, 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.320 it was to conform exactly to the habit of that reston. 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.240 It was not to create or do something on your own. 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:05.679 In fact, I don't think I ever used a recipe 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.439 before I came to America. So you work in that place, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.680 you learn the taste of that, and those dishes in 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.440 a sense become very visceral, very powerful. I mean the 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.040 dishes my mother did as a kid. You know, those 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.760 states will stay with you the rest of your life. 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:25.320 And I'll go the president in Paris, for example, we 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:28.160 did the lobster soufle. We were a foty eight chef 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.560 in the kitchen there, and the forty eight of us 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:32.200 could have done it. 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:33.840 You would never have known who has done it. 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.120 That's what the way it was until Nouvelle Cuisine in 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.040 the mid eighteen ninety when the chef started creating and 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:42.199 doing that type of thing. 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:43.120 Whige different. 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:48.319 Now now you're a hired chef for the president of France, 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.160 right and you work with the gall and some other 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.000 heads of state. How long were you doing that job? 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.400 From fifty six and fifty six to fifty eight and 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.360 the fifty eight I came here at the end. 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.960 Of fifty nine. You know, you have to realize that 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:01.480 at the time. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:03.920 Again, as I said, the cook, I serve people like 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:08.320 either know where nehru Tito macmilland over the head of state. 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:12.120 Not anyone ever would call you to get kuru in 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:12.920 the dining room. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.160 Are you kidding? The cook was in the kitchen. 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:15.680 That was it. 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.679 If anyone came into the kitchen because something was wrong. 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.439 Towards two confidences. So I had never had an antilio. 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:27.319 Television barely existed, but with radio or magazzine newspaper that 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:28.160 didn't exist. 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:29.840 So it was a different world. 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.360 So you're at what is certainly one of the summits 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:35.720 of cooking in France. If you're cooking for the head 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.560 of state. There you have this amazing job, and then 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:41.120 when you're done in fifty eight, you moved to the 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:41.959 United States. 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.440 Correct, right, at the end of nineteen fifteen, I moved. 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.920 I wasn't married. At a great job in France, my 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.960 brother at a restaurant, but I wanted to come to America. 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:52.679 America. 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:57.839 I was she leaves the Golden fleeceh. So I said, 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:00.160 I want to go there for a year, two years, 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.640 maybe learn the language a little bit, see what's going on. 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.880 I was unattached to So I came here at the 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.439 end of fifty nine and I'm still here. 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.080 But you what you see up till then before you 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:14.760 settle in the United States, it is it's safe to 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:16.320 say you have a very restless nature. 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.480 Yes, has an extent, but that's what the world of 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.480 food was in a center, restless, moving from one place 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.640 to the other to learn because if you keep your 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:28.800 eye open, I mean, I can't work with anyone now 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.160 and you learn something, you know you would never have 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.679 sort of doing it this way too. Sometimes you learn 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.960 what not to do, but you learn something. But yeah, 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:40.840 so in that sense, coming to America was different. It 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:42.640 was the first time I work at the Pavio in 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.920 New York, was considered, you know, the best restaurant here. 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.199 And it was the first time that I did my 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.640 day in one in one shift. In France, we still 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:54.839 did two shift. I start nine o'clock in the morning 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.120 until two o'clock in the afternoon. You're from from two 0:11:58.160 --> 0:11:58.640 to five. 0:11:59.200 --> 0:11:59.800 Go sit down. 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.600 So where and that five you start five to nine 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.560 or ten. But was standard, you know, so here I 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:08.800 started doing it was one shift. I thought it was 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.320 like half a day of working. That's where I started 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.720 going to school and did other things. I had plenty 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.440 of time and the people, I have to say, at 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.800 the time were very very welcoming. I mean they know, 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:21.719 they say, oh, you come from a great country. We 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.920 have so much culture, you know. So I said, wow. 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:27.640 I talked to the people in France I left. They said, 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:29.480 what are you doing? They don't even have bread, they 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:33.840 don't have wine, you know at the time. But yeah, 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.600 people were extremely welcoming here. So I loved this. Things 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.000 went on one thing after another, and I'm still here. 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:45.120 But the thing is, you come here and you have pavion. 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.360 For how long I went at the Pavio not too long, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:52.280 from September until next April, six seven months. At that 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.960 time there was a problem with Sule, the owner, and 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:58.800 all got a problem with the m Pierre Frede, who 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.640 was the executive chef, and the outcome with Suley in 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.240 nineteen thirty nine for the Worldfare at a Young Coming, 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.000 and he stayed there. Eventually he was the executive chef 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:11.920 when I was there, a problem with Sule and he 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:16.360 decided to leave. And coincidentally, at that time, Howard Johnson, 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:21.000 Howard D. Johnson, who created Howard Johnson whether regular patron 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.400 of the Pavilon. So he I at Pierre and Pierre 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.920 told me you want to come with me, and I said, okay, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.640 great ideas. So that's that's what happens. 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.280 Okay, let's stop there because this is the term that 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.000 this is so amazing to me. So you hit the 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.240 summit in France, you're cooking for the heads of state. 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.520 You come to New York, you're a Pavinon in New York, 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.440 and the Howard Johnson, the namesake of the business, comes 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.000 to Pavinon. Is he a regular? 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.520 Yes, he's a regular there, and he gets you to 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:53.400 come and cook for the Howard Johnson's restaurant chain. Correct, Yes, absolutely, 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.960 How the hell did he do that? 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:57.439 How did he get you to come? 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:01.080 No, he actually asked Pierre to come, and Pierre decided 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:03.080 to go, and Pierre told me, you want to come 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.680 with me to assist me and do and that's how 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.200 I did. But the point is that, as I said, 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.800 the cook was quite different than now, because on that 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:14.480 spring of nineteen sixty, I actually I would have felt 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.240 the job at the White House for Kennedy and then 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.160 but I had done that, as I said in France, 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.560 I had never been on a magazine newspaper, so I 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.720 had no idea of the potential for publicity too, because 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.440 it really did not exist. In fact, the one who 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:31.800 went to the White House with a front of mine 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:33.560 who was the sou chef at the Sex House in 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.920 New York, and I called him, put them in touch. 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.960 Eventually he got the job, and a year later he 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.360 sent me a picture of him with President Kennedy or 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.000 Missus Carr as Wow. I never had a picture with 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:48.520 the goal of so it was already changing a different world. 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.320 But prior to him, who was a chef at the 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:51.920 White House? 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:52.720 I asked? 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.360 And it ended up knowing that it was a black 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:57.440 lady from the South somewhere. 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.720 No one would have known her name, no more than 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.640 an my name or whatever. So it was a differnt world. 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:04.840 We have to look at it in that context. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.440 And Haward Johnson or another world for me, American heating, 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:10.360 American habit. 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:12.280 Well, that's what I want to ask you, which is 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.400 when you come here, yeah again, Head of State France Pavillon, 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.320 you could offer the White House job. What's the first 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.440 thing you're in New York? Correct? You settled in New York. First, 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:23.760 what's the first thing that strikes you about the way 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.280 Americans eat in American restaurants? 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.440 Well, I live on fiftieth between first and second Avenue, 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.600 on top of a little restaurant called lettock Blanche near 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:34.480 a certain. 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:35.560 Place for a very nice area. 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.520 So they are a superhi market, which happened my first 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:39.320 SUPERI market. 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:40.600 I thought it was great. 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:42.320 I didn't have to go to the fish guide, the 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.600 vegetable guide and so forth. But then there was a 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.880 lot of package package package. Then there was some good meat, beef, 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.320 lamb lobster, but there was only one salad that was iceberg. 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.480 There was no leak, no shallow, no intel vergetable. I 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.080 remember saying, what are the mercioms thet's say Aisle five 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.960 that was ken mushroom there you didn't, so it was 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.520 undo the world, you know, in terms of course had 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.640 the pavillon. We had great supplier even from Europe, from 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.360 different parts or the fish and all that too. But yes, 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.040 it certainly it was different. 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:19.760 So when France it's very compartmentalized. You go to the 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:21.320 fish market, you go to the butcher, you go to 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.480 the vegetable. It's a separate, the bakery, everything is separate. Now, 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.920 I mean, I can only say this because it's true, 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.320 and that is that for me. Howard Johnson's occupied a 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.240 very specific place because as a Catholic in the sixties, 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.840 as a child, we couldn't eat meat on Friday. So 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:43.280 the Howard Johnson's fish fry on Fridays was a staple 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.320 in my house, going to have the coles Law and 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:47.600 the hush puppies and the corn or whatever it was, 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:53.320 and fried clams. But Howard Johnson's for the guy that's 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.160 a restless guy, for the guy that's moving around and 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.960 trying things. You stayed with Howard Johnson's for ten years, 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:00.840 is that correct? Yes? Why? 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:04.800 Well, to start with how Old Johnson, the father came 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.639 to my wedding, He came to the Christian of my daughter, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.600 so they were they used to come to the commissary 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.879 and Pierre fred and he said, okay, you guys, do 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:18.680 whatever you want to. We start changing butter instead of margarine, 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:22.159 fresh ones and the hydrated onion. We start changing all 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.520 the recipe and start working in the kitchen with four 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.800 for chicken to do a chicken pot pie, and we 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.120 end up with three thousand pounds of chicken at the time. 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.959 You know, I move on on the in thousand gallon kettles, 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:36.240 so it was a large production. 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:37.080 You know. 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:41.040 When I finished Howard Johnson. I opened a restaurant on 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.000 Fifth Avenue, cool a potagerie in New York. We sell 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.639 only soup, and I were a consult time for the 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.280 World Trade Center for Joe Baum. We saved one hundred 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.159 thirty thousand people a day. I was a consultant at 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.640 the Russian Teerom. I'm saying only that because other French 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:57.680 chefs I would never. 0:17:57.520 --> 0:17:59.480 Have been able to do any of those jobs. 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.760 I didn't do anything about production, marketing, chemi history of food. 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.879 So Howard Johnson was a good experience for me. I 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:07.560 learned a lot. 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.720 The book is the technique. So the technique is as 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.520 important to you as the artistry preparing food in a 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:18.920 certain way, because you've mentioned repeatedly in interviews programs of 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.879 yours and then your writing about your mindfulness about economics 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.080 in cooking. Yeah, don't waste anything. 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.719 Yeah, economic of motion as well as the economic of 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.520 food and so forth. And the technique. I published that technique. 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.639 I think it's seventy four or five. It's still in print. 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:37.879 I don't cook the same way that I cook fifty 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.439 years ago or two, but the way you shop on 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.600 a knife, you know, piternaspara goose, porch and egg is 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.080 the same way. So those books of technique kind of 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:48.480 remain because of that. 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:58.919 Chef Jacques Pepin. If you enjoy in depth culinary conversations, 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.640 check out my episode with Chef Eric Repair of the 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:04.399 legendary Le Bernadelle. 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.840 What I like about Europe is the quality of the products. 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.960 When they serve vegetables, they test like what they're supposed 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:11.560 to taste. 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:12.560 Here's a bit of. 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:17.280 A challenge because we do not cultivate the same way. 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.399 You know, like the soil is maybe not the same. 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.399 I don't know, Like an artichock in a Mediterranean is 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:26.040 not the same artichock that we eat here. And you know, 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.560 it's like those gigantic farms, and they have ways of 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:31.800 cultivating and maximizing the land. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.320 And factory its factories the artichoks are grown. 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.720