Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeartRadio. My guest today has worked in the
Speaker 1: best restaurants in the world, taught thousands of hours of
Speaker 1: culinary technique, authored over thirty cookbooks, and at the age
Speaker 1: of eighty eight, shows no signs of slowing down. Legendary
Speaker 1: French chef Jacques Pepin Chef Pepin has enjoyed, by all accounts,
Speaker 1: a most extraordinary life and career. By twenty two, he
Speaker 1: was the personal chef for French President Charles de gaul
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty nine, he immigrated to America and worked
Speaker 1: at Le Pavillon, the best French restaurant in New York City,
Speaker 1: before moving to Howard Johnson's. His next frontier was the
Speaker 1: American home, instructing audiences on proper French cooking methods. This
Speaker 1: began with his cookbooks, including the groundbreaking La Teche, and
Speaker 1: then through multiple PBS series like Today's Gourmet and Cooking
Speaker 1: at Home. Here, Chef Papin taught the home chef both
Speaker 1: the basics for everyday meals and experimentation with gourmet flourishes.
Speaker 1: His most recent cookbook is called Jacques papine cooking my
Speaker 1: way recipes and techniques for economical cooking. I wanted to
Speaker 1: know how growing up in a small town in France
Speaker 1: with his mother working in restaurants put him on the
Speaker 1: path to where he is today.
Speaker 2: Where we were in the film country, we had a
Speaker 2: little restaurant just outside of Lyons. The life was quite different.
Speaker 2: I mean, I tell Nady eight yesterday, so I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about over eighty years ago. Life was relatively easy. My
Speaker 2: father with a cabinet maker, my mother with a cook.
Speaker 2: So my choice in life was I'm a cabinet maker,
Speaker 2: I'm a cook, within of the telephone, within the radio
Speaker 2: revision of course, any of this. So life was probably
Speaker 2: much easier for kid than he is now. And we
Speaker 2: took the dog, my brother and I go into the
Speaker 2: forest and all that on all day off and the
Speaker 2: parents never you know, we came back at night and
Speaker 2: no one.
Speaker 3: Worried about where you were.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: It was quite different than now.
Speaker 1: Did your father take his cabinet making practice out into
Speaker 1: the country with you just outside of the or did
Speaker 1: he stay in the city and makers products.
Speaker 2: No, he did that in the country, but after he
Speaker 2: gave up anyway, at some point to work in the
Speaker 2: restaurant with my mother. But my father was a cabinet maker.
Speaker 2: His father was his brother was what we could in
Speaker 2: France ebonist from the world ebony. So it's fancy cabinet maker.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: He used noble wood like cherries, oak and so forth.
Speaker 2: Never use any nail. It's always you know, curt and
Speaker 2: joint and glue and a sculpture on the wood to
Speaker 2: that type of work. And the weally the sixteen with
Speaker 2: seventeen kind of furniture. I should have a couple of
Speaker 2: peace from him actually in my house.
Speaker 1: Now, your mother got into the restaurant business when you
Speaker 1: were how old?
Speaker 2: Well after I was born, because I have exactly twenty
Speaker 2: years different with my mother. I mean she got married
Speaker 2: I think she was seventeen and a half then at
Speaker 2: my brother with a year and a half older than
Speaker 2: me than me and anotherwise, so she got into the
Speaker 2: restaurant business before the war straighttly before the war. She
Speaker 2: was a waddress, working different restaurants, stelf helping in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: It was pretty common in France, I mean in the family.
Speaker 2: In France, I come twelve restaurant, twelve of them run
Speaker 2: by women. My two aunts and sister in law, cousin,
Speaker 2: a niece, a mother.
Speaker 3: They all had.
Speaker 2: I was actually the first male to go into that business.
Speaker 2: And those kind of a formidable women who were not
Speaker 2: very empressed by me. I remember when I was the
Speaker 2: chef to the president in France. Go back down to
Speaker 2: Leono to my aunt to a little restaurant. I get
Speaker 2: into the kitchen. She drove me out. She said, you
Speaker 2: used too much. Better get out of here. They were
Speaker 2: not very unpressed by me.
Speaker 1: And who's managing all this enterprise? Your mother?
Speaker 2: Oh, they didn't have twelve restaurants at the time. I'm
Speaker 2: calling you general. And my aunt at a restaurant in book,
Speaker 2: another aunt at a restaurant somewhere else, my mother at
Speaker 2: three four restaurants actually at some point.
Speaker 1: And what was it about? I mean, so, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: you feel like you were born to this. There's no
Speaker 1: way you could escape. And you said cabin making or cooking, right,
Speaker 1: But you found the kitchen more seductive.
Speaker 2: Correct, absolutely more exciting, more seductive, And so I went
Speaker 2: into this. I mean now, I said, the choice was
Speaker 2: relatively easy for kid at that point, and France, we
Speaker 2: were supposed to go to school in teenage fourteen, which
Speaker 2: I did at thirteen, and I took all the exam
Speaker 2: you know at the end of primary school, the front exam.
Speaker 2: So I took all of those and I finished when
Speaker 2: I was early thirteen.
Speaker 3: So I say that's it. I'm going into a frightdiceship.
Speaker 2: My older brother became an engineer, so he worked, you know,
Speaker 2: so it was not a question of me that I
Speaker 2: had to go to work. That's what I wanted to do,
Speaker 2: so and I went to school later.
Speaker 1: So do you think that people, I mean, there's next
Speaker 1: to no association between what I do for a living
Speaker 1: and what you do for a living. But in the
Speaker 1: world of acting in theater and so forth, people will
Speaker 1: often say, I can't make you a good actor, but
Speaker 1: I can make you a better actor than you were
Speaker 1: when you walked in the door. But there needs to
Speaker 1: be some inherent inspiration. That is that thing true about
Speaker 1: food and cooking? Do people have to have an inherent
Speaker 1: gift for that kind of thing?
Speaker 3: Yes, certainly.
Speaker 2: I mean for me, I'm talking about professionalism, professional chef
Speaker 2: and on a professional chef. I did those books called Technique,
Speaker 2: which is an illustrated my doorit of cooking. Technique to
Speaker 2: know to bon out. You can to poach an egg
Speaker 2: and it's not a question of knowing.
Speaker 3: How to do it.
Speaker 2: It's eleven o'clock and you have one hundred people sitting
Speaker 2: down for lunch.
Speaker 3: You really have to move.
Speaker 2: So this is the difference between a professional chef and
Speaker 2: a home cook. You know, the speed and all that too.
Speaker 2: So you have to be a good technician to be
Speaker 2: a chef first. But I know a fair amount of
Speaker 2: a chef who a good technician, run a good kitchen
Speaker 2: and are relatively lousy cook. The food is all right.
Speaker 2: But conversely, I know people who cook at home who
Speaker 2: wouldn't be able to run a restaurant speed and all
Speaker 2: that to But food is fantastic, great, you know. So
Speaker 2: to be a great chef like Tomas Keller or Daniel Buru,
Speaker 2: well you have to be a technician first, but then
Speaker 2: you have to have other things after. You know, you
Speaker 2: have to have imagination talent to bring it to another level.
Speaker 1: You know. I think eventually you moved to Paris, yes,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to quote the number here because
Speaker 1: I find this fantastic. You work in many, many, many
Speaker 1: restaurants during that period, correct.
Speaker 3: Close to one hundred.
Speaker 1: How is that possible?
Speaker 2: Its possible because I work at the Plaza and in
Speaker 2: Paris for like seven years, put my day off.
Speaker 3: Each day off, I.
Speaker 2: Work at a different restaurant most of the time, and
Speaker 2: that two day of a week. There is an organization
Speaker 2: called associated the Quasi Society of the Chef of Paris,
Speaker 2: which I would a member. In fact, I don't know
Speaker 2: why we don't have that in New York. But you
Speaker 2: go in the morning or someone your cook doesn't come
Speaker 2: or whatever doesn't come.
Speaker 3: They call they say I need one cook for the day.
Speaker 2: So you know I will end up like at Messi,
Speaker 2: you know, Galley la Fayette to and do like three
Speaker 2: thousand plate with a slice, a piece of salad in
Speaker 2: between and an egg, you know, and the next time
Speaker 2: I end up in a two star restaurant and next
Speaker 2: so you never know where the society is going to
Speaker 2: sign you. But that was great experience, you know, of
Speaker 2: working because in case like this, it's not like you
Speaker 2: have to wait for the day to learn the habit
Speaker 2: of the house. I mean, within fifteen minutes you're there,
Speaker 2: the chef say you got to work.
Speaker 3: So it's great training.
Speaker 1: Really, So you have a job in one where you
Speaker 1: were at Tatanay. Yes, and you have a job. But
Speaker 1: it sounds you sound like we've had guests on the
Speaker 1: show who were some of the most legendary sessions musicians
Speaker 1: in history, right, and it sounds like you have the
Speaker 1: same kind of thing you're you're going to go in
Speaker 1: for a day and and is the culture there, I
Speaker 1: don't want to say uniform, but approachable where you can
Speaker 1: walk in and you're just accepted you walk in there
Speaker 1: or do you see the other conflicts with the way
Speaker 1: things are done?
Speaker 2: Sometimes no, No, if you work on a job to
Speaker 2: stay for a couple of years, you may get involving
Speaker 2: into that type of thing. But when you work for
Speaker 2: the day two days, no, And remember that at the time,
Speaker 2: the cook was really at the bottom of the social scale.
Speaker 2: Any good mother I wanted a child to marry the lawyer,
Speaker 2: you know, a doctor, certainly not a cook. So now
Speaker 2: we are genius. I don't know what happened at that time.
Speaker 2: It wasn't okay. So when you went into a restaurant,
Speaker 2: it was to conform exactly to the habit of that reston.
Speaker 2: It was not to create or do something on your own.
Speaker 2: In fact, I don't think I ever used a recipe
Speaker 2: before I came to America. So you work in that place,
Speaker 2: you learn the taste of that, and those dishes in
Speaker 2: a sense become very visceral, very powerful. I mean the
Speaker 2: dishes my mother did as a kid. You know, those
Speaker 2: states will stay with you the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: And I'll go the president in Paris, for example, we
Speaker 2: did the lobster soufle. We were a foty eight chef
Speaker 2: in the kitchen there, and the forty eight of us
Speaker 2: could have done it.
Speaker 3: You would never have known who has done it.
Speaker 2: That's what the way it was until Nouvelle Cuisine in
Speaker 2: the mid eighteen ninety when the chef started creating and
Speaker 2: doing that type of thing.
Speaker 3: Whige different.
Speaker 1: Now now you're a hired chef for the president of France,
Speaker 1: right and you work with the gall and some other
Speaker 1: heads of state. How long were you doing that job?
Speaker 2: From fifty six and fifty six to fifty eight and
Speaker 2: the fifty eight I came here at the end.
Speaker 3: Of fifty nine. You know, you have to realize that
Speaker 3: at the time.
Speaker 2: Again, as I said, the cook, I serve people like
Speaker 2: either know where nehru Tito macmilland over the head of state.
Speaker 2: Not anyone ever would call you to get kuru in
Speaker 2: the dining room.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding? The cook was in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: If anyone came into the kitchen because something was wrong.
Speaker 2: Towards two confidences. So I had never had an antilio.
Speaker 2: Television barely existed, but with radio or magazzine newspaper that
Speaker 2: didn't exist.
Speaker 3: So it was a different world.
Speaker 1: So you're at what is certainly one of the summits
Speaker 1: of cooking in France. If you're cooking for the head
Speaker 1: of state. There you have this amazing job, and then
Speaker 1: when you're done in fifty eight, you moved to the
Speaker 1: United States.
Speaker 2: Correct, right, at the end of nineteen fifteen, I moved.
Speaker 2: I wasn't married. At a great job in France, my
Speaker 2: brother at a restaurant, but I wanted to come to America.
Speaker 3: America.
Speaker 2: I was she leaves the Golden fleeceh. So I said,
Speaker 2: I want to go there for a year, two years,
Speaker 2: maybe learn the language a little bit, see what's going on.
Speaker 2: I was unattached to So I came here at the
Speaker 2: end of fifty nine and I'm still here.
Speaker 1: But you what you see up till then before you
Speaker 1: settle in the United States, it is it's safe to
Speaker 1: say you have a very restless nature.
Speaker 2: Yes, has an extent, but that's what the world of
Speaker 2: food was in a center, restless, moving from one place
Speaker 2: to the other to learn because if you keep your
Speaker 2: eye open, I mean, I can't work with anyone now
Speaker 2: and you learn something, you know you would never have
Speaker 2: sort of doing it this way too. Sometimes you learn
Speaker 2: what not to do, but you learn something. But yeah,
Speaker 2: so in that sense, coming to America was different. It
Speaker 2: was the first time I work at the Pavio in
Speaker 2: New York, was considered, you know, the best restaurant here.
Speaker 2: And it was the first time that I did my
Speaker 2: day in one in one shift. In France, we still
Speaker 2: did two shift. I start nine o'clock in the morning
Speaker 2: until two o'clock in the afternoon. You're from from two
Speaker 2: to five.
Speaker 3: Go sit down.
Speaker 2: So where and that five you start five to nine
Speaker 2: or ten. But was standard, you know, so here I
Speaker 2: started doing it was one shift. I thought it was
Speaker 2: like half a day of working. That's where I started
Speaker 2: going to school and did other things. I had plenty
Speaker 2: of time and the people, I have to say, at
Speaker 2: the time were very very welcoming. I mean they know,
Speaker 2: they say, oh, you come from a great country. We
Speaker 2: have so much culture, you know. So I said, wow.
Speaker 2: I talked to the people in France I left. They said,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? They don't even have bread, they
Speaker 2: don't have wine, you know at the time. But yeah,
Speaker 2: people were extremely welcoming here. So I loved this. Things
Speaker 2: went on one thing after another, and I'm still here.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, you come here and you have pavion.
Speaker 2: For how long I went at the Pavio not too long,
Speaker 2: from September until next April, six seven months. At that
Speaker 2: time there was a problem with Sule, the owner, and
Speaker 2: all got a problem with the m Pierre Frede, who
Speaker 2: was the executive chef, and the outcome with Suley in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine for the Worldfare at a Young Coming,
Speaker 2: and he stayed there. Eventually he was the executive chef
Speaker 2: when I was there, a problem with Sule and he
Speaker 2: decided to leave. And coincidentally, at that time, Howard Johnson,
Speaker 2: Howard D. Johnson, who created Howard Johnson whether regular patron
Speaker 2: of the Pavilon. So he I at Pierre and Pierre
Speaker 2: told me you want to come with me, and I said, okay,
Speaker 2: great ideas. So that's that's what happens.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's stop there because this is the term that
Speaker 1: this is so amazing to me. So you hit the
Speaker 1: summit in France, you're cooking for the heads of state.
Speaker 1: You come to New York, you're a Pavinon in New York,
Speaker 1: and the Howard Johnson, the namesake of the business, comes
Speaker 1: to Pavinon. Is he a regular?
Speaker 4: Yes, he's a regular there, and he gets you to
Speaker 4: come and cook for the Howard Johnson's restaurant chain. Correct, Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 4: How the hell did he do that?
Speaker 1: How did he get you to come?
Speaker 2: No, he actually asked Pierre to come, and Pierre decided
Speaker 2: to go, and Pierre told me, you want to come
Speaker 2: with me to assist me and do and that's how
Speaker 2: I did. But the point is that, as I said,
Speaker 2: the cook was quite different than now, because on that
Speaker 2: spring of nineteen sixty, I actually I would have felt
Speaker 2: the job at the White House for Kennedy and then
Speaker 2: but I had done that, as I said in France,
Speaker 2: I had never been on a magazine newspaper, so I
Speaker 2: had no idea of the potential for publicity too, because
Speaker 2: it really did not exist. In fact, the one who
Speaker 2: went to the White House with a front of mine
Speaker 2: who was the sou chef at the Sex House in
Speaker 2: New York, and I called him, put them in touch.
Speaker 2: Eventually he got the job, and a year later he
Speaker 2: sent me a picture of him with President Kennedy or
Speaker 2: Missus Carr as Wow. I never had a picture with
Speaker 2: the goal of so it was already changing a different world.
Speaker 2: But prior to him, who was a chef at the
Speaker 2: White House?
Speaker 3: I asked?
Speaker 2: And it ended up knowing that it was a black
Speaker 2: lady from the South somewhere.
Speaker 3: No one would have known her name, no more than
Speaker 3: an my name or whatever. So it was a differnt world.
Speaker 3: We have to look at it in that context.
Speaker 2: And Haward Johnson or another world for me, American heating,
Speaker 2: American habit.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what I want to ask you, which is
Speaker 1: when you come here, yeah again, Head of State France Pavillon,
Speaker 1: you could offer the White House job. What's the first
Speaker 1: thing you're in New York? Correct? You settled in New York. First,
Speaker 1: what's the first thing that strikes you about the way
Speaker 1: Americans eat in American restaurants?
Speaker 2: Well, I live on fiftieth between first and second Avenue,
Speaker 2: on top of a little restaurant called lettock Blanche near
Speaker 2: a certain.
Speaker 3: Place for a very nice area.
Speaker 2: So they are a superhi market, which happened my first
Speaker 2: SUPERI market.
Speaker 3: I thought it was great.
Speaker 2: I didn't have to go to the fish guide, the
Speaker 2: vegetable guide and so forth. But then there was a
Speaker 2: lot of package package package. Then there was some good meat, beef,
Speaker 2: lamb lobster, but there was only one salad that was iceberg.
Speaker 2: There was no leak, no shallow, no intel vergetable. I
Speaker 2: remember saying, what are the mercioms thet's say Aisle five
Speaker 2: that was ken mushroom there you didn't, so it was
Speaker 2: undo the world, you know, in terms of course had
Speaker 2: the pavillon. We had great supplier even from Europe, from
Speaker 2: different parts or the fish and all that too. But yes,
Speaker 2: it certainly it was different.
Speaker 1: So when France it's very compartmentalized. You go to the
Speaker 1: fish market, you go to the butcher, you go to
Speaker 1: the vegetable. It's a separate, the bakery, everything is separate. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can only say this because it's true,
Speaker 1: and that is that for me. Howard Johnson's occupied a
Speaker 1: very specific place because as a Catholic in the sixties,
Speaker 1: as a child, we couldn't eat meat on Friday. So
Speaker 1: the Howard Johnson's fish fry on Fridays was a staple
Speaker 1: in my house, going to have the coles Law and
Speaker 1: the hush puppies and the corn or whatever it was,
Speaker 1: and fried clams. But Howard Johnson's for the guy that's
Speaker 1: a restless guy, for the guy that's moving around and
Speaker 1: trying things. You stayed with Howard Johnson's for ten years,
Speaker 1: is that correct? Yes? Why?
Speaker 2: Well, to start with how Old Johnson, the father came
Speaker 2: to my wedding, He came to the Christian of my daughter,
Speaker 2: so they were they used to come to the commissary
Speaker 2: and Pierre fred and he said, okay, you guys, do
Speaker 2: whatever you want to. We start changing butter instead of margarine,
Speaker 2: fresh ones and the hydrated onion. We start changing all
Speaker 2: the recipe and start working in the kitchen with four
Speaker 2: for chicken to do a chicken pot pie, and we
Speaker 2: end up with three thousand pounds of chicken at the time.
Speaker 2: You know, I move on on the in thousand gallon kettles,
Speaker 2: so it was a large production.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: When I finished Howard Johnson. I opened a restaurant on
Speaker 2: Fifth Avenue, cool a potagerie in New York. We sell
Speaker 2: only soup, and I were a consult time for the
Speaker 2: World Trade Center for Joe Baum. We saved one hundred
Speaker 2: thirty thousand people a day. I was a consultant at
Speaker 2: the Russian Teerom. I'm saying only that because other French
Speaker 2: chefs I would never.
Speaker 3: Have been able to do any of those jobs.
Speaker 2: I didn't do anything about production, marketing, chemi history of food.
Speaker 2: So Howard Johnson was a good experience for me. I
Speaker 2: learned a lot.
Speaker 1: The book is the technique. So the technique is as
Speaker 1: important to you as the artistry preparing food in a
Speaker 1: certain way, because you've mentioned repeatedly in interviews programs of
Speaker 1: yours and then your writing about your mindfulness about economics
Speaker 1: in cooking. Yeah, don't waste anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, economic of motion as well as the economic of
Speaker 2: food and so forth. And the technique. I published that technique.
Speaker 2: I think it's seventy four or five. It's still in print.
Speaker 2: I don't cook the same way that I cook fifty
Speaker 2: years ago or two, but the way you shop on
Speaker 2: a knife, you know, piternaspara goose, porch and egg is
Speaker 2: the same way. So those books of technique kind of
Speaker 2: remain because of that.
Speaker 1: Chef Jacques Pepin. If you enjoy in depth culinary conversations,
Speaker 1: check out my episode with Chef Eric Repair of the
Speaker 1: legendary Le Bernadelle.
Speaker 5: What I like about Europe is the quality of the products.
Speaker 5: When they serve vegetables, they test like what they're supposed
Speaker 5: to taste.
Speaker 3: Here's a bit of.
Speaker 5: A challenge because we do not cultivate the same way.
Speaker 5: You know, like the soil is maybe not the same.
Speaker 5: I don't know, Like an artichock in a Mediterranean is
Speaker 5: not the same artichock that we eat here. And you know,
Speaker 5: it's like those gigantic farms, and they have ways of
Speaker 5: cultivating and maximizing the land.
Speaker 3: And factory its factories the artichoks are grown.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Eric Repair, go
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Jacques
Speaker 1: Papa tells us where a world famous chef dines in
Speaker 1: his downtime. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing Jacques Pepin's culinary techniques every day Cooking and
Speaker 1: Heart and Soul in the Kitchen. These are just a
Speaker 1: few of the many television programs Papin has created to
Speaker 1: instruct the home chef. But of all his work as
Speaker 1: a television icon, one series he is most well known
Speaker 1: for is his Emmy winning show with Julia Child Julia
Speaker 1: and Jacques Cooking at Home.
Speaker 2: When I did a theory with Julia Child, you know
Speaker 2: we did. I knew her fifty years. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: married in eighteen sixty, so we did the theory together.
Speaker 2: We had no recipe. She said, what do you want
Speaker 2: to do? Just right down one hundred things of you
Speaker 2: want to do with the twenty six show, and she
Speaker 2: did the same way, and I think three of mine
Speaker 2: made it in the show. You know, we cook together
Speaker 2: without recipes, so it was harder for the cameraman. Of
Speaker 2: course they don't know whether we're going to left right
Speaker 2: or whatever. But for me, I have a scallion in
Speaker 2: that dish because they happened to be on the table,
Speaker 2: so I throw them in much idea to work without
Speaker 2: recip just testing, adjusting this. And the second thing when
Speaker 2: we did our show, of course on PBS, you have
Speaker 2: a time frame. The show thirty minute all the time.
Speaker 2: It's too expensive. But Julia said, we'll cook and when
Speaker 2: it finished, will tell you some of the show.
Speaker 3: For eighty minutes ninety minute. I mean, it was amazing.
Speaker 3: And then so we had wine.
Speaker 2: We had good wine, we had no recipe, and we
Speaker 2: had as much time as we wanted.
Speaker 3: So it was fun cooking.
Speaker 1: I watched that documentary about her, and I was enthralled
Speaker 1: by that film. It really was a magical an opportunity
Speaker 1: to really get to know somebody you thought you knew. Yes,
Speaker 1: a woman who everybody in this country knew who she was,
Speaker 1: I mean at least of my generation, but you really
Speaker 1: didn't know her when you got to know her. It
Speaker 1: was really really a wonderful film.
Speaker 3: But she was exactly the same way in person that
Speaker 3: she was on television.
Speaker 1: Now, so when you're in the United States and you
Speaker 1: come here and before you go to Pavion and the
Speaker 1: speaks to also just your patterns throughout your life, whether
Speaker 1: you're in Europe or what have you. Do you like
Speaker 1: to go to restaurants? Do you enjoy eating out or
Speaker 1: do you much more prefer to just cook at home.
Speaker 1: Do you dine out with any regularity or you prefer
Speaker 1: not to both.
Speaker 2: I mean I love to cook at home with Fran
Speaker 2: occasionally we did last night, but otherwise I love to
Speaker 2: go to the restaurant. Of course, I mean usually pretty straightforward restaurant.
Speaker 2: For example, for America, and in the psyche of American
Speaker 2: I believe a lot French cooking is understood in the
Speaker 2: context of Micheline Star. You know, well, there is twelve
Speaker 2: I think twelve or fourteen three star Micheline in France,
Speaker 2: with about seventy eighty two star and about four hundred
Speaker 2: one star.
Speaker 3: The whole star system of the Missionine.
Speaker 2: About six hundred restaurant, where there is one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty eight thousand restaurants in France. All the restaurants that
Speaker 2: I was thinking about, my mother to any of them
Speaker 2: had never been in a three star restaurant in the
Speaker 2: Mishline guide. I'm saying that because in the psyche of
Speaker 2: the American people often they look at French cooking in
Speaker 2: the context of michelan very elegant and.
Speaker 3: Famous high stakes timing, which.
Speaker 2: Is not really it's part of it, but a small
Speaker 2: part to a certain extent.
Speaker 1: Now, for you, when you dine out, what's the first
Speaker 1: thing that you look for in a restaurant that you
Speaker 1: find attractive.
Speaker 2: Well to a certain extent, the service. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: you get into a restaurant, or you're on the road,
Speaker 2: you get into a restaurant.
Speaker 3: You go in just looking at the bottom of the
Speaker 3: chair or the table, whether.
Speaker 2: They are clean or not, the smell of the restaurants
Speaker 2: and all that I'm saying or I'm not saying here.
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about famous restaurants. So there is that
Speaker 2: first impression which is very important, and the way you
Speaker 2: received the service to Yeah, those first impressions are very important,
Speaker 2: I think in the restaurant. I mean I used to
Speaker 2: review a fair amount of restaurant with Craig label on
Speaker 2: the New York Times because I knew Craig again when
Speaker 2: I came to this country. I mean through the pavilion again,
Speaker 2: so very often to touch job that I would not, in.
Speaker 3: Fact, I was broke with the job after he.
Speaker 2: Left and died. I mean that would you be interested?
Speaker 2: I couldn't do that. I mean it's very easy. I
Speaker 2: can't tell you fifteen things wrong anywhere that you go,
Speaker 2: but this is not my type of thing.
Speaker 3: And after I know, I would have been.
Speaker 2: Pretty bored and frustrated after you know, a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks on the job.
Speaker 1: Well, for me, my wife and I we go out
Speaker 1: to dinner probably you know, four nights a week because
Speaker 1: it's the only time I have my wife to myself. Right.
Speaker 1: We have to put all the kids to bed and
Speaker 1: I go to dinner with my wife. And my feeling
Speaker 1: about restaurants is, you know, we basically try new things
Speaker 1: every now and then someone will say, oh, you must
Speaker 1: go here, but we go to the same four places
Speaker 1: over and over again. I want reliability. I walk in
Speaker 1: that restaurant, I know exactly what I want to get.
Speaker 2: Right me too, if I played with it to a
Speaker 2: fantastic ROAs Chin, I want to go back there. And
Speaker 2: if I go back there and they say, we don't
Speaker 2: do it anymore, so what's going on?
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 2: You know, I add, you know, so many twenty three
Speaker 2: twenty four thousand restaurants in New York. The amount of
Speaker 2: ethnicity and the choice is unmatched anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2: When you find six or eight restaurant that you can
Speaker 2: rely on. If you want Chinese, all this and that, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course you go back there. That's what you want,
Speaker 2: and you want the same food.
Speaker 1: Now, are there things you won't eat or did your
Speaker 1: training put you in a place where you eat anything?
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm a glutton basically. Yeah, I eat anything you
Speaker 2: put in front of me. Really, yes, I mean I
Speaker 2: don't really think of anything that I don't like. It changed,
Speaker 2: I mean your metabolism change. At my age, I used.
Speaker 3: To love a large stake.
Speaker 2: Now if I have a stick, if I have two
Speaker 2: or three answers a piece of that, that's more than
Speaker 2: enough to still. You know, things change. I eat probably
Speaker 2: more soup than I ever did, and other things like that.
Speaker 3: The way you cook when you're young chef of and you.
Speaker 2: Add to the plate, you add to the plate. You
Speaker 2: add to the plate to presentation too. And when you
Speaker 2: get to be a sertain age. If I have a
Speaker 2: great tomato out of my gardener, the right temperature, you know,
Speaker 2: a bit of salt, it's ripe, A bit of salt,
Speaker 2: bit of a river on top, I don't need more
Speaker 2: embellishment on the plate. So I take away, take away
Speaker 2: from the plate to be left with something more essential.
Speaker 2: Not my age, but it's a normal progression with age
Speaker 2: and so forth.
Speaker 1: I mean beyond. I want to say this carefully because
Speaker 1: I don't want to get this say the wrong thing here.
Speaker 1: But it's like, beyond drugs and alcohol and things that
Speaker 1: have a grip on people in this very very powerful way,
Speaker 1: beyond that, there's nothing that has a control of people
Speaker 1: more than food. Oh yeah, food is the most powerful
Speaker 1: reality in our lives.
Speaker 2: There is nothing also will bring people together like food.
Speaker 2: You know, you sit down at the table with people
Speaker 2: you don't know to all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 2: you starting conversation and all that. You may be sitting
Speaker 2: next to the governor on one side and maybe the
Speaker 2: dishwasher of the restaurant on the other side. But if
Speaker 2: really it doesn't matter. I remember traveling in the northern
Speaker 2: of Europe, Yugoslavia and so forth, in little village many
Speaker 2: many years ago, people look behind the curtain foreigners, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, you're dangerous. You see it at the bistro
Speaker 2: and you're there by hand.
Speaker 3: If you don't know the language.
Speaker 2: You get the bottle of wine there and whatever bread
Speaker 2: to and all of a sudden people sit around you.
Speaker 2: You know, they look at you. You send them a
Speaker 2: bottle of wine and an hour letter. You're speaking unknown
Speaker 2: language with those people because you'll quote normal you know,
Speaker 2: you eat like them or so forth. So food is
Speaker 2: very important. One of the most important thing for me
Speaker 2: is probably to follow the season. You know, I mean
Speaker 2: the stupo markets seem to be greater and more beautiful
Speaker 2: they've ever been. You have through very year round, but
Speaker 2: when you test it, and when you go to a
Speaker 2: farm by a basket of srowary in full season, you
Speaker 2: can see the difference. So it seemed to be very
Speaker 2: plentiful in some ways, but it's not. I mean, following
Speaker 2: the season the best thing you can do. That's when
Speaker 2: a tomato really tastes good full season, that's when it's
Speaker 2: really cheap too, and when when nutritionally that's when it
Speaker 2: the bests for you. So you know, you go to
Speaker 2: those places from the south of France to Sicily or
Speaker 2: Sardinia where people live over one hundred years old, they
Speaker 2: eat very simply, but they follow the season simply, have
Speaker 2: a glass of wine and eat you know what's in
Speaker 2: seasons simply, and that's great.
Speaker 1: We had Eric Repair obviously from the Bernadette here on
Speaker 1: the show about a year ago, and when he described
Speaker 1: what it was like when he was young and he
Speaker 1: was in the kitchen. It's a lot of work. Boy,
Speaker 1: it sounds like it was really, really, really a lot
Speaker 1: of work.
Speaker 2: It was, but we didn't know it was work, you know.
Speaker 2: And as I said at that time, no recipe. The
Speaker 2: chef that you do this, and if you say why,
Speaker 2: you would have said because I just told you.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So I work for a year on an apprenticeship cleaning
Speaker 2: the floor, and then started scaling fish, killing chicken at
Speaker 2: the time we killed chicken, pop chicken, rabbit, scaling fish
Speaker 2: too without just by looking and doing it. And then
Speaker 2: when the earlier the chef told me you started the
Speaker 2: stove tomorrow started the stove.
Speaker 3: They only get close to the stof to put wood.
Speaker 2: And calling it at that when it was now and
Speaker 2: I work at the stove, and I knew how to
Speaker 2: do it through osmosis, you know, at that time, the
Speaker 2: repeat and so forth.
Speaker 3: So that was a different way of learning as we
Speaker 3: do now.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been dinner at the French Culinariantitute in
Speaker 2: New York for twenty five years. That I teach at
Speaker 2: BU for forty three years, I think. So now you
Speaker 2: teach Chatali differently. The key first are usually coming from
Speaker 2: not only high school but often college, so they want
Speaker 2: to know more totally different than the way I was
Speaker 2: told when I was thirteen fourteen, do this, do that
Speaker 2: that said?
Speaker 1: You know, going back to when you were talking about
Speaker 1: a great tomato. What you see is I live on
Speaker 1: Long Island in the summer. We're out there for the summer,
Speaker 1: my family, and these farmers' markets where it seems like
Speaker 1: people will pay just about anything to have a basket
Speaker 1: of something of the season. We have a garden in
Speaker 1: our house. We have a woman who comes. She prepares
Speaker 1: the garden, and then she texts me and says, here's
Speaker 1: what's ready to pick. The Japanese egg plant is ready
Speaker 1: to pick. The flowers are ready to pick. We've got
Speaker 1: a decent sized garden and my family I got, like
Speaker 1: I said, I got seven kids, my wife, and I
Speaker 1: of some people who help us. We can't eat everything
Speaker 1: that comes out of that garden.
Speaker 2: I did two soup this summer with cucumber. It's almost
Speaker 2: I put it, took the seat out of it, put
Speaker 2: it in the food processor and rucifi it salt paper
Speaker 2: and I mixed that with a bloody Marry remix. There
Speaker 2: is I had a guess pastio right there, and I
Speaker 2: did another one the same way, but then mix it
Speaker 2: with the with yogurt and mint to do yogot soup
Speaker 2: during the summer. So often the recipe come from that
Speaker 2: overabundance of the things that you have.
Speaker 1: Chef Jacques Pepin, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Jacques Papass shares how a near
Speaker 1: fatal car accident changed the course of his life. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Chef
Speaker 1: Jacques Papa's career boasts a seemingly endless list of accomplishments,
Speaker 1: from cooking for multiple heads of state to creating the
Speaker 1: culinary certificate program at Boston University. That's why I wanted
Speaker 1: to know why he chose to go back to school,
Speaker 1: earning his bachelor's and master's degrees from Columbia University in
Speaker 1: his adulthood.
Speaker 3: We're to start with Atle Skuluhn.
Speaker 2: I was thirteen years old, so there was always often
Speaker 2: in the kitchen that complex about not having an education.
Speaker 3: You know and all that.
Speaker 2: So I saw that even as I said, when I
Speaker 2: was at Howard Johnan, for example, I was with Pia Fredde.
Speaker 2: Pierre Frede was a fantastic chef, great guy. He started
Speaker 2: working like I did, but he never went back to
Speaker 2: college after he was here. And I remember mister Johnson
Speaker 2: junior there who was at Cornell. He used to come
Speaker 2: with his other kid the sandwich two twenty three. They
Speaker 2: come out of college, and I know that Pierre was mpressed,
Speaker 2: didn't know what to do, when in fact they knew
Speaker 2: nothing about cooking or anything. At that time, I was
Speaker 2: already in the graduate school at Columbia. So a one
Speaker 2: time pressed by them, So it changed your mentality, you know.
Speaker 2: As I said, one time I gave the commandment address
Speaker 2: at Columbia. Actually, and I said a quote I think
Speaker 2: from Somerset Mohan, which the education is very important. Without
Speaker 2: an education, you're likely to fall in the deadly danger
Speaker 2: of taking educated people seriously.
Speaker 3: So it's true to a certain extent.
Speaker 2: You know, I would never have been able to do
Speaker 2: everything that I've done without the education I get at Columbia.
Speaker 2: And I went to Columbia from nineteen fifty nine to
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three seventy three, Appropot a doctoral dissertation on
Speaker 2: an history of food in the context Civil edition literature,
Speaker 2: and at that time to me, are you crazy?
Speaker 3: Food? Now we cannot accept that. So I left.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 3: Actually I want to be you and you got your
Speaker 3: doctorate there. Yeah, Columbia still gave me a PhD.
Speaker 2: Letter. I think it's another world, the world of food now,
Speaker 2: I mean the way we get respect and all that.
Speaker 2: And I have to say that American chefs start later
Speaker 2: than what it used to be thirteen years old in
Speaker 2: Europe and so forth, so they usually go to school today,
Speaker 2: are more educated too, so it's a different business. They
Speaker 2: get much more into business now. So many chefs that
Speaker 2: I know from Daniel bul have six seven eight restaurants.
Speaker 2: I never did that type of thing. I don't think
Speaker 2: that I would have been very good at that. I'm
Speaker 2: not very good at business in general.
Speaker 3: So, but the chef now is that much more larger
Speaker 3: person than it used to be.
Speaker 1: So a couple of quick things that I want to
Speaker 1: touch on. So you were in a very serious car accident, yes,
Speaker 1: and this was back in what.
Speaker 3: Year nineteen seventy four?
Speaker 2: You know, I tried to avoid idea of falling arriving
Speaker 2: tree and I had twelve fourteen fracture, and so I
Speaker 2: broke my back in three places, my two hip leg arm.
Speaker 3: They thought that I would live, They thought that I
Speaker 3: would walk again.
Speaker 2: And in fact, one of the first things my wife
Speaker 2: signed removal of the left town. The left town. There
Speaker 2: was only this is a good thing. They didn't cut
Speaker 2: it off. So yeah, that kind of changed my life too.
Speaker 2: It pushed me in the direction of writing about food.
Speaker 2: You know, I did for the New York Times.
Speaker 1: You couldn't stand in the kitchen for very long.
Speaker 2: Obviously, Well I can, but you know, not like back then,
Speaker 2: all the time, every day, six hours.
Speaker 3: It's pretty taxing, you know. So of course, yeah, so
Speaker 3: that changed.
Speaker 1: Changed your life in an important way. I want you
Speaker 1: to mention two things. Your new cookbook is called what.
Speaker 3: Cooking My Way?
Speaker 2: I think you know, I did thirteenth theery of PBS show,
Speaker 2: And each time there is a theme. So each time
Speaker 2: you have a book with a different theme. And that's
Speaker 2: what I have so many books. I even did a
Speaker 2: book for the Cleveland Clinic for Caldiac version wet loss.
Speaker 2: So you put your knowledge of food to a very
Speaker 2: specific area in the New York Time for eight ten
Speaker 2: years that I had a column called The Purposeful Cook,
Speaker 2: which was to cook for a family of six from
Speaker 2: a minimum amount of money. So there the idea was
Speaker 2: economy in the kitchen. So this is a bit of
Speaker 2: the same theme that I took back here. But I've
Speaker 2: been very lucky with all the books that I've done,
Speaker 2: and with PBS and so forth.
Speaker 1: So you've had an amazingly broad career. It's incredible.
Speaker 3: I'm very lucky.
Speaker 1: Which brings me to you said you just turned eighty eight. Yeah, yesterday,
Speaker 1: So yesterday was your birthday, your eighty eight. Which I
Speaker 1: have many friends, many friends who are older than I am.
Speaker 1: I'm sixty five, and my friends who were in their
Speaker 1: late seventies around in the corner toward eighty, who have
Speaker 1: great careers. They're like, they're never going to retire, Like, well,
Speaker 1: this is who I am, this is what I do.
Speaker 1: Retirement it's death.
Speaker 3: If you love what you're doing, you never have to
Speaker 3: go to work.
Speaker 1: Fantastic, fantastic. Now, one more thing. Your foundation describe to
Speaker 1: us when you started that what the mission of the
Speaker 1: foundation is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was actually my son in law, my daughter
Speaker 2: does Facebook for me, my son in law does instide
Speaker 2: gramble of though its a professor Johnson and weel it's
Speaker 2: actually a professional chef forty years but then he went
Speaker 2: back to Johnson and weell to teach and get his
Speaker 2: master and get a PhD. So at some point about
Speaker 2: five six years ago, he told me, you know you've
Speaker 2: been teaching all your life. Who do you think you
Speaker 2: would like to teach now? So we talked about it.
Speaker 2: I said, you know people who have been a bit
Speaker 2: these enfranchised by life. You know, people who come out
Speaker 2: of jail, you know, homeless people form a drug addict,
Speaker 2: even veteran. So I feel that in six weeks, with
Speaker 2: the video that we are teaching and all that, in
Speaker 2: six weeks, I could teach someone in the kitchen, if
Speaker 2: they're interested, how to pier on your properly, or to
Speaker 2: pilasi argus, how to push on egg and then you
Speaker 2: know the basic and if you like it and keep
Speaker 2: at it, Fabio, there may be other chef there. You know,
Speaker 2: you're in charge now at the kitchen, and you make
Speaker 2: good money and it kind of redo your life. So
Speaker 2: they are not necessarily young people in the organization you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of forty fifty people. But we work through
Speaker 2: community kitchen a bit all over the country and it's
Speaker 2: been quite rewarding, and we need people like that.
Speaker 3: In the kitchen, you know, to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I must say what a great honor it
Speaker 1: is for me to meet you. It is an honor.
Speaker 1: I'm a great admirer of yours.
Speaker 3: A great honor for me. I wanted to tell you.
Speaker 3: I have to say. Yeah.
Speaker 2: My daughter and my son in law and my granddaughter,
Speaker 2: they love you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir, thank you, happy cooking.
Speaker 1: My thanks to Jacques Papin. More information about the Jacques
Speaker 1: Pepin Foundation can be found at jp dot Foundation. This
Speaker 1: episode was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City.
Speaker 1: We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hoben.
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is
Speaker 1: Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought
Speaker 1: to you by iHeart Radio.