A Brief Culinary Art History of the Western Chef Avante-Guarde Through the Late 20Th Century

By Tony Baran

A Brief Culinary Art History of the Western Chef Avante-Guarde Through the Late 20th Century examines Western cuisine as an art form. The book takes the vantage point of the Chef vanguard from second century AD Rome through the Italian and French Renaissances, modernism, and the emergence of global cuisine in the West during the last half of the twentieth century.

The Book also compares cuisine to the other artistic movements with more recognized media during each given time period. The history also defines a cuisine and the difference between a personal Chefs cuisine and ethnic foods or popularly recognized national dishes.

Tony Baran, as both a Chef and historian, offers a unique insight to view Chefs and their work in a culinary context from the vantage point of a culinarian and the nuances involved in culinary composition or how Chefs create new dishes and how cooking is elevated to an art form.

The twentieth century was a celebration of the art of the immediate: cinema, photography, pop music, and cuisine. During this period, Chefs and their cuisines began to share the media limelight and prestige of other artists. Baran identifies this transformation of the unique recognition of Chefs as authors of their own bodies of culinary work and their influence on Western culture.

The history also traces the evolution of the Chef-mentor relationship. The book describes this changing dynamic in European and, later, American history and its impact to Chefs and the critique of diners during their own times and how this impacted the successive generations of emerging culinarians.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496934581

Tony Baran

Tony Baran earned his MA in history from the University of Houston. Baran began his restaurant career at thirteen as a dishwasher and rose through the ranks of the kitchen under European, American, Hispanic, and later, Asian culinarians. He has held Chef positions in Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seaside, Florida, Moscow, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur. Baran executes East meets West, Nuevo Latino, American Southwestern, and Mediterranean cuisines. He currently lives in Houston.

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© 2014 Tony Baran. All rights reserved.

Photo Credits:

Kingwood photographers,

ernest loera,

hector guerra

All photos of dishes prepared by Tony Baran. Desserts by Tony Baran in collaboration with Badar S. Arya

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Photography by Kingwood Photographers, Ernest Loera and Hector Guerra.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/07/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-3457-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-3458-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Definitions

Chapter 2 Culinary Composition: The Artistic Process

Chapter 3 An Overview of Western Classic Cuisine

Chapter 4 The Escoffier Generation and The Beginnings of French Culinary Modernism

Chapter 5 The Rise of The Modern French Provincial Movement

Chapter 6 The Second Wave of The Provincial Avant-Garde

Chapter 7 The Rise of The New American Movement

Chapter 8 The Rise of Global Cuisine Spearheaded by the American Avante-Guard

Bibliography Primary Sources

Bibliography 19th and 20th Century Modernism

Notes

Glossary of Terms

Introduction

Americans retain a self-identity with an inherent dichotomy: a pride based on the individualistic values of our culture, yet historically looked abroad—mostly to Europe—to define what was considered high art. Our appetite for dining was no exception, despite producing the richest and most diversified agricultural resources of all time; Americans remained content to adopt French as their high cuisine. In the 1980s, however, French culinary sovereignty in the United States was waning. A new generation of European-trained American Chefs was reinterpreting French cuisine with regional products as well as Asian ones. The American dining community was obviously ready for something new. To the horror of many French Chefs, American culinarians bragged that they consciously were creating their own cuisine. By the end of the decade, the criticism from many conservatives began to fade, but the New American culinary movement did not. Even with the fickle, sensationalist attention of the press, the cuisine grew. The French were understandably skeptical about the legitimacy of the American claim, but there were more similarities between the birth of the American cuisine and the origins of their own than they realized.

Seventeenth century France experienced a similar interest in developing a new cuisine when Catherine de Medici brought her Chefs to the French court to teach the French—as the Italians boasted—how to cook. To understand the culinary history of France, Italian Renaissance cookery must also be examined. Just as second century Roman cuisine must be studied to understand the inspiration for the early Italian movement. The French, and later the Americans, were only continuing a process of culinary exposure that resulted in the development of a cuisine. In each of these countries, at different time periods, a culinary avant-garde actively pursued the creation of original cuisines that developed into regional and national styles, and were eventually recognized as classic. This study is about the history of avant-garde Chefs and their medium, and the process by which a food becomes high cooking or art. While the subject may appear exotic, Chefs were both a result of and dependent upon the same patronage system that supported visual artists and musicians in Europe for centuries. The key difference is that traditional art forms ultimately enjoyed the advantage of government and institutional subsidies. Other media also benefited from the economic support of academia where, in the twentieth century, many artists were awarded endowments and faculty positions. Even though French painters flourished under monetary subsidies from the government as early as 1848, Chefs were left to the whims of the marketplace. Perhaps this is why the culinary education system (or mentor-student relationship) remained an informal apprenticeship while other media became entrenched in higher education systems. Although the patronage system of the European Chef was similar to other artists, the appreciation for the complexity of his work was not compared to the amount of attention other media experienced. Yet the notion of the temperamental, primadonna culinarian persists. Chefs are traditionally seen as lesser talents, no matter how sophisticated and difficult their subject matter. The current view that a person who masters a group of dishes is automatically a gourmet cook further degrades the aesthetic and maturity of the Chef’s work. It is also important to separate the avant-garde Chef (or a Chef who creates original work or dishes) from the cookbook writers and popularizes that abound today. Media personalities, such as Julia Child, played an important role in educating the public, but, they did not create or innovate culinary trends. Although they possess a good deal of skill, knowledge, and charisma, they are not avant-garde Chefs. This history treats the culinary avant-garde and their creative culinary process and composition. It is easy to overlook the fact that the retail food industry is the second largest retail business in the United States, and its kitchen management is staffed and run by managers quite different from the small number of fine dining Chefs or Chef artistes.¹ Although scholars now study food consumption and rituals, little attention is focused on why some societies develop high cookery with artist status for the Chef, and why others do not. Also, most attention centers on domestic consumption and cookery.

A notable exception is Stephen Mennell’s two chapters, Chefs and their Publics and The Trade Press, in All Manners of Food, Oxford, 1985) which touch upon some of these issues I hope to address with greater detail and analysis. This work also offers an overview of many of the cultural forces that affected modern French cuisine. Historical trends such as the rise of the bourgeoisie, the decay of the patronage system, and culinary technology had profound social effects on modern culinarians and their work. A cuisine, like true political revolution, is an exception in history not the rule. Just as a cuisine can develop and enjoy wide acclaim, it can also decline due to economic depression or lack of talented culinarians or interest. This study examines how these trends shaped this elusive art form during late nineteenth and twentieth century France, as well as the current American movement. The American cuisine movement, experiencing its earliest stages of growth, is of special interest because it is the first cuisine to originate in modern times. Its development may dictate the manner in which future cuisines arise in other nations, especially in those with rich and diverse ethnic populations like the United States. Finally, it is necessary to clarify the difference between the culinary apprenticeship systems opposed to that associated with skilled trades. Although the potential cook does go through an apprenticeship, his or her experience is more likened to that of an artist and not that of a tradesman.

CHAPTER 1

Definitions

Dishes, foods and cuisines are used interchangeably when discussing the past or present culinary experience, but there are some crucial distinctions. The term dishes applies to foods from a country or area with no real regional culinary standard or established tradition, such as Maryland crab cakes and Manhattan or New England clam chowder. Although these dishes originate in the American Northeast, they come without a sufficient repertoire and desirable culinary style. Moreover, the region as a whole lacks the number of dishes to comprise a food or cuisine. The American traditional foods, the pizza, hotdog, hamburger or barbecued meat, are other examples of food items that are identified as national dishes but are not tied together by any tradition or standard. England’s steak and oyster pie and shepherd’s pie are also examples of dishes which lack the desirable culinary style to constitute a food. England itself offers an example of a nation which produces only dishes and looked to the continent, almost exclusively France, for culinary leadership. The Polish sausage; Spain’s paella and pickled octopus; Scotland’s cold smoked salmon; Greece’s grape leaves stuffed with feta cheese and cold octopus with cloves, are all examples of dishes. A food is defined as a series of dishes with several geographical variations that nonetheless offer a variety of regional styles. A food usually develops around family, everyday cooking (with the exception of modern day commercial foods), where a natural abundance and diversity of climate is present. Mexico and most of Latin America offer a good example.¹ A diversified geographical landscape—from deserts to tropical forests—allowed Latin America’s indigenous population to develop distinct cooking styles. The difference between Caribbean (Vera Cruz and Cuban style) or Northern Mexican tamales, the vast number of variations on moles, and corn and flour tortillas, are all illustrative of a food. The arrival of the Spaniards brought Mexico a unique mix of native dishes and Near Eastern seasonings to give it a distinct, regionally diverse food character. While a food such as Mexico’s is distinguishable on its own, it can also be part of a wider food—the Latin American food. By virtue of historic, cultural, and regional similarities, Latin America can be said to have a collective food. As mentioned above, the tortilla appears over Mexico and Central America, as do tacos, moles, and refried beans. In short, the new world shares a similar mixture of diverse dishes and staples that represent a familiar series of dishes and food groups.² For instance, in Mexico where there are regional varieties of foods exist such as Northern Mexican and Caribbean styles of cooking. Similarly, foods can transcend geographic borders with each nation retaining its own national identity, while still producing a collective food. Eastern Europe, Germany, and the Near East (from North Africa to Iraq), present examples of nations a ethnicities which provide an example of a collective food. Eastern Europe and Germany share cabbage and meat dishes such as cold and hot cabbage dumplings and sausages.³ The Polynesian islands share ingredients and similar dishes, which include coconut milk curries, stews, and egg fried noodles.⁴ The Arab and Persian worlds also shares a similar culinary character such as tabuli, chick peas, lentils and grape leaves stuffed with meat.⁵ While these individual nations produce only dishes, as groups they exhibit a unique culinary style of a collective food with a regional identity.

A collective food, like a region’s character, is extremely general and diverse, therefore complex. For example, one could argue the existence of a Mediterranean collective food. This group excludes commonly associated ethnic and religious areas such as Persia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, while including the Arab world, North Africa, Spain, Greece, and Anatolia. The cooking styles of these regions are tied together by specific dishes, cooking techniques, and produce other products such as olive oil.

It is the context in which the consumer views a culinary—usually ethnic—style that gives that cooking style the identity to be recognized as a food. One final example of a food is the twentieth century phenomenon,the commercially created food.

Contemporary Tex-Mex offers the best illustration. It retains an ethnic character, but is the creation of restaurants and mass food industries that popularize and sell foods such as fajitas or taquitos to the mass public. The hard shell taco is another example of this new food created to appeal to American mass culture. Today, commercial Tex-Mex has spread all over the United States, as well as, Europe and Asia. Although Tex-Mex relies on Mexican food as its base, it has grown away from it and has a momentum of its own. The result is the fajita pita and cheddar cheese drenched nachos with taco meat. Cuisine is the minority of these culinary styles, and is the medium in which the avant-garde Chef works. A cuisine must grow out of a food, a group of foods, another cuisine, or all three.

At this point, it is important to mention that a country which achieves a cuisine will simultaneously retain its dishes and/or food. For example, France enjoys the most prestigious and recognized contemporary cuisine in the world, yet it retains dishes which predate its status as a cuisine. Baked Brie and toasted French bread are still eaten as ethnic dishes, as is Pot au Feu and bouillabaisse. While modern French Chefs elevated their national food—through variations on traditional dishes—to cookery or cuisine, French food is still prepared and enjoyed in everyday life in both urban and rural France. In the history of the western world there is evidence of three cuisines: Roman cookery of the second century A.D., Italian,