Inventing Cuisine Alain Passard

Product Description This film follows the famous and original chef over a period of several months, paying homage to his talent and to the beauty and harmony of his dishes, which are veritable masterpieces of the culinary arts. Entering the culinary arts at the age of 14 the way others enter the priesthood, Alain Passard learned with the great masters before opening his own restaurant in Paris, L'Arpège, which has been a threestar restaurant in the Michelin guide for nearly 10 years now. His career is all the more exemplary when you consider how he shook up the small, conservative world of high gastronomy by bringing side dishes to center stage, eliminating the red meat on which he had built his reputation as a master chef to make the vegetable king of the plate. To accomplish this radical change, Alain Passard created his own vegetable garden in Fillé-Sur-Sarthe, where he expertly grows over 500 varieties of fruits and vegetables. DVD includes "Cooking Secrets: Sweet and Sour Vinaigrette, Root Vegetables in a Salt Crust, and Culinary Magic." Made in France, Subtitled in English. "Like a musician interpreting a composer's music, Passard sees himself as an interpreter of flavours, careful to allow their essential qualities to shine through. He faithfully conveys the essence of his ingredients, ensuring that their unique colours, flavours, and scents are retained." -- World Wide Gourmet "Not only did Passard give up meat in early 2001, a move which made big waves in the three-star world, he rejected the entire food production chain-all the way down to the farmer-and started growing his own vegetables." -- Centurion Magazine Review Television is awash in food these days, most of it utterly forgettable, at best (I'm still having flashbacks from having accidentally watched five minutes of "The Chew"). Want to see what food on film could really be like? Check out this series of French documentaries. There are nine of them so far, each focusing on a different three-star chef, and they are absolutely splendid - maybe the best food programs that have ever been made. In fact, to call them "food television" is to miss their point. On these videos there is no shouting, no contrived competition, actually, not even any outsized personalities, despite the fact that the stars are some of the best, most creative chefs on the planet. At their cores, these videos by director Paul Cotat are 1-hour mediations on creativity and imagination, with food being the common medium. If that sounds lofty and intellectual, well, so be it. But that doesn't mean that the shows aren't also a lot of fun, albeit in a quiet, contemplative way. Each documentary is different in theme and in tone, varying with the chef. Michel Bras walks the stark landscape around his restaurant in Laguiole commenting on the interplay of light and shadow and suddenly his highly abstract plating comes into focus. Alain Passard contemplates the simple beauty of a roasted onion. Michel Troisgros emerges as an almost tragic figure as he repeatedly tries to reinvent dishes made famous by his pioneering father and uncle. Cotat visits Italian Nadia Santini (the only non-French chef in the series) starting with an attitude that could be most charitably described as paternalistic (maybe even condescending?), but comes away utterly seduced by the way she coaxes complex flavors from simple, perfect ingredients. This is what real cooking is about when done on the highest level. Yes, there are recipes, and, yes, there are techniques explained. But what the shows are really about - and what great cooking is really about - is the human element. Anyone can sauté eggplant, given the right set of instructions and a little practice. But the ability to turn that eggplant into art is the province of a very few. --Russ Parsons, Food Editor, LA Times