The legacy of Michel Guérard

It was one of those moments that one regrets not having met a person in life when I saw the post of Hélène Pietrini, managing director of La Liste, the famed restaurant grading system. She was declaring that we had lost chef Michel Guérard at the age of 91, the last living legend of French gastronomy. Classical French cuisine has influenced cuisines all over the world becoming a benchmark for finesse. But it was Guérard who almost single-handedly changed and brought a light angle to the cream and butter-rich heavy classic cuisine, creating “cuisine minceur” literally meaning “slimming cooking,” demonstrating that light diet food can be as delicious. He was dedicated to taking “nouvelle cuisine” further, being among the first defenders of the trend which is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes with an increased emphasis on presentation. Hélène Pietrini wrote of him: “RIP - We are sad and will miss you so much but your nouvelle cuisine, your witty mind and poetry, your smile and generosity, your home and your Eugénie inspire the deepest respect. I wish every chef in this world had met this man and family to understand the secrets and modernity of French gastronomy and art of hospitality. I have no doubt the legend will continue with his two daughters and fabulous team at Les Prés d’Eugénie. Hold the butter but keep the magic!” Guérard surely had a special magic, that unique charm which has been influential to many; to the extent that he has had been the inspiration to the children’s favorite animation film “Ratatouille” and that magical chef-rat Remy. My regret of not having met him in person was not being able to ask a particular question: "How did his iconic ratatouille dish come into being back in 1976, and why did he name it after a dish of Turkish cuisine when he created it?"

Ratatouille-Confit Byaldi- Imam Bayıldı

Guérard was probably the most lovable chef in the world. He never gave up his humble smile even as he achieved a succession of successes, one of the most spectacular being gaining three 3 Michelin stars for the restaurant Les Prés d’Eugénie he opened with his wife at a Spa center, and keeping them for 40 consequent years. For young children, he has been the inspiration behind the children's favorite cartoon Ratatouille, which has made many have dreams of becoming a chef. He has created many iconic dishes, but the reinterpretation of the Provençal classic vegetable dish that gives the movie its name must be one of the most well-known. Ratatouille, a French-style vegetable stew, very similar to our “türlü” dish, is one of the most popular home-cooked dishes of the vegetable-based Provence cuisine of southern France. Guérard is the chef who adapted this simple but delicious traditional dish to the chef's table and elevated it to a new class. Normally, the vegetables are roughly chopped and cooked mixed in a pot, but in the chef’s version, they were cut into thin slices arranged on a baking tray, cooked slowly under a cover of parchment paper, achieving a great flavor explosion by cooking the vegetables in their own juice. The result was also strikingly beautiful in appearance, a cornucopia of summer vegetables, which has inspired many chefs worldwide. One of them is Thomas Keller, the chef of The French Laundry in New York with three Michelin stars. The Pixar team sought Keller's advice on French cuisine for the movie Ratatouille, and with the chef's suggestion, they decided on that re-interpretation of the ratatouille dish that would almost steal the leading role of the movie. Of course, the obvious connection with the word “rat,” played a decisive role in this choice. Originally, the dish derives from the word “touiller,” meaning “to mix,” understandably as it is a mix of vegetables cooked in no order all mixed in a pot. However, Guérard gave it a Turkish name, inspired by Imam Bayıldı, he called it Confit Byaldi! Rightly so, as his technique is very similar to how we cook an Imam Bayıldı, the eggplant dish which is usually translated as Iman fainted, meaning Imam, the Muslim clerk liked it so much to the point that he passed out.

Cuisine Legere & Minceur

If we rewind the story a bit, we first need to look at the chef's life. Born in 1933, Guérard mastered every aspect of French cuisine at a young age. He excelled in pastry and sauce making in the kitchen of the famous Crillon Hotel and became one of France's leading chefs who received two Michelin stars as soon as his first restaurant Le Pot-au-Feau opened. One of the founders of the Nouvelle Cuisine - New Cuisine movement, which is the turning point of the new French cuisine, and the chef who started the Cuisine Minceur movement, which means healthy and slimming cuisine. Nouvelle Cuisine is a simple and elegant cuisine with a lighter interpretation of classic heavy French dishes. Guérard, one of the pioneers of this movement, has taken this one step further and made these dishes lighter, creating an extremely healthy yet delicious cuisine, which he calls Cuisine Minceur aka Slimming Cuisine. The idea of creating a cuisine that was low in calories but not tasteless like boring insipid invalid food came about when they took over the running of his wife's family's spa center in the South West of France. In the restaurant of the Eugenie-les-Bains Spa Center, they created a place where people could come to lose weight but not be deprived of the pleasure of eating and drinking. They were so successful that the restaurant received three Michelin stars for 40 consecutive years starting in 1977 and turned the town into a tourist destination. What he did there was unique back then, enduring the four decades of time span, it is apparent that his legacy will remain forever!

Plate of the Week:

Italian chef Claudio Chinali, who has chosen to settle in Türkiye and become one of us, is one of the fans of the famous chef Guérard, and one of the people who understand the Ratatouille-Confit Byaldi-Imam Bayıldı connection to the best because he knows Turkish cuisine well. Chinali organizes Chef's Table events one night every month at Terrazza Italia restaurant in Eataly, featuring seasonal dishes that are not normally on the menu. On Aug, 14, for the special chef's night, as if he had a premonition that we were going to lose Guérard, he brought his own interpretation of the famous chef's Confit Byaldi dish and paired it with a tangy cold tomato soup. He explains his choice as: “This dish is an homage to summer vegetables. And it's the dish that best illustrates the potential of Turkish culinary techniques to influence the world's leading cuisines, so I couldn't resist making it!” Starting next week, the dish will be on the menu until the beginning of October so you can have a chance to taste Claudia Chinali's tribute to summer vegetables and also to the great chef.