Nouvelle Cuisine Clarified

Food historians, hearing the term “nouvelle cuisine,” tend to hark back much farther than 1973. That was the year two French food critics, Henri Gault and Christian Millau, published their 10 commandments of nouvelle cuisine, thereby identifying a movement among French chefs to freshen and simplify their cooking.

Currently, the term refers to the period some 40 years ago when chefs broke with the classic way of preparing food in favour of “cuisine du marché” and a lighter, more creative touch. Rollande Desbois, Montreal gastronomy journalist, calls this development a serious break with French culinary tradition.

The term “nouvelle cuisine” first appeared back to 1742 in Nouveau traité de la cuisine (new culinary treatise), a cookbook by François Menon. In that book, the author appealed for healthier, seasonal cooking, lighter sauces, and seasonings that would accent, rather than disguise, the food.

Had he lived in 17th century New France, he would have found the same heavy spicing and salting of foods and other cooking techniques of medieval Europe that he was trying to reform. The cooking of the Middle Ages was practiced by Quebec’s settlers, who came largely from the countryside of north-western France.

Some of those traditions are still in effect in Quebec family cooking. Examples: seasoning with cinnamon and cloves, using salted herbs, boiling bones for stock, making boiled dinners and chowders, using bread and crumbs as ingredients or for bread pudding or French toast, browning flour to use as a seasoning and thickener, using dried vegetables, combining dried fruit with fresh, and flavouring desserts with honey and nuts.

As Rollande points out, Gault and Millau’s commandments reflected a post-World War II move on the part of leading French chefs to break away from more than a century of culinary rule by the followers of Antonin Carême and Auguste Escoffier, the 19th century founders of French cuisine. Reforming chefs wanted no more of disguising food under béchamel and demi-glace sauces.
Rollande has followed French trends in Quebec cuisine for more than 35 years. A graduate of London’s Cordon Bleu cooking school who taught both chefs and amateur cooks in Montreal and is the author of three cookbooks, she was honoured April 27 by the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec with the Bourse Françoise Kayler, named for the late, longtime LaPresse restaurant critic.

Desbois provided the 10 commandments of nouvelle cuisine, plus a final one urging respect for the basic flavours of a food.

• Do not overcook food.
• Use fresh, top-quality products.
• Lighten dishes on your menu.
• Do not be inflexible about being modern.
• Try out new cooking techniques.
• Avoid marinades, cured game meats, and fermenting foods.
• Eliminate rich sauces.
• Pay attention to nutrition.
• Do not over-decorate food.
• Be inventive and open to new techniques.
• Always pay attention to the natural flavour of the product.