FRENCH GASTRONOMY

Perhaps the ultimate refutation to anyone claiming there is a single, simple answer to the question of why France invented and continues to set the world standard for haute cuisine.

While acknowledging that his native soil does constitute a veritable “garden,” Pitte (Geography/Sorbonne) asserts that this is neither unique in Europe nor primarily accountable for French gastronomic predominance. The cultural case he builds, going back to the Roman occupation, touches base with everything from a sensually indulgent brand of medieval Catholicism to a tableau of the definitive gourmand, Louis XIV, dining at Versailles quite alone (except for a daily gallery of gawking citizenry) and an astonishing variety of robust regional cuisines that coalesce over the ages under the cruelly Darwinian dynamics of the Parisian marketplace. While some offhand references to obscure personages or innate ethnic characteristics may be lost on American readers, Pitte easily succeeds in demonstrating that the universal subtleties of the debate, rather than any formal proof, are the point here. Entertaining examples come straight from the historic pulpit in the form of tongue-in-cheek sermons on gluttony, or from the literary mainstream, as when the writer Balzac insists to his guest (perhaps with a wink) that the great wine he has poured must be “lovingly regarded,” sniffed, and discussed at length before any drinking takes place. The author’s geographical perspective enables him to be both seriously analytic and illuminating: one of several map plots, for example, shows how the taste, properties, and even the typical size of every major cheese variety in France were long ago determined by regional agronomics combined with distance (during original development) from the principal market. Finally, there’s a sobering caution about how modern agribusiness practices could compromise quality standards, homogenizing regional input enough to threaten the essential roots of French gastronomy as public indifference within the country continues to deepen.

Surprisingly thought-provoking and original table talk from the academy.