Homemade’ CONTINUED from PAGE D1 Fraud Control, Will Start Inspecting Restau- As Culinary Artistry
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PROOF User: 155293 Time: 12:59 - 07-22-2014 Region: NewYork Edition: 1 THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2014 N D5 LETTER FROM PARIS ELAINE SCIOLINO The French Debate ‘Homemade’ CONTINUED FROM PAGE D1 Fraud Control, will start inspecting restau- as culinary artistry. rants that display the logos to make sure Instead, in just a few days the law has they are following the law. split restaurateurs, thrown the dining pub- But the threat of inspections could be a lic into confusion and prompted food crit- flash in the pan. To save money over the ics to challenge the government’s compli- last six years, the government has moved cated, and sometimes contradictory, defi- 560 of the agency’s roughly 3,000 inspec- nitions of what makes a dish truly home- tors out of their jobs. Just how inspectors made, or not. will identify suspect fare or impose penal- French fries, for instance, can bear the ties has not been worked out. “fait maison” symbol if they are precut “They’re laughing softly in the back somewhere else, but not if they are frozen. kitchens,” Mr. Légasse wrote. Participating chefs are allowed to buy a At La Forge, a cozy restaurant in the ready-made pâte feuilletée, a difficult-to- Fifth Arrondissement with orchids on the make, multilayered puff pastry; but pâte tables and house-made cassoulet on the brise, a rich pastry dough used to make menu, Jean-François Le Guillou, its owner flaky tart shells, has to be made on-site. and chef, was more forgiving. Cured sausages and smoked hams are ac- “Anything that recognizes the savoir- ceptable, while ready-made terrines and faire of the chef is good,” he said. “So I’ll pâtés are not. put the ‘fait maison’ logo on the door, but “This is all a lot of baloney,” said Phi- not on the menu. It would look silly to have lippe Damas, the owner of the popular Le little casseroles next to every item.” Philou bistro in the 10th Arrondissement, Yet he believes that the symbols are mis- who added he had no intention to put the leading. “You can have a frozen product logos on his menu. “It’s an insult. I live on that’s terrific and a fresh product that’s my reputation for preparing and serving terrible,” he said. the best that is fresh, every day. I predict A visit with Mr. Le Guillou to a vast out- that in six months this law will be history.” let of Metro, the German-owned wholesale There is little disagreement here that food giant, in Paris helps explain what all France ought to protect the integrity of its PHOTOGRAPHS BY OWEN FRANKEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES the fuss is about. Among its many fresh fine cuisine against the onslaughts of mo- and prepared foods are vacuum-packed dernity. Last year, for the first time, more pouches filled with blanquette de veau, pa- money was spent in fast-food chains than ella, hake fillets in a sauce with chives, and in traditional restaurants. At the time of beef tongue in a piquant sauce. Promotion- the parliamentary debate over the decree, al “menus of the month” help restaura- there were claims that as many as 75 per- teurs cut costs even more. (This month’s cent of the nation’s restaurants were Metro menu offers cartons of individual guilty, mon Dieu, of serving food largely portions of spinach and goat cheese quiche prepared off the premises. Today, there is as a starter, skinless Atlantic cod with a broad consensus that consumers need to potato gratin as a main course and a frozen be warned when their boeuf bourguignon raspberry cream cake for dessert.) has been vacuum-packed with chemical Restaurant customers appear to be di- additives, or their escargots à la Bour- vided over the new law. At brunch on Sun- gogne made with soy filler and rehydrated day at La Favorite in the Marais, Kateryna garlic. Berezovksa, who works at a music man- But the country’s expansive, intuitive Jean-François Le Guillou, top, weekly magazine Marianne, wrote: agement company, praised the initiative. love of food does not always dovetail with the chef and owner of La Forge “‘Homemade’ doesn’t mean freshly made. She recalled her disgust when she discov- its persnickety, bureaucratic attempts to in Paris, is one restaurateur A dish totally prepared with frozen prod- ered that the deep-fried mozzarella sticks guard its reputation. displaying a sign, above, saying ucts, even if they come from a Romanian she had ordered at her favorite tapas bar The new law states that a “house-made” that all his dishes are made in- slaughterhouse, can enjoy this happy dis- came out of a vacuum package. dish must be made on the premises from house. Other restaurants note tinction as it was cooked on-site.” “I saw the chef dump the McCain moz- “raw” materials that have not undergone that on their menu, above right. There are already ratings systems to zarella sticks into a deep-fryer,” she said. “significant modification” in advance. Yet Right, the house-made pâté at showcase good restaurants. Alain “I never went back there again.” the lobbying groups for the frozen and pre- La Forge. Ducasse, Thierry Marx and several other At a nearby table, Elodie Carpentier, a pared food industries are powerful, so high-profile chefs have created a program college student, said the law wouldn’t many foods were allowed. They include al- that allows a restaurant — if it meets cer- change anything. “It’s much ado about most anything that has been frozen, vac- tain criteria, including offering cooking nothing.” uum-packed, peeled, sliced, cut, ground, from scratch — to display a sign identify- Some diners found larger meaning in the boned, skinned, husked, powdered, ing itself as a “Restaurant de Qualité.” initiative. “There is hypocrisy throughout crushed, smoked, salted or refrigerated — More than 1,000 restaurants belong. our lives today,” said Catherine Berger- as long as it is used in the “composition” of Organ meats can be deveined, bled and The government has created a web page Lefebvre as she dined with family at La a finished dish. blanched elsewhere. with a 21-page user guide explaining the Forge. “This will help eliminate the lies.” Thus, frozen spinach and vacuum- Many chefs and commentators find the law and how to use the logos, which can be Hubert Jan, an official of the French res- packed grated carrots are fine as long as rules so permissive as to be meaningless, downloaded, made into stickers and placed taurant and hotel union U.M.I.H., has lob- they are mixed with something as basic as bewildering for the consumer and no guar- on menus. If everything is made from bied hard over the years to gain recogni- a vinaigrette made on-site. (Frozen French antee of a better-quality meal. scratch, restaurateurs have a choice: They tion for good chefs. He said the law unfor- fries, however, are excluded, a not-so-sub- “Fait maison, phony decree,” declared can post the logo, or the words “fait mai- tunately focused all the attention on ingre- tle swipe at fast-food chains.) Pickled cab- the restaurant critic J. P. Gené in Le son” or simply “maison,” in a place visible dients rather than on the quality of cook- bage for choucroute — time-consuming to Monde’s M Magazine, calling the law a vic- to all diners. Starting Jan. 15, a federal ing. make — can be bought premade and still tory for the frozen-food industry. agency, the General Directorate for Com- “It’s obvious this decree was not written figure into a dish defined as house-made. Périco Légasse, a food critic for the petition Policy, Consumer Affairs and by chefs,” he said. Now You Taste It, Now You Don’t When beloved dishes fall off plate we used to serve it on.” But fans of the dish, like Barry Wino- menus, some diners fight back. grad, who has eaten at Picholine more than 1,100 times, according to the restau- By JULIE SCELFO rant’s records, began calling in advance to I can’t recall the exact date a few years request it. “If we want something in partic- ago when I ate my first ciabatta egg sand- ular, we just tell them, and they have it for wich at Seersucker, in Carroll Gardens, us,” said Mr. Winograd, who ate the salm- Brooklyn. But I remember precisely how on in March for his 62nd birthday. great it tasted and made me feel, which is At Gotham Bar and Grill, requests for why I ate it again and again at every pos- fettuccine with tomato, basil and Maine sible opportunity. CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES lobster Bolognese, from Mr. Portale’s It was an upscale version of the corner opening menu in 1985 , can send staff mem- deli standard: fresh scrambled eggs with bers scurrying. “If we have lobster stock in smoked country bacon and aged New York the refrigerator, we can put the sauce to- Cheddar, tucked into a warm, crusty Bal- gether quickly, but we don’t always have thazar Bakery ciabatta roll lightly fresh pasta,” Mr. Portale said, “so we send smeared with a delicate homemade ketch- a food runner to Whole Foods.” up called tomato jam. All love, no greasy To minimize off-the-menu requests, afterburn. The sandwich even helped save chefs employ a variety of psychological my marriage when, amid the stress of a tactics. “When people come in and say: home renovation, my husband herded our ‘Oh, my God! I can’t believe you took the three small children, two bikes and a stroll- salmon off,’ I tell them if you give us a few er several miles, bought a sandwich to go days’ notice we’ll make it for you,” Mr.