Brigade de cuisine john mcphee biography
The fifth-best meal I have ever sat down to was at a sort of farmhouse-inn that is neither farm nor inn, in the region of New York City. The fourth-best was at the same place—on a winter evening when the Eiswein afterward was good by the fire and the snow had not stopped falling for the day. The third-best meal I’ve ever had was centered upon some smoked whiting and pale mustard sauce followed by a saltimbocca, at the same place, on a night when the air of summer was oppressive with humidity but the interior of the old building was cool and musty under a slowly turning paddle fan. When things come up so well, culinary superlatives are hard to resist, and the best and second-best meals I have ever had anywhere (including the starry citadels of rural and metropolitan France) were also under that roof—emanations of flavor expressed in pork and coriander, hazelnut breadings, smoked-roe mousses, and aïoli. The list of occasions could go deeper, and if it were complete enough it might number twenty or thirty before the scene would shift—perhaps to the fields of Les Baux or the streets of Lyons. The cook who has been responsible for such pleasure on this side of the Atlantic was trained on the other side, in kitchens in various places on the Continent, notably in Switzerland, and including Spain, where he grew up in a lavish and celebrated Andalusian hotel that was managed by his father. His father was Austrian, but his mother was English, and so, from the age of eight, he was sent to be educated in Great Britain. As a result, he is in manner, speech, and appearance irremediably English. He has an Oxbridge accent and a Debrettian flourish of names—not one of which he will allow me to divulge. His customers tend to become his friends, and I had been a friend of his for something like five years before I thought to ask him if I could sit in his kitchen and take notes. He said it would be all right, but with the condition that I not—in any piece of writing—use the name of
Giving Good Weight: Unmasking Food Writer John McPhee
My all time favorite food essayist is John McPhee. This may come as a surprise, mainly because McPhee writes about so many things (his interests are even more eclectic than mine, it seems) that some might not consider him a food writer. But he is, certainly in the broadest sense considering food with a small “f.”
I have read most of McPhee’s work and I find his food related essays about as delightful as anything he has done. Maybe that is because they are shorter than a lot of his other writings. And, while I am at it, I find McPhee’s environmental advocacy essays and books top notch, especially Conversation’s with the Archdruid and Coming into the Country, about Alaska. But, back to food. . . .
Most of McPhee’s essays are published in collections of his essays. You have to hunt the food related essays down, one by one. One of my favorites is Giving Good Weight first published in 1979 (still in print). The title refers to the lead essay about farmer’s markets and wholesale markets in the New York City area and refers to the kindest complement that can be given to a green grocer in the marketplace. Someone who “gives good weight” is honest and gives a full pound plus when weighing out the goods. Another essay in this collection is “Brigade de Cuisine,” about a perfectionist artisan chef in upstate New York, we presume, as McPhee was sworn to secrecy not to reveal his identity. By his account, the author has had at least the top five meals in his life in this restaurant (and counting, he advises).
I like John McPhee’s essays so much because they are about food, people and process. They are about the ties that bind all of these and about the love the protagonists in his writings have for their work, for the food they produce, collect, sell and prepare. Mr. McPhee takes you by the hand and leads you through the market, the kit Grilled langoustine and duck pate with citrus hollandaise sauce prepared by Koh Kikuchi The tale of a one-man restaurant, of a French Japanese chef in the classic hefe mold, of a love of food and food to love. In 1975, John McPhee published a story called “Brigade de Cuisine” about Otto, a chef who ran a 55-seat restaurant with no help except for Anne (his pastry chef/wife), their children (who served the food) and a dishwasher on the weekends. Otto, which isn’t really his name, is a British-born, Spanish/British-raised, German/Swiss/Spanish-trained firecracker. He is a perfectionist, a classic old guard hefe and an obsessively inventive European chef performing miracles en croute. “The man’s right knee is callused from kneeling before the stove,” McPhee writes. “He would like to see his work described. He would like to be known for what he does, but in this time, in this country, his position is awkward, for he prefers being a person to becoming a personality, his wish to be acknowledged is exceeded by his wish not to be celebrated, and he could savor recognition only if he could have it without publicity.” The location of the restaurant: somewhere in the region of New York City. A lot of time has passed since “Brigade de Cuisine” was written, and even back then McPhee wrote, “Otto is a wave of the past. This is the age of the microwave and the mass-produced entrée ….” Certainly 30 years later, chefs like Otto — with poignantly humble personalities in a profession replete with egos the size of tuna bellies — have all but disappeared. Chefs have become “Chefs,” simply stopping whatever it is they do naturally, setting their sights instead on material goals. We have Chefs on reality TV shows, Chefs with designer footwear, Chefs undercover writing “tales from the trade”-type novelettes and Chefs that are too busy to care, by far the saddest and most pandemic of the lot. They have video monitoring in their kitchens at remote restaurants so the Chef can ke
This month, on the occasion of John’s birthday, we celebrate his extraordinary and ongoing career at The New Yorker, beginning with the Bradley Profile. Food is occasionally at the delicious center of a McPhee piece, and, in 1979, he wrote “A Philosopher in the Kitchen,” about a cook in an obscure restaurant who had thoroughly dazzled him. Known for his books on the natural world, including “Coming into the Country,” his masterpiece about Alaska, McPhee also wrote for the magazine, in 1988, about society’s attempt to “control” nature, in “Los Angeles Against the Mountains.” For a peek at John’s relationship with his editors over the years, enjoy his short, hilarious “Editors & Publisher.” These four pieces provide only a hint of John’s astonishing collection of work, his range and his passions, but they do give a taste of his inimitable prose. And we bet that after reading, or re-reading, them, you will go on reading from there. For a peek at John’s relationship with his editors over the years, enjoy his short, hilarious “Editors & Publisher.” These four pieces provide only a hint of John’s astonishing collection of work, his range and his passions, but they do give a tas