There will be no fries for the 15,000 athletes at the Olympic Games that open in France in July. You read that right.
In what is billed as the world’s largest restaurant – a 700-foot-long former power plant in the heart of the Olympic Village – there will also be no foie gras, but there will be plenty of vegetarian sausage and quinoa muesli.
Stroll along the length of what’s known as the nave, a light-filled vaulted space that serves around 45,000 meals a day 24/7 during the Olympics and Paralympics , Stéphane Chicheri and Charles Guilloy, the chefs in charge, praised the dishes prepared. vegetarian shawarma, za’atar-spiced sweet potatoes with hummus, pickled cabbage, beetroot falafel and grilled eggplant with smoked paprika.
This is a far cry from classic French cuisine with its elaborate sauces and “enough melted butter to clog a regiment”, as AJ Liebling once said. Describe a dish.
But these are the Olympics of the 21st century on a warming planet. Carbon footprint is superior to cassoulet. Plant protein is the thing; and of course athletes have to perform in a country with thousands of indulgences that strict nutritionists cannot ignore.
“French fries are too risky because of concerns about the fire hazard of deep fryers,” Mr. Guilloy explained. “Don’t eat foie gras because animal health is everyone’s top concern, and don’t eat avocado because it’s imported from far away and consumes a lot of water.”
So how could these Eco Games not have French fries?
“Don’t worry; we will have French cheese, veal blanquette but with a light sauce, and of course baguettes,” Mr. Chicheri said with a smile. “Athletes will even be able to learn how to make bread with a master baker.”
About 500 different dishes will be served at the Olympic Village cafeteria in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris. The building itself is a tribute to environmentally conscious adaptation: a nearly century-old wrought-iron power station became a film studio before being converted over the past year into a huge restaurant. giant.
The Olympic Village restaurant will open as part of a global government campaign to increase the impact and appeal of French cuisine. With around 15 million visitors expected to attend the Games, two million of whom are foreigners, France will be present, especially Paris, posing the challenge of how to energize the economy. Culinary culture is associated with tradition.
This is a pivotal moment for French cuisine, which has an undeniable pedigree but whose image has faded. How many “likes” does beef Bourguignon get these days next to ceviche, tapas or omakase dinners?
Olivia Grégoire, Minister of Tourism, said in an interview: “We are a country with centuries-old culinary traditions, but the truth is that if you have talent and do not nurture it, it can may fade”.
She visited New York this month to promote a new multi-million dollar initiative to showcase young chefs and innovative French cuisine in places that will initially include South Korea, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. “Food is France’s soft power,” Ms. Grégoire said. “It’s also hard money.”
More than 800,000 people are employed in the restaurant business in France and the culinary sector, which includes wine and spirits, generates revenues of more than $55 billion a year.
In some countries, the etiquette of gathering around the table is important. Even less so is the intense pride in the diverse products of the “territories,” specific pieces of land with their own soils and climates, from the Alps to the Atlantic and from Normandy to the Mediterranean Sea.
“The best cuisine is in our DNA; it is a reference for all students of fine cuisine,” said Alain Ducasse, one of the most famous French chefs, who was chosen to serve the July 26 Olympics opening dinner for heads of state, said.
“But there is a new international challenge and we have been slow to engage with it,” he said. “Talent is everywhere. We need to wake up to that.”
With 34 restaurants and 18 Michelin stars in Europe, Asia and the United States, Mr. Ducasse is no slouch, and there are other French chefs, such as Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Daniel Boulud, who have succeeded consider the world as their market.
But even as French cuisine has changed – adding twists to old dishes in the way that created “néobistrot” and introducing “lesharing” as a startling new way of eating – the image Its virtually unchanged.
In this context, performances at the Olympic Village could be an important game changer. There will be six “grab-and-go” outlets, Asian cuisine, Afro-Caribbean dishes, vegetarian shawarma, burgers (meat, vegetarian or a combination of both), Middle Eastern food and halal cuisine . Kosher foods will also be available upon request.
Patatas bravas would probably be the closest thing to French fries.
Two full-fledged French restaurants are planned – but without classics such as steak tartare, blood sausage or choucroute. Of course, the wine is off limits because the ultimate purpose of this 46,000 square foot, 3,623-seat grandstand is to prepare athletes for peak performance.
Another point is to emphasize that France takes its environmental responsibilities very seriously.
The French Olympic governing body bans disposable cutlery and plates. They don’t remove trash from the kitchen like some Parisian restaurants have done, but they do demand a zero-waste culture. About 80 percent of the materials will be French and 25 percent from within 255 miles of Paris. Halving the carbon emissions of the Tokyo or London Olympics is the goal.
The French company that organizes this vast foodservice business is Sodexo Live, a subsidiary of the Sodexo company, which employs 420,000 people in foodservice and facility management worldwide. Sodexo Live, which has produced 15 Super Bowls as well as 36 Roland Garros tennis tournaments in France, knows its business well, but the scale of this challenge is unique.
“We are hiring 6,000 people. Our goal is that everyone should feel at home and we combine the nutrition an athlete needs with culinary pleasure,” said Nathalie Bellon-Szabo, chief executive officer of Sodexo Live. in an interview.
To that end, three highly regarded chefs have been selected, each of whom will appear several days per week at the Olympic Village and prepare innovative dishes that France wants the world to know more about. than.
They are Alexandre Mazzia, who grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has a restaurant in Marseille, AM, with strong African influences and three Michelin stars; Akrame Benallal, who grew up in Algeria and runs Akrame Restaurant, a restaurant in Paris that has one star and has surprising combinations of flavors – such as crab with gray shrimp and coffee; and French-born Amandine Chaignot, whose Café de Luce serves some of the capital’s best frog legs.
“French cuisine is liberating itself. It has recognized the need for change,” said Mr. Mazzia, 47 years old. “For me, French cuisine is now multicultural, with different origins and spices, lighter, associated with savoir-faire flavors that we must preserve.”
Mr. Benallal, 42, calls himself “the architect of taste,” always sketching out the presentation of new dishes because he believes that “we eat first with our eyes.” His red and white quinoa muesli, topped with Parmesan cheese, a dollop of mascarpone and a dollop of smoked yogurt is typical of the creativity that has won him many followers.
“French cuisine is sometimes considered boring,” he said. “It’s not boring. It’s singular. My restaurant is a cabinet full of curiosities and that’s what I will bring to the Olympics.”
As for Ms. Chaignot, 45, she prepared a poached egg croissant with artichoke cream, goat cheese and truffles to eat on the go at the Olympic Village. Another creation is chicken with langoustines.
Even in a changing culinary world there are some constants. I asked her, what defines French cuisine today?
“Butter is France,” she said. “And France is butter.”
