Dear friends,
Today, as you know, is the first Gastronomy Festival. To
the occasion of this celebration launched at the initiative of Frédéric Lefebvre, I am very
pleased to receive today at the Ministry of Culture and
Communication, distinguished representatives of this great family of the
gastronomy. The culinary heritage, this condensed civilization, my
The Department is particularly keen to defend and promote it. The
gastronomy, from “fork to fork”, in the words of the Club
of the French Table, links both the trades and the generations, the
with the arts; it carries a sense of belonging, because it
plays an essential role in all forms of social bonds, as it touches the
family and friendship, based on values of conviviality and sharing. The arts
For the French, culinary activities are linked to a commitment to a collective identity.
It is in this perspective that my department has carried the meal registration
French gastronomy at the intangible heritage of humanity by
UNESCO, in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Education, and with the
French Heritage and Food Cultures Mission competition.
Today, there are no more magazines, blogs, radio and
TV that deal with gastronomy. By participating in the show Un dîner
almost perfect with the four gastronomic enthusiasts who made me the friendship
to be with us today, I wanted to reaffirm my deep attachment to this
heritage of the taste and the table that all of you here embody. This
media visibility sometimes elicits comments, and grumpy will say
that we are doing too much. I believe that when it comes to developing a
cultural heritage on which all French people gather, we will never
enough.
This is how I wanted a chargé de mission to join the Ministry of
Culture and Communication to specifically monitor issues related to the
gastronomy. This is also why I follow with interest the project of Cité
of the gastronomy carried by Jean-Robert Pitte or that I support the initiative
Holiday kitchens, starting today, which could be the first beneficiary
a label "Gastronomic meal of the French-World Heritage", of which I have
requested a joint general inspection mission between the
culture and agriculture to assess the opportunity.
This morning, in the same spirit, I signed the “Food,
culture, agriculture» with Mr Bruno Lemaire, Minister of Agriculture,
Food, Fishing, Rural Development and Regional Planning, for
a strengthening of cultural issues in the development of rural territories.
Today we are going to pay tribute to remarkable people, to
women and men who honour a popular tradition under the
social fact, and that make it evolve by their passion and their creativity. I
also to address a few words in tribute to Queen Sammut, one of the few
female chefs to have won a Michelin star. Unfortunately, she
could not be here today, and I sincerely regret that. We know
all that it represents for gastronomy in Provence and France. It
sends you his warmest congratulations.
Dear Carole Bouquet,
A clear complexion of immaculate whiteness, glaring eyes, a silhouette of a
sculptural purity: an apollinian image that sticks to your skin, and
who still struggles to figure you out. It is rather the sensual warmth of
Italian sun and epicurean pleasures that creates your joy, that engine of life
that you like to tell and celebrate with greed and impetuosity.
An intimidating and lively icon that cannot count a day without a good one
dinner, fatal woman and haughty who hides a punk soul, entered the world
from cinema through the big door with Luis Buñuel in This obscure object of desire,
immortalized by Andy Warhol in 1978, you have, Carole Bouquet, a thousand faces:
Death in Bertrand Blier’s Cold Buffet, a vamp in Nothing but your eyes
John Glen, a resistant redhead in Bunker Palace Hotel in Enki Bilal, the
Woman abandoned for excessive beauty in Too Beautiful for You – Always by Blier
-, role for which you get the César for the best actress, or
crazy queen adept of illicit substances in Blanche. You enter
the world of madness with The day of the idiots of the black star of the new cinema
German, Werner Schroeter, with as much accuracy as the complexity of
feelings in André Téchiné’s Unforgivable.
Little girl, you wanted to be Italian and dreamed in front of Botticelli’s paintings,
Lippi, Giotto or Mantegna. On a background of hedonism, you wrote with Italy
a love story. Carole Bouquet is also the winemaker who cultivates between
Sicily and Tunisia, in Pantelleria, a Passito named Sangue d'oro, with his
attachment to this rough and soft land in the colors of fire and obsidian,
where the vines, olive trees and capers crack under an incendiary sun. It’s
your love of gastronomy to which we also pay tribute today.
Wine is the story of my life, you say. A story that began at 21
years at L'Ami Louis, with the tasting of one of the greatest vineyards
of the Graves, a High Brion. From this day, you travel the world in search of
wines that move you by deploying the inexhaustible palette of pleasure. The culture of
wine, which tells the depths and secrets of the earth, fruit and light, gesture of
men, sweat and happiness, it is an emotional geography to which you
are deeply connected.
In terms of this adventure, there is the love of the table, of this time of conviviality and
of course. In your island paradise, olive trees are cut in
bonsai to protect them from the wind; a cellar and about ten hectares on the terrace
where you produce olive oil, capers, and this sweet muscat to the appellation
Christique controlled, also famous as an aperitif with parmesan or roquefort
than for dessert.
With the help of an Italian oenologist and the desire to make a place for you, out of love
wine, in a world where passions mingle with
words, you do not hesitate to embark, in 2005, in the
vinification of your own harvest, with all the vigilance and attention that it
requires. A land and a vineyard that gives you, far from the “big fatigue”, the
comfort and the happiness of living, to which you have given back your taste,
your know-how and your radiant humour.
Dear Carole Bouquet, on behalf of the French Republic, we make you
Commander in the Order of Arts and Letters.
Dear Yannick Delpech,
There is a definite idea of a trip when we dine in Yannick’s restaurant
Delpech, entering into this little eden called can no longer be right
the Amphitryon, located in Colomiers in the Toulouse region, a haven of peace and
green. Among the happy customers, some caps from the middle of
aeronautics, since it is true that one can see in the distance in the sky the
Airbus taking off from the runways close to Toulouse-Blagnac
dedicate with humour aperitifs called «Interludes au cockpit».
We taste a very personal cuisine, which responds well to this sentence of
Daniel Pennac, in The Dictator and the Hammock, the novel of a tyrant who dreams of
travels: The kitchen is at stake as the most beautiful works of art:
knows nothing of a dish as long as we do not know the intention that gave it birth.”
Your intention is clear and “without fuss”, without temptation “fashionable”: “
my only desire,” you note, “is to share with our hosts a moment
happy by offering them recipes that enhance the true taste of products and
alliances that express our identity, like a journey through my universe
personnel.”
On paper, the intention seems so simple... But personally I have not yet
completely managed to make my guests grasp my passion for literature in
my supreme of poultry.
In the gastronomy you offer, the balance and delicacy of the products
are so obvious that at the age of 24, you become the youngest star chef of
France, and that eight years later your restaurant is provided with a second
Michelin star and four toques at Gault & Millau.
Your Mont Royal squab roasted and smoked with eggplant «à la Coque»,
summer truffle and fresh almonds, or your foie gras cutlet pan-fried with a
quinoa crust with seaweed, shellfish and sorrel, for which you entrust
that the iodine from the oyster «breaks» the fat of the warm liver, force respect
and open up the appetites.
But the most surprising thing about this technique and this salty mastery is that
You just came from sweet.
In your family, we grow vines, but already little boy, you decide to
become a pastry chef. Since your time as an apprentice at the best
Michel Belin, then your participation in the opening of the
first «dessert restaurant» with Philippe Parc, until your title of
pastry master at the Amphitryon in 1997, there is in all this long and remarkable
path, learning to be rigorous.
The field of pastry remains forever linked for you to childhood and its
treats, snacks at our grandmothers that you revolutionize in
textures. And the surprise that emanates from each bite of your desserts
brings us immediately into the intimacy of plants and spices.
Beyond your job, it is also important to highlight your involvement in
charitable causes. Thus, each year you organize with the association
Overcoming cystic fibrosis» charity events, «Rendez-vous de l'espoir».
A rare commitment in the world of big tables.
Any self-respecting great leader must be able to rely on a united team and
As such, we discover in you a leader who cares about his team, who
seeks to enhance each of the links in this fragile chain that leads to
establishment. The Amphitryon Battalion is about forty
of employees, whom you support at all costs. I think in saying this to
terrible fire that ravaged before your helpless eyes your restaurant at the end
this August, forcing you to close the time of its reconstruction.
The profession very quickly showed its solidarity, and I also wish you
express mine. The spirit of a place is also and above all the strength of the one who
lives in it, and I have no doubt that you’re going very fast, with your whole team,
can recreate the right space for all your creations, which honour the
French gastronomy. A star of taste at 35 has all life in front of you, and we
will soon be able to rediscover your freshness of sea bream on yogurt
lemon, your yuzu peach soup and your hazelnut butter place.
Dear Yannick Delpech, on behalf of the French Republic, we make you
Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters.
Dear Anne-Claude Leflaive,
Without wine, the gourmet meal cannot be complete. Wine, this precious
nectar, is “what makes men happy,” said Alexander Fleming, the
penicillin, which only “heals”; it has long been the binding agent of our
commensalities.
At the heart of a wine country, the Côte-d'Or produces among the most white
world. Your field contributes to the international influence of the
French production, from this prosperous land of Burgundy where the things of
wine are treated as a family. An aspect that will not have escaped the American gaze
by Jonathan Nossiter, in his film Mondovino, where the Burgundians
have the good part.
Dear Anne-Claude Leflaive, from the Côte de Beaune to the tables of wine lovers
on the other side of the world, Domaine Leflaive has a reputation based on
a few centuries of know-how. In the world of archives, we can go back
less than 1717, when a cooper named Claude Leflaive moved to Puligny,
on the present Monument Square. It is the beginning of a great family history,
as is often the case for the largest Burgundy estates. A
exploitation that crosses the history of French viticulture, the phylloxera crisis
notably, before being taken over in 1920 by Joseph Leflaive, your grandfather
Polytechnician, who replants the estate with his friend François Virot,
Director of the estate. A long-term registration, including his four children,
Anne, Jeanne, Jo and Vincent will inherit in the post-war period, ensuring by their
harmonious division of labour the balance between trading and
the blending of wines. This is the care you have brought to the family estate on
generations that allow you to benefit from Chardonnay and its
green reflections with so much virtuosity.
In 1990, co-manager of the domain, you defend a conviction: the urgency of
to develop environmentally responsible and soil-friendly
the plant, the environment. With your cellar master, Pierre Morey, you
do your first biodynamic tests – a word so familiar today, but
which then still sounded quite singular. The challenge was daunting, the project
avant-garde.
In 1993, after the disappearance of your cousin Vincent, you find yourself alone
management of an estate representing 24 hectares of vines, including 2 hectares of
Burgundy white, 4.5 hectares of village appellation, 11.5 hectares in first cru
and 5 hectares classified grand cru. 5 years later, convinced of the success of the
biodynamic, your production is 100% converted. Time has spoken, your wines are
“fit on two legs”, as we sometimes hear in Burgundy.
Michel Bettane, world-renowned wine critic, praises the eloquence and
the accuracy of your last vintages.
Success brings expansion: you will acquire new plots in 2004,
they are also grown in biodynamic, in the municipality of Verzé in Mâconnais.
In 2008, in your desire to transmit, you founded a School of Wine and
Terroirs that defend a reasoned viticulture and this holistic approach of the
vine that you have now been defending for two decades. Ecological habitat,
biodynamic crops, wine school, fruit trees, horses for the work of
soils, market gardening: from Domaine Leflaive, you have created a
The Community’s agricultural policy must be based on the principle of subsidiarity.
In the world of white, the first crus and the great crus of Puligny-
Montrachet [Monrachet] have a wealth of constitution, elegance and
complexity. Their aromatic precision makes them products
particularly for haute cuisine, to which the Domaine
Leflaive has been an honour for nearly 300 years. An example of excellence for a
wine sector, which must meet the challenges of internationalisation by putting
the attractiveness of French terroirs.
For all its reasons, on behalf of the French Republic, we invite you
Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters.
Dear Frédérick E. Grasser-Hermé - let me call you FeGH,
The monotony of thought, the orthodoxy of gastronomy, associations of
expected and agreed taste are not your kind, nor is snobbery
pinched lips, wedged mouths, crippled flavors or too often
sweetened. You are the queen of edible and gourmet jokes and
scholarly micmacs between comic and serious, between monochrome and polytonality,
between chaos and harmony. For example, I can’t resist the temptation to
quote a passage from one of your recipes-biker that will certainly pass to the
posterity, with all due respect to Brillat-Savarin - an Elucubration for camembert
in which you offer us a taste ride on a Harley Fat Boy
1340 cm3: As a precaution, wrap twice in aluminum
reinforced, very high resistance, a camembert with raw milk, but tempered[…]. Calez
the papillote vertically near the cylinder head at the manifold inlet
exhaust and rear cylinder, the perfect place. Adjust the helmet and
jugular, get on the machine, at the counter you are full gas. 6 km
go back to square one, it’s 12 km to 180°C.” I’ll try on my
scooter, you never know, if he was gonna think he was a Harley, it might just
walk.
I’m not a great cook – I don’t know, for example, what
means “a non reversible chicken juice” - I will still, to make
tribute to the height of your creativity and your talent, try to deliver
a small recipe.
In a large casserole dish, preferably SEB and yellow, place a little girl who
invents stories to eat, add a large spoon of curiosity and three
pinches of fantasy. Cook over low heat without decompression until its
thirty years. Take the beast out, leave it on a diet in a fridge for two days,
then prepare him a pan-fried foie gras deglazed in vinegar with small black radishes
braised and a chicken in bladder cooked by Alain Chapel in Mionnay. There you
get normally a young Parisian spice of gastronomy. Let her
marinate in its epiphany, then papillote it at the Cannes Film Festival, before
bake at Alain Ducasse in Juan-les-Pins. At the exit, you have a
Epicurean monument of iconoclastic and electric cuisine.
An unrivalled culinary cook and storyteller with an incredible imagination like
your book Serial Colors, whose design is due to your very talented
Matali Crasset, when you sit in a Voltaire chair, this
is not for knitting wool, but Pop Art beet balls. Among a
thirty works all more iconoclastic than each other, you receive the
Fooding Award in 2000 for the lively Insider Delight, which makes the Laughing Cow,
Carambars, Marshmallows, Orangina, among others «dirty»
as all mothers say, mythical products of the twentieth
which have their place in collections of recipes all more excellent and
games. As astute as you are forward-thinking, you are a
culinary muse for trendy restaurants, such as Korova, Black Calvados,
the Costes, or Hotel Amour for which you design the cards. You are
presents in France at the hotel’s Le Passage Saint-Roch restaurant
Lumen with designer Claudio Colucci only at the gates of the Moroccan desert in Dar
Ahlam, a House of Dreams in the middle of a palm grove. A place without
no doubt ideal to taste your «Couscous c'est moi, un pain c'est tout!» -
with his French toast but not for everyone, mixed with Bronte pistachios,
with Sicilian cedrats, some dried mint and Ottoman grapes.
It is with malice that you explore new ways by proposing
culinary performances in museums, in connection with the exhibitions that are there
presented. This gives your "cuts" in the manner of Caesar, the Bone to
marrow, blue caviar in the style of Yves Klein or soft pasta with Dali.
Desecrate the kitchen, remove the blinders of the componction, while keeping it
its nobility and its ability to make us dream: FeGH is all this to
At the same time, it is irreverence that makes us breathe, the «anarchifoodeuse» and agitator
Culinary at the service of the creations that decorate.
And a big thank you for helping us to decorate this ceremony with these dishes
who for the moment taunt us on the buffet and we will know, in
In due time, revenge.
Dear Frédérick E. Grasser-Hermé, on behalf of the President of the Republic, we
Knight of the National Order of Merit.