Unbelievable, but true! In today's day and age, the first requirement for a Chef de cuisine is not so much being able to stand at the stove and prepare quality dishes, but being telegenic.
The spectacle of cooking has now created a star system, a kind of semi imposture that claims to establish the ranking of those who are supposed to be the "master" cooks, but who often make careers out of merit of another kind. Yet cooking has always been and remains an act of love, a way of caring for others.
The true cook compresses his passion daily within the specialties he prepares. His figure cannot and should not be that of pretense, of theatricality flaunted as if on a stage, of false so-called traditional recipes, hailed but almost never practiced, of stars, of TV shows, of guideposts.
Once upon a time, the cuisine of the land and the seasons: a garrison of culture, a thought, an act of love. Lucid obstinacy in defense of tradition and identity. Concert of frank, no-frills flavors, high on authenticity. That cuisine is still there, thankfully. With one major difference: that of yesterday lingered less on creativity, remained faithful to rules, ways of doing things handed down for generations. It experimented, but did so with great caution. It did not venture into reckless pairings. It did not let itself be nagged by health exasperations, dietary mania, allergenic attentions, as today's cuisine does, which has gradually disengaged itself from its noble, ancient codes. It has, so to speak, innovated, but not without upheaval.
In the age of great chefs, starred chefs, the proliferation of awards and food and wine competitions, there is, on the one hand, a better knowledge of ingredients, food preparation and cooking techniques and, on the other hand, a dangerous rush toward novelty at all costs: the one that enchants, the one that amazes.
Wisdom dictates that any excess is bad. It is a case of saying, "Too much is too much." There is no doubt that so-called creative variants run the risk of polluting the "flavor memory" present in each of us and distancing cuisine from its historical and geographical origins. Which is a great detriment to everyone.
Welcome, then, creativity but without overdoing it. Let the cooks think about satisfying the needs of the palate and the sense of smell. Those of sight will continue to be taken care of by the masters of the visual arts.
Let us not forget that cooking is a different thing from forging. Creative capacity has value when it is able to draw the present and the future without erasing the past, when it is able to innovate without reneging, when it maintains a firm link with terroir, understood in the French way as "the set of practices, behaviors and values shared by a community, recognized as the most responsive to its needs, handed down from generation to generation orally, by assimilation, by imitation."
That's what respect for the culture of a place is all about. The rest is just fashion, junk, worthless sample.