some remarks on "Chef's Table: France," Episode 1, Alain Passard

Chef Alain Passard, looking like a less surly version of Jeremy Clarkson

I've just started watching "Chef's Table: France," but I don't want to do another whole series of reviews, so I'll simply make some random remarks about what I just saw, with no promise that I'll comment further on this strand of "Chef's Table." Netflix gives you the option of clicking off subtitles, so after watching the first episode of this particular miniseries for a few minutes, I clicked the subtitles off, like Luke Skywalker turning off his targeting computer, and just bathed myself in the French language. The French can be wacky people, especially politically, but there is something ineffable that I will always love about France, its people, and its culture. Watching this episode, which is entirely in French, was a small way to reconnect with a culture that, at times, I wish I had taken more time to study instead of ensconcing myself here in Korea, where my mastery of the local language remains mediocre at best.

You begin to notice that these "Chef's Table" miniseries (I've seen "Pizza" and "BBQ") all have the same rhythm and emphasis: each episode follows a particular personality, often someone who is a bit of a rebel, who has taken a creative left turn. In Episode 1 of "France," we meet Chef Alain Passard, who studied under some of France's greatest chefs, and who has three Michelin stars of his own. Passard's personal left turn happened when he found meat no longer to be charming, so he took his restaurant, Arpège (= arpeggio) into a totally new direction: vegetables. Passard talks a lot about the power and language of hands—the importance of le geste, i.e., gesture, as a way of creating and evoking new culinary realities. The episode begins with Passard talking about his mother, who possessed a magic that Alain says he's never been able to equal. Passard comes from a family of artists, so learning to work with his hands came naturally to him, and when he made the switch—in his 40s—to vegetables, he applied himself to learning all about them. In the end, Michelin let him keep his three stars despite the total change-up of his menu (a menu that varies daily, as it always has), and Passard is still busily creating new dishes.

As with other episodes of "Chef's Table," this one was a heady combination of culinary pretentiousness and beautiful cinematography. Similar to the other miniseries, the message is Follow your passion. I'll be watching the remaining episodes of "France" over the course of this week, but as I said above, there's no guarantee that I'll be writing any reviews. At this point, I pretty much know what to expect, and for me, watching "France" is more about drinking in French language and culture than it is about the food angle.