French Delight: What is Luxury French Cuisine with a Japanese Twist

Kaiseki cuisine is a beloved Japanese food filled with Japanese culture and tradition.

French nouvelle cuisine is still evolving as fine French cuisine.

Japan and France.

What both countries have in common is that they have traditionally had a strong commitment to and history of food.

Japanese cuisine is full of traditional techniques and beauty.

The meticulous, beautiful and delicate culinary expressions in kaiseki cuisine, which originated in the tea ceremony, have attracted the attention of chefs around the world.

And in the West, the country renowned for its gastronomy, new culinary expressions are constantly being sought in addition to the history of French cuisine, which has continued in the same manner since the Louis dynasty.

Each dish is a work of art, and the eater receives the expression through all five senses.

And in both cases, there are masters who are considered giants of food, and people from all over the world come to seek out the finest one meal.

Furthermore, both continue to master the country’s traditions and techniques while seeking new challenges for new dishes on a daily basis.

A common concept regarding food in these two countries is the philosophy that cooking is a culture and an art.

Grand Cuisine Grand Cuisine, a fine French cuisine with its origins in court cuisine

For French cuisine, Grand Cuisine Grand Cuisine

This is a genre of cuisine that has its origins in court cuisine.

The French word “grand” means “big” or “great” in French, and this is where the image of fine French cuisine that has taken root in Japan comes from.

French court cuisine is said to have originated in the 17th century with the court cuisine of Louis XIV, and was transformed around 1900 into something closer to the present day.

Reference website: https://www1.plala.or.jp/afjg/afjg-e-cuisine1006.html

Current French Cuisine Nouvelle Cuisine

Nouvelle Cuisine in a culinary trend that began in 1972.

There is a genre called

Nouvelle cuisine in French.

In other words, “new cuisine.

However, around 1970, it was said that Grand Cuisine was getting stuck in a rut.

At that time, Paul Bocuse, Roger Verger and others, as well as food critics Henri Gault and Christian Millot, broke with the conventional wisdom of grand cuisine.

Launch the dish.

They propose ten forms of nouvelle cusine to pursue its new expression.

Excerpt from wikipedia:

– Elimination of excessive complexity

– Cooking time for seafood, game, veal, vegetables, and pâté is short to preserve natural flavors. Many dishes are characterized by steaming.

– Use fresh ingredients as much as possible

– Exaggerated menus replaced with more simplified menus

– Eliminate flavorful marinades used for meat and poultry.

– Season with herbs, butter, lemon juice and vinegar instead of thick sauces such as espagnole sauce or béchamel sauce.

– Get ideas from local cuisine rather than classical French cuisine

– Use of new technology and equipment. Pocuse even utilized microwave ovens.

–

Be sensitive to the food needs of customers.

– Aim for creative combinations

Grande Cusine, a warm, tender, slow-cooked vegetable or meat thickened with flour, was the most common type of food.

Nouvelle Cuisine, on the other hand, takes advantage of the texture, color, and freshness of the vegetables, and serves warm foods warm and cold foods cold.

This has overturned the conventional wisdom of the past.

And the quantity of each dish has been considerably reduced, and the number of plates served has instead increased.

Today, most of France’s fine restaurants serve this nouvelle cusine.

Three-star chefs visit Japan

The nouvelle cusine began in the early 1970s.

Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapelle, and the young Joel Robuchon, leading experts in nouvelle cusine, visited Japan.

During his visit to Japan, he gave a course on French cuisine and at the same time encountered kaiseki cuisine and sushi during his stay.

Yuzu, kombu, sansho, soy sauce, wasabi, and dashi made from dried bonito flakes, green tea, matcha, sesame and soybean flour.

You will encounter novel flavors and aromas that were previously unthinkable in France.

And in kaiseki cuisine,

The heart of hospitality.

The way the ingredients are utilized and the attention to temperature, with cold dishes served cold and warm items served while they are at their warmest.

The attention to detail in the dishes and the way they are served to the customers.

and other things that had never been found in French cuisine before.

It is said that their visit to Japan was a great culture shock to the Japanese culinary philosophy.

Since then, the nouvelle cusine has revealed a variety of kaiseki cooking philosophies.

Reference website: https://www.takedacastle.jp/nouvelle-cuisine

Japanese ingredients loved by French masters and the situation in France

Not only the Japanese culinary philosophy that Bocuse and his team brought back with them, but also Japanese ingredients traveled with them to France.

Wasabi is sometimes used to accent meat and fish sauces,

The flavor of soy sauce will be added to the browned butter.

Then, around the late 1980s, the distribution situation in France evolved dramatically.

Until now it has been difficult to obtain fresh fish inland, but this circumstance has made it possible to get fresh fish in Paris.

This allows for the appearance of fish carpaccio and other appetizers.

A dish that resembles sashimi is now available in French cuisine, where it has not been customary to eat raw fish until now.

Then, in the 2000s, preserved yuzu kosho and yuzu liqueur began to be widely distributed.

Originally, there was a citrus fruit in France called bergamot, which is very similar to yuzu, but yuzu has a more delicate and unique aroma, and it competed with bergamot for use in nouvelle cuisine.

Today, you can find yuzu-flavored food with the word “YUZU” written on it in everyday French life.

Reference website: https://www.hattori.ac.jp/blog/2637

Appetizer and amuse-bouche amuse-bouche

Originally, ket and amuse-bouche amuse-bouche literally means “something that pleases the palate” in French.

The amuse-bouche is a dish served before the appetizers, and consists of a number of small, inventive dishes that are served as a starter.

These are not hors d’oeuvres that the customer chooses from a menu and orders; the chef is free to decide.

The amuse bouche is served with the wine of service, so it is a fun dish to imagine what image the chef of the restaurant is trying to suggest for the course of the day.

It is a concept similar to that of kaiseki cuisine.

In fact, it is said that when Bocuse and his friends came to Japan, they were inspired by kaiseki appetizers and began serving them at the beginning of French courses.

In fact, when explaining the English word for “tip”, we translate it directly into French as “amuse-bouche”.

So much so that, even from a Westerner’s point of view, the first-order and amuse-bouche are very similar.

Reference site 1: https://r.gnavi.co.jp/g-interview/entry/1206

Reference site 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiseki

Activities of Japanese Chefs in France

Bocuse first served kaiseki cuisine in the 1970s,

In the midst of Japan’s rapid economic growth, many Japanese chefs crossed the ocean to train in France.

Thus, French chefs who had not been to Japan had more opportunities to learn about Japanese philosophy and ingredients from Japanese chefs who had come to train at their restaurants.

Japanese chefs across the ocean have brought ideas to many French chefs who are pursuing new expressions of nouvelle cuisine.

Fifty years have passed since then, and many Japanese chefs are now representing nouvelle cuisine in France.

What is the popular French cuisine with Japanese taste in France?

These Japanese chefs are challenging themselves to create distinctive nouvelle cuisine in France by making the most of the ingredients and using a Japanese-style cooking method, which is also known as “subtractive aesthetics.

Rather than being entirely Japanese, Nouvelle Cuisine has a subtle hint of Japanese flavor that has made it a very popular restaurant in France.

Many Japanese chefs are awarded Michelin stars every year, which shows the popularity of Japanese chefs in France.

Reference article about Japanese chefs working in France:

Reference article 1: https://yu1ro.jp/michelin-2019-japanese-chef/

Reference article 2: https://cuisine-kingdom.com/chefinparis/

Japanese-style French cuisine popular in Japan

And Japanese chefs trained in France are opening French restaurants in their home countries.

There are restaurants all over Japan that serve delicious Japanese-style French cuisine using fresh Japanese ingredients with techniques learned in France.

Many restaurants offer French courses, such as French cuisine that can be eaten with chopsticks, but with an eye toward Japanese style.

French cuisine is made more approachable by using “Japanese” ingredients that are familiar to the Japanese.

Many restaurants also incorporate traditional Japanese beauty visually, such as the use of Arita-yaki tableware and plates, so that even though the food is French, you can feel as if you are enjoying kaiseki cuisine.

I’m not a big fan of Japanese food, but since I’ve come to Japan, I want to eat something that is uniquely Japanese.

A Japanese-style French restaurant may be a surprisingly innovative idea for dining with such foreigners.

summary

Japan and France value their culinary traditions.

Although these two countries, the West and the East, are so different in everything, we can see commonalities in the passion for cuisine that exists in each country.

There are quite a few foreigners who do not like Japanese food.

In such a case, why don’t you feel Japan with this Japanese-style French cuisine created by the techniques and ideas of the East and West?