This Monday, kitchens across the world will be serving French cuisine, as part of a global initiative by chef Alain Ducasse and the French ministry of foreign affairs and international development, called Goût de France (Taste of France).
Joining 1,500-plus restaurants across continents, eight star addresses in Calcutta will be paying tribute to French food by preparing a special menu featuring the following courses — aperitif and canapes, starters, main course, cheese, dessert, French wines and champagne.
With 51 restaurants on board, India is among the top participating countries this year. Introducing the event, French consul-general Damien Syed said: “French cuisine has been on the Unesco’s intangible cultural heritage of humanity list since 2010. A third of our foreign tourists say that our food is the reason why they visit France. Goût de France is making French food more popular across the world. Since there are no French restaurants in Calcutta, this event will fill in a vacuum.”
The preview: The lawn of the French consulate in Alipore was the scene of frenetic action, with men in white scurrying to get their stalls ready before the guests arrived. The participating hotels were laying out a few dishes as foretaste of the grand spread planned for Monday.
Rajatjyoti Mukherjee, senior executive sous chef at The Oberoi Grand, was a picture of concentration as he sprinkled castor sugar on cups of custard and applied the blow torch to them. The process reminds one why crème brulee, bitter at the top and soft below, is so named — it literally means burnt cream. “The caramel must crack as you dip the spoon. We use castor sugar as icing sugar gets dark very fast while the big grains of normal sugar take time to burn.”
Sumeet Priyadarshi, chef de cuisine at Hyatt Regency, had chosen test tubes to serve an amuse bouche — Lobster Tartar marinated with Vermouth Cream. A mini cone with lobster poached in wine and vermouth was topped with a lump of fish roe. The cone, partly sticking out of the test tube, was overhanging a tomato shot. “A kitchen is like a lab after all,” he responded to a remark on the unusual presentation.
Pick of the platters: It was impossible to choose the tastiest dish with the best chefs in town on the job. But what left us wonderstruck was an egg poach, served with burgundy wine and mushroom. Cooked using the sous vide method, with the egg packed in a vacuum bag and left in a hot water bath in temperature a shade lower than 150°F, it had taken four-and-half hours to cook! “The protein has coagulated but the yolk remains as it is,” masterchef Sunayan Pramanik of ITC Sonar remarked. Indeed, it melted in the mouth without leaving any of the yolk’s stickiness!
Feast facts
The event: Gout de France
Happening on: March 21
Participating hotels: Taj Bengal, The Oberoi Grand, ITC Sonar, The Park, Hyatt Regency, The Lalit Great Eastern, Swissotel and Novotel. Each hotel has posted on its website the menu it will serve.
Sudeshna Banerjee
Pictures: Rashbehari Das
