Jazz en cuisine

Nature sets the rhythm of life every day, regardless of season, offering a vast, structured, never-ending range of creative products. When one agrees to conform to nature’s rhythm, one realises that it brings with it a degree of consistency. If one pays attention to the seasons, and matches flavours with colour, texture and form, then the result will be a success. When he discovered this, Alain Passard changed the way he cooked, and developed a vegetable-based cuisine which was open to improvisation. He serves his customers with dishes made from seasonal produce, and he improvises which means that he works so closely with his products that he knows them inside-out. This is made easier by the fact that Alain Passard owns vegetable gardens in which he and his gardeners experiment all the time trying to make vegetables a ‘grand cru’. The chef is happy to play second fiddle to what nature has provided. However, he concentrates on the preparation of his creations and the precise skills necessary.