Eat Your Vegetables!

sooo good!

Like most children, I had an aversion to eating vegetables.

This could, no doubt, explain why I am only 5’6″….

Food in Paris is a religion. So when we decided to spend New Year’s Eve in Paris, the question of where to have our New Year’s Eve Dinner became paramount.

I asked my friend Mark Bittman, the food critic for The New York Times his advice, and he, in turn, went to his friend, Jean Georges Vongertichten, one of the best chefs in the world.

Both Vongerichten and Bittman suggested we book at L’Arpege, a small, 3-star Michelin restaurant in Paris owned and run by Alain Passard.

Passard opened L’Arpege in 1986 and in 1996 earned his third Michelin star.  3 stars is the highest rating Michelin offers and it is rare indeed.  In 2003, french Chef Bernard Loiseau committed suicide after Michelin removed one of his stars, taking him down to 2.

All 3-star Michelin restaurants are extraordinary eating experiences, but Passard’s is even more interesting.

In 2001, Passard removed red meat from his menu, turning his attention almost exclusively to vegetables.

We all eat vegetables (or at least almost all of us), but we pay, for the most part, scant attention to them really.

When Passard made vegetables to focus of his cooking, he opened the door to an almost unknown and little traveled continent of cooking and eating.

It is a remarkable experience.

It is remarkable because, in fact, vegetables offer so much wider a range of tastes and textures than do meats, once you pay attention to them.

When you eat at L’Arpege you pay attention – and in doing so, you discover tastes and subtleties you did not know existed before.

It’s a bit like great Japanese food – simple, subtle, delicate and refined. And once you have adjusted to the flavours, overwhelming.

Last night we had the 11-course ‘tasting menu’ at L’Arpege.

It was, without a doubt, one of the finest meals I have ever had anywhere.

Not only because the food and service (and wine list) was so extraordinary, but also because the range of flavours was, for the most part, so new or unfamiliar – which is a strange thing to say about vegetables.

I have not doubt that had I been brought up as a child eating vegetables like these (as opposed to Swanson TV dinners), I would not only have eaten all my vegetables every night, I would also be 6 foot tall.

Maybe.

One thing I cannot understand is why cable networks like The Travel Channel persist on showing hour after hour after hour of Man v. Food – which is, in fact, little more than an eating content – who can stuff their face with the biggest hamburger in the world; when a place like L’Arpege is so extraordinary – and, as Michelin says of it’s 3-star restaurants, ‘worth the trip’.