The cooking secrets of Michel Guérard, starred chef
In 1974, you join your wife in Eugenie-les-Bains and create the Slimming Cuisine for the spa patients. At the time, what prompted you to take an interest in this theme?
At that time, Eugenie already welcomed curists coming to cure their metabolic disorders. They followed the spa treatment, as did a diet strict food. I did not look at their crumbling faces at the sight of the hastily grated carrots summarily seasoned with them. I decided it was time to change that.
At the end of 2012, you will launch the School of Health Cooking, the first health cooking school in the world. Today, we do not know how to eat healthy anymore?
The Health Cooking School is not intended to relearn how to eat, but to teach cooking and health professionals the techniques for achieving health-conscious cooking. For several decades now science has been interested in the relationship between diet and health. A multitude of studies are now showing how certain eating behaviors pose a risk to our health. There are several recommendations for adopting a balanced lifestyle. All this is great. But, at the same time, no one says how to actually implement these recommendations, and most importantly, we do not talk about pleasure. However, we can not imagine changing his eating behavior if we are not encouraged by a health-pleasure cuisine. It is therefore a question of making the link between the advice of the health professionals and what one has on the plate, always keeping in mind this imperative of pleasure.
What is the essential slimming diet?
The cure thinness essential is a program that we provide to Eugénie-les-Bains, over 9 or 12 days. It includes a diet food for weight loss, but remaining nutritionally balanced (we eat everything), daily spa treatments, individual physical activity, medical supervision and dietary monitoring at one year.
Is it possible to cook slimming every day and feast?
To judge, I suggest you refer to page 105 of the book "thinness essential, the great cuisine of health ?. You will discover a typical week in great health cooking, demonstrating the diversity of this cuisine and revealing moments of pleasure where each meal is a day of celebration. The caloric account comes to guarantee this promise of healthy cooking. The book proposes 140 receipts, some of them a bit more sophisticated: it's a real everyday cooking.
In your book, you can read several recipes of oils, broths, vinaigrettes ... In what are they important?
They are the basis of a new era of seasonings. Expressing a palette of original flavors, and especially respectful of health (the calories of sauces are divided by 3 or 4 compared to their traditional versions), they will make it possible to realize dishes tasty, which one does not suspect the sanitary qualities. This toolbox is also very practical: these elements can be combined with each other infinitely and can serve several purposes: cold seasonings are transformed, for example, into hot sauces.
Finally, what is your favorite recipe in this book?
The cassoulet "sans sin", a classic in version great tradition revisited.
