Off the Shelf: Pressures and Glories in Fine Dining

The title sounds a little bit like a cheezy murder mystery, but I just finished reading The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine by Rudolph Chelminski, and it provided a fascinating look into the often-hidden tumultuous world of French fine dining.

The main story arc is that of Bernard Loiseau's life and untimely death.  Loiseau resided in the pantheon of French culinarians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and the dichotomy between his external persona and his internal struggle provides a very human look into the making of a culinary icon.

Interspersed with Loiseau's story is a history lesson and a psychological study.  The world of haute cuisine is fairly small, and Loiseau seems to have interacted with everyone - and charmed most of them.  Chelminski explores Loiseau's relationships, and recounts memories of Loiseau from a huge range of friends and acquaintances.  He also provides a social and cultural perspective on fine dining, as well as the pressures that weigh on top-tier chefs. 

The external focus is complemented by a very internal focus.  Chelminski delves into Loiseau's (largely un-recognized) struggle with bipolar disorder, and illuminates the paradoxes that drove an incredibly talented individual.  On one hand, Loiseau sought constantly to please everyone.  He sought to develop not only flawless cuisine, but also opulent surroundings in which his guests could relax.  He strove for perfection in every aspect of his hotel and restaurant, with a constant focus on attaining, and then maintaining, three Michelin stars.  On the other hand, bumps in life sent Loiseau into nearly bottomless despair, and the realization that he could never please everyone - least of all himself - ultimately led to his suicide.  Chelminski assigns no blame in the course of the book, but does a fantastic job of identifying the numerous pressures that weighed on Loiseau  - both those that were shared by his compatriots and those that were self-imposed.

Loiseau experienced an apprenticeship similar to that of Pepin and Diat, though his stint as an underling was significantly shorter than normal; for that reason, Loiseau did not possess nearly the technical proficiency of many of his peers.  His cuisine focused exclusively on native ingredients, prepared so as to maintain their vital essences.  He firmly opposed fusion and globalized cuisine.  The foodie worlds' constant search for novelty led to a firm embracing of fusion cuisine in the early twenty-first century, and being left behind may have been part of Loiseau's undoing.  He focused his cuisine on those ingredients and techniques that he knew he, and his staff, could use flawlessly.  A huge part of his rise to fame can be attributed to his personality, however, and his incredible sociability, in addition to his culinary prowess; maintaining his establishment and ceaslessly promoting it (and himself) was an all-consuming focus for Loiseau.

Many biographies and autobiographies of famous chefs (and for that matter, other glorified vocations) gloss over the downside of their profession.  Constantly striving to please a fickle public, not to mention professional critics, can be a thankless job.  Chelminski does a fantastic job of describing the profession and its pressures, as well as the incredible drive that propels the most illustrious chefs to the top of their field.