In a three-sided tent backstage at a music competition in woodland on the japanese outskirts of Paris, a pair of radio DJs are gassing up, dwell on air throughout France, one of many headliners.
It’s not We Love Inexperienced’s opening night time high draw, Nigerian Afrobeats famous person Burna Boy. Nor the Saturday night time bill-toppers, returning French dance legends Justice. And it’s not Sunday’s main-stage nearer, American R&B heavyweight SZA, warming up for her present in the identical slot at Glastonbury later this month.
Non, c’est un chef.
‘We’d prefer to introduce Alain Ducasse,’ start Marie Misset and Marine Baousson, French-speaking hosts of a day by day drivetime present on France Inter, a BBC Radio 1-like station that’s ‘left wing and really cultural and [for] younger folks’, based on one of many group overseeing this exterior broadcast.
Then, turning to deal with their 67-year-old visitor, a person shod in festival-unfriendly white Armani trainers and topped with a designer baseball cap that claims ‘Capitaine’: ‘You personal 34 eating places in 9 nations and have 19 Michelin stars. You may have fed quite a few presidents, kings and queens. And 1717353817 you might be co-president of the We Love Inexperienced meals committee. It’s very stylish to have a meals committee with Alain Ducasse. What are you doing right here at a music competition the place it’s extra regular to eat merguez [sausage] than Michelin-starred meals?’
(Picture credit score: We Love Inexperienced)
What certainly. Music festivals, actually within the UK, traditionally supply each sorts of meals: fried and greasy. With booze on their brains and (not unusually) mud on their toes, that’s what gig-goers need and that’s what they get. For all of the culinary revolution catalysed by the unfold of ‘street-food’ tradition and the concomitant wider provision of other cuisines at Glastonbury et al, their grubby grub spine stays the identical: murder-burgers, sloppy noodles, all-dough pizzas, slug-like chips.
Chef Ducasse, chair of a jury of French meals consultants who’ve chosen some 50 ‘correct’ eating places and pop-ups to cater We Love Inexperienced, is right here to vary that mindset and that actuality.
‘I’m attempting to carry my imaginative and prescient of meals variety, accessible to everybody,’ he tells the DJs. ‘Easy and environment friendly meals that’s going to fulfill each palate… I believe the general public has to style every thing, and it’s a must to be versatile [in your tastes]. You possibly can’t be an fool [sic] once you eat – once you eat, it’s a must to know and be inquisitive about what you eat. Each dish is telling a narrative of the person and girl who ready it. There needs to be a whole lot of endurance, as a result of when you’ve got endurance, you’ve got pleasure [in what you’re eating].’
(Picture credit score: We Love Inexperienced competition)
You possibly can’t be an fool. It’s important to know and be inquisitive about what you eat. Each dish is telling a narrative of the person and girl who ready it. There needs to be a whole lot of endurance, as a result of when you’ve got endurance, you’ve got pleasure [in what you’re eating]
Alain Ducasse
We Love Inexperienced is a three-day, five-stages occasion in Bois de Vincennes that’s constructed, from its title upwards, on rules of sustainability. True to that ethos, it’s additionally intent on revolutionising competition meals, one Bao bun and rice-patty aubergine burger at a time. As Time Out Paris wrote final yr, on the event of the occasion totally forswearing meat onsite: ‘Végé dream à We Love Inexperienced! Révolution! Pour ses stands meals, le competition bascule en 100% végétarien. Une première en France.’
Explaining that bascule – shift or pivot – Thomas Grünberg, We Love Inexperienced’s Head of Meals Choice and Curation, says that ‘we’ve been fascinated with this for years now. However we have been a bit scared. Perhaps we thought we weren’t prepared, the general public weren’t prepared, the eating places we’re working with weren’t prepared. However final yr we thought: OK, that is the fitting time.’
Grünberg is speaking to me on the finish of a tour we’ve taken with Ducasse of a few of stallholders chosen by the superchef’s jury: the African Avenue Meals of BMK, the artistan baguettes of Les Pimpains, the plant-based kebabs of Sezondo (‘pour les viandardes’ – meat-lovers – ‘aussi’).
‘The primary factor was, we didn’t need to use pretend meat or pretend cheese, and nonetheless have burgers and hotdogs [using those products],’ continues Grünberg. ‘That’s pretend vegetarian meals. The trick was: how will we do an authentic, correct, French vegetarian meals on the competition utilizing native, seasonal produce? And nonetheless have attractive meals – the meals you need at a competition, not little salads with blah blah blah,’ he says witheringly. ‘So it was complicated.’
A part of that ‘trick’ for We Love Inexperienced 2024 was collaborating with Chef Ducasse.
(Picture credit score: Mickaël Bendassak)
‘J’adore Wallpaper*,’ begins the possessor of essentially the most Michelin stars on this planet (beating Gordon Ramsay into second place) once we meet at lunchtime, three days earlier than the competition. We’re speaking in Le Dalí, one in every of two suitably fabulous eating places Ducasse operates within the historic, five-star Le Meurice, a part of the Dorchester Assortment of inns. Having had the privilege throughout my go to of consuming in each of these temples of gastronomy, I can wholeheartedly say that Wallpaper* reciprocates that adoration.
I ask what this culinary icon knew, 50 years into his gastronomic profession, of music competition meals previous to his involvement with We Love Inexperienced.
‘I knew it was greasy, fried, with a whole lot of sugar,’ he tells me in English earlier than switching to French, through a translator. ‘So we needed to go one other manner. We needed to vary perceptions about this type of proposal – extra seeds, extra grains, extra greens, extra greens. Extra well being. Not too many components, or fats, or salt.’
As he’ll say on-air to the France Inter group, variety was equally essential. ‘The competition meals is a calming however critical and fashionable proposition. It’s about freedom, and right here in 2024 we need to characterize how folks eat all various things. We’ve meals from Asia, Greece, South Africa – an actual combine, representing society now.’
(Picture credit score: We Love Inexperienced competition)
For the profitable kitchen groups, culinary expertise needed to be backed by logistical functionality. With the competition attracting some 100,000 music-lovers over three days, roughly 150,000 dishes must be served – and shortly. As places it: ‘It’s tough [for the chefs] to take part: you’ll be able to discuss all of the discuss, however it’s a must to ship the meals and be good at what you do and fulfill the general public. However I’m very completely satisfied that We Love Inexperienced is occurring this path. It’s an actual evolution I need to be a part of.’
And that’s evolution, not revolution. Ducasse, Grünberg and the competition group perceive that their meals choices must be conscious of their viewers’s tastes – significantly when, as is commonly the case, the weather are towards us and luxury meals is so as. So, on a woodland web site not spared the soggy, boggy begin to the British summer time competition season, I’m happy to report that, sure, chips have been accessible. Albeit chips purveyed by Friterie 3000, a Champion du Monde de la Frite Arras 2023. These, then, are nationally-renowned, prize-winning chips.
(Picture credit score: We Love Inexperienced)
Alain Ducasse, although, wasn’t having any of these. After his tour of the stalls and earlier than the dwell music kicked in, he headed for the exit, hopped on the again of a motorcycle taxi and roared off to his subsequent appointment: at Roland-Garros, the place native hero Corentin Moutet was enjoying within the third spherical of the French Open (he received, making him the final Frenchman standing within the tennis match).
Again at Le Dalí, I’d requested what message he’d like British audiences to know from his mission at We Love Inexperienced, about how he hoped to vary the way in which music festivals current meals.
‘We’ve to immerse ourselves in new experiences,’ Ducasse replied. ‘It’s time to open your minds and take a threat.’
Sure, Chef.
Supply: Wallpaper
