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<\/a>There is a line that runs down through French culinary tradition, starting with Marie-Antoine Car\u00eame who popularized grand cuisine<\/em> in the decades after the French revolution, to Auguste Escoffier who refined\u00a0Car\u00eame’s methods and dishes into French cuisine classique<\/em> which ruled Europe for the better part of the twentieth century, to Fernand Point who\u00a0continued to simply the traditions and focused on fresh ingredients, to\u00a0his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Paul Bocuse who championed and popularized nouvelle cuisine<\/em>, and on to Jo\u00ebl Robuchon\u00a0in\u00a0the post-nouvelle era.<\/p>\n Jo\u00ebl Robuchon, the post-nouvelle upstart, is now the old man of French cooking.\u00a0 It’s all ancient history\u00a0now.\u00a0 Except it’s not.\u00a0 Because Paul Bocuse still has his restaurant and he’s still working there (at the age of 87).\u00a0 And it’s pretty much the same\u00a0thing he was serving 44 years ago when his menu for the\u00a0maiden Concorde flight caused Henri Gault to coin the phrase nouvelle cuisine<\/em>.<\/p>\n Compared to the cooking of his peers, Paul Bocuse’s methods were revolutionary for\u00a0their lighter sauces, reliance on fresh ingredients,and reduced cooking times to allow for more natural flavors.\u00a0 Compared to the most modern of kitchens now though, Bocuse’s menu can seem heavy, rich, and\u00a0stodgy.\u00a0 To dismiss it as dated or stale would be a mistake however.\u00a0 Eating at L’auberge du Pont de Collonges<\/a> is like taking a step back in time and having the chance to experience the revolution all over again.<\/p>\n Dinner started with a small goug\u00e8re filled with gruy\u00e8re , a glass of raspberry champagne, and freshly baked bread and butter.\u00a0 Following that was a light tomato soup with basil oil, a cherry tomato, and cr\u00e8me fra\u00eeche.<\/p>\n For our starters Leslie chose Burgundy Snails in traditional herb butter, and I had scallop of foie gras with verjus.\u00a0 Leslie loved her snails, although I think she offended the waiter when she poured some of the butter off of them onto her bread.\u00a0 I tried a few and they were perfect.\u00a0 I’m slightly regretting this now because it was only my third time eating escargot and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get my hands on such good snails again.\u00a0 The foie gras was pan fried and served with a tart fruit-based sauce called a verjus (in this case made from pressed apples and grapes).\u00a0 It was a ludicrous serving (at least 6 ounces of foie gras) and I could probably have called it a night at that point.<\/p>\n Next up were our mains, though, and we had to keep moving.\u00a0 Leslie went with the quenelles of pike with Nantua (crayfish cream) sauce.\u00a0 Quenelles, a poached fish dumpling, are a specialty of Lyon.\u00a0 The method of preparation is commonly used\u00a0for pike; the fish forcemeat is sieved to removed the many small bones in the fish.\u00a0\u00a0I enjoyed the texture of the quenelle (much like soft tofu) and the dish had a\u00a0brackish taste which befitted the pike nicely.<\/p>\n I had the fricassee of Bresse chicken in a morel cream sauce.\u00a0 This was a quite simple dish, but the richness of the mushroom cream sauce and the excellence of the bird elevated\u00a0it above any similar dish I’ve had.\u00a0 We are able to get some very good chickens from friends around here, so this is definitely something I’ll be trying to recreate next\u00a0morel season.\u00a0 Bresse chickens are a special breed that are very hard to find outside of France (I guess because\u00a0the French eat them all).\u00a0 There is<\/em> a breed called Blue Foot over here that was derived from the Bresse line.\u00a0 If you know anyone that raises Blue Foot’s (Blue Feet?) please let me know!<\/p>\n At this point, we were offered a cheese course.\u00a0\u00a0The selection looked superb, but we’d\u00a0already been eating our way\u00a0though the Mons Fromagerie<\/a> at Les Halles de Lyon and at Didier Galland<\/a>\u00a0the whole trip and we had to pass it up.\u00a0 That didn’t mean\u00a0I was going to get out of there with my belt intact though–we still had the dessert course to deal with.\u00a0 Dessert included a tiered tray of various truffles and candied fruits, a cup of chocolate mousse, and\u00a0\u00a03\u00a0trays (!!!) of cakes, tarts,\u00a0floating islands, ice cream, sorbets, fruits, more cream.\u00a0 And coffee and tea.\u00a0 We tried to sample as much as possible, but there was just no way to get to it all.\u00a0 Most of the desserts were made by\u00a0 a local chocolate-maker\u00a0called Bernachon<\/a> whose current head (Philippe Bernachon) just happens to be Paul Bocuse’s grandson.<\/p>\n![\"paulbocusedinner\"](\"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/paulbocusedinner.jpeg\")
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