Gourmet’s delight

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33779, 27 February 1975, Page 17

Gourmet’s delight

(By NAN ROBERTSON, of the "New York Times,” through N.Z.P.A.)

PARIS, Feb. 26. They were all dazzled by the luncheon eaten yesterday in the Elysee Palace by President Giscard d’Estaing and 13 of the greatest chefs in the world.

Five of them had brought along the ingredients, cooked and transfigured them, and then sat down to sample the result with the President and their colleagues in an unprecedented banquet. Before it began, Mr Giscard d’Estaing had pinned the Legion of Honour medal on Mr Paul Bocuse, whose threestar restaurant is near Lyon. The 2|-hour-long repast proper began with a truffle soup, went on to a 441 b fresh salmon accompanied by a sorrel sauce, came to a peak with a duck prepared in Bordeaux wine, and ended with the first wild strawberries of the season and an incredible cake, its filling laced with liquor and fluted with thin ruffles of chocolate. The wines? Two of them, i a Chateau Margaux and a i Roederer champagne, dated I from 1926 — the birth year

of both the French President and Mr Bocuse. There were also a 1966 Montrachet, a 1969 Morey Saint Denis, and, to polish it off, a rare cognac of unknown age and pedigree, and an 1893 Armagnac. Together, the chefs at the lunch were worth 24 stars in the Michelin Guide. The man who created the cake was Mr J. J. Bemachon, ! Mr Bocuse’s son-in-law.

Mr Marcel le Servot, the head chef in the Elysee Palace for 17 years, was, for the first time in his career, seated upstairs with the guests. So also was JeanJacques Bemardet, aged 18, who beat more than 4000 rivals to become last year’s best kitchen apprentice in France.

The only woman at the banquet table was Mrs AnneAymone Giscard d’Estaing, the President’s wife. Mr Claude Jolly, a textile magnate, amateur chef and the driving force behind the Club of 100, a celebrated group of gourmets, was credited with the idea of having Mr Giscard d’Estaing to personally present Mr Bocuse with his Legion of Honour award.