“Long live the preserves! » After having campaigned for so long for seasonal cuisine, fresh products and conviviality, is Yves Camdeborde turning over his chef’s jacket to praise the food industry? Let’s be reassured, the icon of bistronomy betrays nothing of its values by making itself the apostle of canning, or rather jars, in Store, cook! (Albin Michel), exciting book, co-written with journalist Philippe Boé, published at the end of November 2022. On the contrary. “Preparing your own preserves allows you to select the best of what nature offers us every day, to enjoy at any other time of the year”, welcomes the Béarnais in this vade-mecum of sterilization and lactofermentation, as rich in recipes as in technical advice.
Jar fever took him during the first confinement. “In March 2020, we had to close our five Parisian establishments overnight. [l’hôtel Le Relais Saint Germain, le Comptoir du relais et ses trois Avant comptoir] », remembers Yves Camdeborde. So what to do with the stock of fresh meat, fish and vegetables planned for nearly 700 covers per day? “We shared some of it with the staff, organized a mini market on the sidewalk. » He embarks the rest in the house that he and his wife choose to rent in Mérindol (Vaucluse) to live in the green this forced isolation. “I decided to can what we couldn’t immediately consume. »
From the Champenois Nicolas Appert, inventor of the sterilization (or canning) process at the end of the 18th centurye century, author, in 1810, of The Art of preserving, for several years, all animal and vegetable substances, it is known that an appropriate heat treatment makes it possible to preserve food products in containers where there is a vacuum atmosphere. A process, improved in 1863 by the work of Pasteur (and pasteurization), which also allows gourmets to express themselves.
A link with the land never cut
After responding to the urgency of the moment, Yves Camdeborde continued to explore this way of stocking up during this Provençal retreat, imprisoning raw products and small simmered dishes under glass. The cook was thus reconnecting with a family tradition. Son of a farmer and a butcher, born in Pau in 1964, he remembers, like many children in the South-West, the season of fat, dedicated to confits and pâtés of pork and duck. Unforgettable also the way in which the surplus harvest of vegetables and fruits were preserved in jars. “A local and seasonal logic, natural, economical and anti-waste, more relevant than ever today”, he assures.
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