How writer Bill Buford earned his 'chops' and became a French cook

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When writer and "reasonably accomplished Italian cook" Bill Buford first landed in Lyon, France, hoping to start his journey as a French cook, he wasn't taken seriously.

"I had cooking experience. I had restaurant experience. I had French restaurant experience. I'd written a book. I was a New Yorker journalist, and they just didn't want to have anything to do with me," said Buford, author of the new memoir Dirt.

It's not the first time the New Yorker packed up his life to take up cooking in a new country. His 2006 memoir Heat chronicles his experiences learning the history and secrets to Italy's cuisine, from pasta making to pig slaughtering.

But with high expectations — and a vastly different culture — it was obvious he would have to work his way up to become a French cook in Lyon.

Here's part of his conversation with The Current's Matt Galloway.

Why did you want to go to France? Heat was about Italy and immersing yourself in Italian food and culture. How did you end up with France? 

Two reasons. One is that although I did become, I think, a reasonably accomplished Italian cook from my time in Italy, there's always a belief that the real cooks, the trained cooks — the cooks that everyone respects — is a French cook. And I wanted that knowledge.

And the other was a covert, almost anarchic suspicion that the Italian belief that they actually invented French cooking might be historically true.

There are a series of, as you say, important conversations that happened [with your wife]. How did you convince her that this was a good idea for the whole family to go [on] what was something that was initially going to be a few months, and then turns into this epic adventure?

At the time, I was doing a preparation apprenticeship with Michelle Rishard in Washington, D.C. She's a renowned French chef and I was there much longer than my wife liked my being away.

When I proposed that maybe I needed to go to France by myself, she immediately and resolutely said, "No, we're going as a family. We're moving to Lyon as a family," and not only that — and this is probably the most terrifying thing — we're gonna do it legitimately going through the French consulate with real visas.

And it was transformative. I remember that conversation as being one of the most majestic conversations of our married life. 

Why did you pick Lyon? People would obviously assume that you might go to Paris or some other destination in France. Why Lyon? 

I didn't think I was going to pick Lyon, but the more time I spent with French cooks, the more I learned of their respect for the city of Lyon and that Lyon represented the closest to pure French cooking. 

As one chef said, Paris could be New York. There's all these international cuisines — there's everybody from everywhere else — and nobody grows up to be a Parisian chef or a Parisian cook. 

But in Lyon there's centuries, really, of traditions and a relationship to the countryside and to wine. I mean, really it's kind of like the epicentre of the wines that the French really, really love. And that's where I would find something different. 

You learn about the culture and — you write about this — you say there is a quality about French rudeness. A self-righteousness probably that provoked your wife, Jessica, to the point of rage. What did you learn about the culture of Lyon? 

Lyon is a very closed city. The sort of standard expression would be, "You like Lyon, don't you? You love it. I mean, what is there not to love? This is where you want to be, isn't it?" 

They were very much to themselves, and it took a long, long time to open them up. But there is also a self-righteousness — I say in a pure generosity of heart — a self-righteousness about French manners and behaviour. And there is a kind of rudeness to them that would just provoke my wife. She just went livid. 

And her French was so good, she could go toe to toe with any of them. And it would be maybe on a bus or at a restaurant or when the man at a restaurant — a bouchon that we went to — leaned over to her when she poured the wine. 

She is a master wine candidate and [he] said, "You know, in this country, the men usually do the pouring," and she turned on him and said, "Oh, how funny because this is a restaurant owned by women, run by women. The wine is bought by women, and not only that, but I'm a consultant of their wine list." 

He just dwindled in our presence. 

You go [to Lyon] to learn the technique, to learn about how to get to the soul, in some ways, of French cooking. And to do this, you have to be working in a restaurant, which is not an easy thing to do ... particularly for an American who doesn't perhaps speak a lot of French. How did you earn your way into this bootcamp? 

With a lot of difficulty. I went over there confident that as I had done in Italy, I'd get into a kitchen and I'd have a hard time. I'd learn the language, I'd learn the cooking language, I'd learn the skills, and I'd eventually ... equip myself. Here they didn't want anything to do with me. 

In the end, I did then become a baker, and it was a monumentally moving and important experience. But I had to go to cooking school. I went to the Institut Paul Bocuse, which is probably the best cooking school for French cuisine in the world, and I got some chops. 

Once I had that, I was allowed to do a stage for 19 days — but only 19 days. And then by the 19th, I had completely forgotten the arrangement and then I was told that I could stay absolutely as long as I wanted. 

Once I got into that kitchen — it was a two-star Michelin restaurant, one with a legendary history, La Mere Brazier — I was in the place that I wanted to be. 

Were you surprised at how ... different Italian and French cuisine was, just in terms of technique — in terms of the precision, in terms of you don't pick up that piece of prosciutto with your fingers and, you know, put it into your mouth — that they think of food completely differently? 

I have to admit, I've come around to really respecting the French approach.

The Italian approach is soulful, and you want to get your hands dirty. And you use your hands to mix your sausage filling or whatever it is that you're making and that's kind part of the experience. 

But then, as one French chef pointed out to me … what do you do with your hands? You've got to wash them. 

The French approach is just much more ordered. Your cutting board is like a sacred space, and you're aware that from your cutting board, the food passes to the mouth of the diners. So it's got to be preserved. Only certain things can go there. 

There's a tranquillity, an order about it that I really came to love. 

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Written by Jason Vermes. Produced by Peter Mitton.