Une vie frottée d'ail. La cuisine provençale d'hier et de demain

Nicknamed the pope of Provençal cuisine or the Pagnol of French cuisine, Gui Gedda, born in Marseille in 1932, has left his mark on southern restaurants with his three establishments in Bormes-les-Mimosas. His life as a chef, rooted in his family history, was marked by extensive travel and, above all, by a taste for helping others and passing on his knowledge. At the age of seventeen, when he was an apprentice in a hotel-restaurant on the Canebière, he began writing down his grandmother’s sunny recipes to combat the “monster blues” that overcame him in the evenings after service: he missed his family and the French gastronomic names, such as poultry demi-deuil, left the young man used to the lilting names of Provence doubtful. Over the decades, he became a prolific author, accomplishing an extraordinary task of codifying traditional Provençal cuisine through some fifteen books in which stories and recipes are interwoven with great flavour. This new account, which includes almost 500 preparations and dozens of anecdotes, is no exception. Une vie frottée d’ail reveals the secrets of bouillabaisse, pieds et paquets, soupe au pistou, ratatouille and petits farcis, while revealing the gifts of a storyteller whose humour, wit and sensitivity sparkle from page to page. We meet Marius Morard, Jean-Baptiste Reboul and Marie Mauron, as well as Yul Brynner, President Pompidou’s bodyguards, Abel Ferrara and Jean Seberg. While Gui Gedda defends regional cuisine tooth and nail, in a battle that is above all semantic and heritage-based, he remains a sincere (p)artisan of the Mediterranean openness that has allowed Provence to welcome tomatoes, aubergines and so many products from elsewhere with open arms. Provençal cuisine is more alive than ever.