There will be no French fries for the 15,000 athletes at the Olympic Games that will open in France in July.
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In what is being proclaimed as the largest restaurant in the world – a 215-metre-long former power station at the heart of the Olympic Village – there will also be no foie gras, but vegetarian hot dogs and quinoa muesli will be plentiful.
Touring the nave, a light-filled vaulted space where some 45,000 meals a day will be served 24 hours a day, 7 days a week during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Stéphane Chicheri and Charles Guilloy, the chefs responsible, praised the shawarma vegetarian, sweet potato with za’atar seasoned hummus, pickled cabbage and roasted eggplant with smoked paprika.
This is a far cry from classic French cuisine of elaborate sauces and “enough melted butter to give a regiment a thrombosis,” as writer AJ Liebling once described a dish. But this is a 21st century Olympics on a warming planet. The carbon footprint kills the cassoulet. Vegetable protein is today’s thing.
“French fries are too risky because of concerns about the fire risk from deep fryers,” Guilloy said. “No to foie gras because animal welfare is on everyone’s mind, and no to avocados because they are imported from very far away and consume a lot of water.”
So how French can these ecological Games be?
“Don’t worry; we will have French cheeses, beef blanette, but with a lighter sauce and, of course, baguettes,” Chicheri said.
Some 500 dishes will be served in the dining room of the Olympic Village in Saint-Denis, north of Paris.
With some 15 million visitors expected at the Games, 2 million of them foreigners, France itself will be on display, and in particular Paris, posing the challenge of how to energize a culinary culture linked to tradition.
This is a critical moment for French cuisine, whose pedigree is indisputable, but whose image has languished.
More than 800,000 people work in the restaurant business in France, and the gastronomic sector, including wines and spirits, generates more than $55 billion a year in revenue.
“Ultimate gastronomy is in our DNA,” said Alain Ducasse, the acclaimed French chef who will prepare the Olympic opening dinner on July 26 for heads of state.
“But there is a new international challenge and we have been slow to be part of it,” he said. “Talent is everywhere. We need to wake up to that.”
The repertoire in the Olympic Village could mark an important turning point. There will be six “to-go” points of Asian cuisine, Afro-Caribbean dishes, vegetarian shawarma, burgers (meat, vegetarian or a combination of both), Middle Eastern food and halal cuisine. Kosher food will also be available upon request.
Two full-fledged French restaurants are planned — but without classics like Steak Tartar, blood sausage or choucroute. Wine, of course, is prohibited because the objective of this 4,300-square-meter emporium with 3,623 seats is to prepare athletes for their maximum performance. The other point is to underline that France takes its environmental responsibilities seriously.
French Olympic authorities banned disposable plates and cutlery. They haven’t banished trash cans from kitchens, as some Parisian restaurants have, but they do require a zero-waste culture. About 80 percent of the ingredients will be French and 25 percent from within a 250-kilometer radius of Paris. The goal is to halve the carbon footprint of the Tokyo or London Olympic Games.
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