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FOOD AND DRINK

French gastronomy faces logistical Olympics challenge

France's vaunted gastronomy will be put to the ultimate test when organisers of the 2024 Paris Olympics have to feed 15,000 athletes.

French gastronomy faces logistical Olympics challenge
French Olympic medalist and dieticien Hélene Defrance is consulting on catering for the 2024 Olympic Games. (Photo by PATRICK KOVARIK / AFP)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) inscribed the “gastronomic meal of the French” on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.

“The gastronomic meal emphasises togetherness, the pleasure of taste, and the balance between human beings and the products of nature,” UNESCO said. “The gastronomic meal should respect a fixed structure, commencing with an aperitif (drinks before the meal) and ending with liqueurs, containing in between at least four successive courses, namely a starter, fish and/or meat with vegetables, cheese and dessert.”

Realistically, the restaurants run by French catering giants Sodexo might not offer such a complete experience – and doubtless few athletes in the prime of their lives would take on such a culinary bonanza given they will be in Paris on tight schedules focused more on competing than indulging themselves.

Around 40,000 meals a day will be served during the Paris Olympics, using produce largely sourced in France.

Sodexo, through its subsidiary Sodexo Live!, already has experience of catering high-profile sporting events such as the Super Bowl, tennis’s French Open and the Tour de France cycling race.

But it will have its work cut out feeding participants at the Olympie Games July and August, 2024, and then the Paralympics that follow in August and September.

Some 6,000 people will be employed to help in the restaurants, Sodexo Live! managing director Nathalie Bellon-Szabo said on Tuesday.

In addition to the Olympic Village, Sodexo will also cater for 14 other Olympic sites and eight Paralympic venues throughout France.

Games organisers have made no secret of what they will be serving up: more vegetables than usual with an emphasis on locally-grown products.

Of the estimated 13 million meals that will be served during the Olympics and Paralympics, from a snack right through to a dish cooked by a top chef, the goal is to have produce that is 80% French.

It is a “huge logistical challenge,” said Philipp Wuerz, project manager for catering, cleaning and waste on the Paris 2024 organising committee.

Avoiding queues, providing food that is healthy, varied and of good quality, with 25% of produce sourced “from within 250km” of each site, is challenging. “We’re used to managing this type of event, but not over such a long period of time,” said Stephane Chicheri, chief executive of Sodexo Live!.

There will be a necessity to remain “adaptable” over potential supply chain issues and price hikes for certain produce, Maxime Jacob, the organising committee’s catering project manager, told AFP.

The athletes can choose from 500 recipes, which are currently undergoing fine-tuning before menus are signed off by the end of this year.

It is impossible, however, to be 100% local, Wuerz said. “The athletes will eat around three million bananas and they don’t grow in the Paris region!”

Bananas, exotic fruits and rice will nevertheless be “organic or fair-trade certified,” Wuerz said.

All meat and dairy products will be 100% French, while seafood will be from sustainable fishing.

The recipes have been drawn up after consulting athletes and nutritional experts, including Helene Defrance, a dietician who won a sailing bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“There are no set menus” because organisers have to adapt to the food habits of every athlete, Defrance said, be it light meals or carbo-loading.

During their stay at the village in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris, athletes will also be treated to haute cuisine.

A trio of French chefs will have their own space next to the main Olympic food hall.

Amandine Chaignot will serve up guinea fowl with langoustines or gnocchi in chicken sauce. Akrame Benallal has come up with a crispy quinoa muesli, while you can expect Alexandre Mazzia to produce a herb-packed chickpea pommade.

The main food hall will have 3,600 seats and offer up dishes that are not just French-themed but also from around the world, as well as halal food for Muslim athletes, Jacob said.

In a bid to help make the Games more sustainable, water fountains will be installed to reduce single-use plastics, while the kitchen equipment and cutlery will all be reused after the Paralympics brings an end to a colossal logistic challenge.

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FOOD AND DRINK

France and Switzerland locked in conflict over ‘fourth’ chocolate

A fourth chocolate - 'blond' - has been slowly making inroads into French confectionary, but has failed to win official recognition and faces competition from a pink Swiss variety.

France and Switzerland locked in conflict over 'fourth' chocolate

Blond chocolate was born from an accident.

French pastry chef Frederic Bau was demonstrating his skills at an exhibition in Japan, and left his white chocolate warming a little too long in a bain-marie… four days, to be precise.

“By chance, by magic… it became blond! This chocolate appeared with an incredible colour and smell”, recalls Bau, who is creative director for chocolatier Valrhona.

Bau immediately smelled the commercial potential of this happy blunder, but it took seven years of testing to perfect its unique aromatic qualities and consistency.

The recipe remains a secret but has been officially registered by Valrhona, and is sold under the name Dulcey since 2012.

However, the basic chemistry is well-understood. It is the “Maillard reaction”, a sequence of chemical reactions between amino acids and reducing sugars, causing browning and aromas that are close to toasting.

Blond chocolate has the milky fattiness of white chocolate but is much less sweet, with a soft caramel flavour and an aftertaste of roasted coffee.

French pastry chefs tend to snub white chocolate, associating it with the big slabs they gobbled as children.

But blond opens up new possibilities.

“It’s very different from other chocolates. It gives a very biscuity, very delicious taste,” Nice-based pastry chef Philippe Tayac, who combines it with hazelnuts for a tartlet, told AFP.

Bau combines it as a pure fondant dessert with freshly roasted apples and a Tahitian vanilla cream, and he also recommends “breaking it up” with more distinct fruity combinations, such as citrus or red fruit.

Despite efforts, Valrhona has not managed to convince French lawmakers to reopen its legal definitions.

So blond remains formally just another type of white chocolate, which was the last to be legally recognised – after dark and milk chocolate – after its invention in the 1930s by Switzerland’s Nestlé.

And France’s Alpine neighbours are not waiting to be beaten to the punch on a fourth variety.

Valrhona’s key competitor in the world of professional-grade chocolate, Swiss giant Barry Callebaut, launched a marketing campaign in 2017 for its own fourth type: this one bright pink and derived from Ruby cocoa beans grown in Ecuador, Brazil and Ivory Coast.

Barry Callebaut calls its Ruby chocolate “the biggest innovation in chocolate in 80 years”.

The company was diplomatic when asked about the rivalry by AFP, saying in a statement: “The best chocolate in the world is the one that gives you a moment of indulgence – no matter where it was produced and no matter the colour.”

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