The Story of Roger Vergé: The Chef Who Brought Sunshine to French Cuisine
About this episode
This episode explores the life and impact of Roger Vergé on French cuisine.
The Story of Roger Vergé: The Chef Who Brought Sunshine to French Cuisine is the latest episode in the Fabulously Delicious Story of French Chefs series — and it tells the full story of one of the most important and most joyful figures in the entire history of French gastronomy. Roger Vergé, founder of Le Moulin de Mougins on the Côte d'Azur, creator of cuisine du soleil and one of the founding fathers of nouvelle cuisine, is a chef whose influence shaped an entire generation of cooks — and whose name deserves to be far more widely known than it is. We start at the beginning — Commentry in central France, the blacksmith father, the aunt Célestine who gave a five year old boy a wooden bench so he could stand next to her at the stove and watch her cook. From there we follow Vergé through his classical training in Paris at the Tour d'Argent and the Plaza Athénée, his extraordinary years working in Morocco, Algeria and Kenya, and the experiences that gave his cooking a perspective completely unlike anyone else in his generation. In 1969 he opened Le Moulin de Mougins with his wife Denise — a converted seventeenth century olive oil mill near Cannes — and within five years it had all…
People in this episode
Host: Andrew Prior
Topics covered
- French cuisine
- Roger Vergé
- nouvelle cuisine
- gastronomy
- cooking influence
- culinary history
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Le Moulin de Mougins
Books & works: cuisine du soleil, nouvelle cuisine
Places: Côte d'Azur
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