Death of a Modern
Hero: Bernard Loiseau
A Time to Reflect on the
"System" By
André Gayot
Paul
Bocuse along with other great chefs are
indignant about the death of Bernard Loiseau.
We share their emotion, and we participate in
the sorrow. While their message is clear, isn't
now is a time to reflect more than to
chastise?
As the
end of Bernard, who rose all by himself from
poverty to celebrity, is shocking, it is a sad
opportunity to take the time to reevaluate the
roles we accept to play in the order of our
current society. If we abide by its rules and
aim to accomplish ourselves, what else can we
do than fight our way through, struggle with
competition, race for fame, and attempt to gain
glory and perhaps money? This is "the system."
The system breeds winners, as well as losers.
One can win and lose. Loiseau benefited from
the system, and, in the end, he was also a
victim of it, as are so many others who will
remain anonymous forever.
The
path to the top of any profession is narrow,
but treading forever the summits is an
impossible challenge. Bernard was one of the
few who rose from modest apprenticeship to
world fame and never stopped to undertake
adding business responsibilities to his
ingenuity. His work, as the work of all
restaurateurs, is among the toughest and most
demanding ones we know of. We would be blind
not to see the incredible energy that needs to
be deployed in the kitchens. It never ends and
the call is for more effort everyday. How long
can a man or a woman sustain the permanent
pressure resulting from the very nature of his
or her success? It could have been too much for
Bernard. He is not the only one.
Remember
the collapse of the black "gazelle" Marie-José
Perec, the world champion of the 400-meter
race. Under the pressure (from the public, the
media, the team) she fled from the stadium in
Sydney while the world was expecting to see her
repeating her victory on the Australian
track.
Stress
never gives a break to those who want to
perform at the top whether it's tennis, music,
theater, literature, art or any human activity
including cuisine. Through the media, the
public is watching the modern heroes prompt to
notice their shortcomings more than their
triumphs, the latter being
expected—n'est-ce
pas?—to
occur everyday.
It is
legitimate to ask questions about the way the
media does its job when it deals with the
complexity of this arduous profession. Judging
always poses a grave moral problem. Many
factors enter into the equation of a final
verdict and it takes quite some knowledge and
experience to pretend to resolve it
satisfactorily. Is this wisdom and reflection
always present in the opinions about the
restaurants delivered to the public? Was it the
case in this particular instance? For obvious
reasons, it is not for us to decide. It is up
to the French public to provide the
answer.
As for
us, the moral line has not changed: The media
plays its role when it assesses with honesty
and competence the merits of an establishment
and the media cannot ignore that these merits
may vary in time. For as Beaumarchais wrote:
"without the liberty to criticize there is no
merit in praise." It turned out to be the basic
foundation of the modern press and by extension
of our democracy.
*Read more about
Bernard Loiseau
Gault Millau Controversy
All the Rage About Loiseau
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