When Alsace chef Michel Husser joined Alliance Française’s Sarah M’bodji in Durban, it was to share know-how gleaned from his 90-year Michelin-star roots with trainee culinary students. The city’s flavour profile hit a new high.
When Alsace chef Michel Husser joined Alliance Française’s Sarah M’bodji in Durban, it was to share know-how gleaned from his 90-year Michelin-star roots with trainee culinary students.
The city’s flavour profile hit a new high. , in the Alsace region of France, has been the recipient of at least one Michelin star for an unbroken 90 years. That “90 years” stopped me mid-sentence and led me on a detour into the history of the iconic Michelin dining guide. I had probably read, but forgotten, that Michelin tyres were behind the name.
The Michelin tale started with the two brothers who founded the tyre company in a French village back in 1889.
To help motorists “develop” their trips and in turn, to boost car and tyre sales, they came up with the idea of a small red guide with maps and handy information. Like how to change a tyre and where to fill up or have an R&R stop along the way. In 1920 the guide became more upscale. Lists of Paris hotels and categories of restaurants were added.
And the brothers recruited mystery diners to visit and review eateries anonymously. And just 10 years later, 1936, was when Husser’s family restaurant was first recognised by Michelin. Their star-studded story continues. Leading by example, Chef Husser preps the fleischschnacka with Food and Nutrition students Amanda Ngcamu and Nthabeleng Nxumalo.
Husser was on a 24-hour flying visit to Durban. His intention: to share, hands-on, inspiration, ideas and how-to from his 40 years of gastronomic expertise, with a specific focus on the Alsace region located in north-eastern France. Le Cerf, the family restaurant, is at the start ofHe was travelling with Isabelle Baumann-Lenot, who lives between the Alsace and Montreal, Canada. Her avocation is keeping the connection going between 67 Alsace associations around the world.
“When you have two, three, four Alsatian guys in Asia, India, anywhere, they like to get together to eat, have a glass of beer — it is a very rich region of France in terms of gastronomy and culture — and we encourage them to set up an association. ” There are versions of the Chef Michel Husser in the demo kitchen with DUT’s Professor Ashika Naicker, left, and Durban's Alliance Française's Sarah M’bodji.
Husser was born in Alsace. Literally in the family restaurant, he tells us as he runs through a series of slides and shares stories between coffee and snacks — biltong, cheese, almonds — which Professor Ashika Naicker, head ofHusser followed in the footsteps of his father and his grandfather. He formally trained at the Strasbourg School of Hotel and Culinary Arts. He honed his craft in the kitchens of top eateries alongside acclaimed chefs.
Then took over the family establishment.
“The only thing I know is cooking. Cooking is all I can do,” he tells the students, looking happy about it and between apologising for his charmingly melodic accented English.
“Now my son is running the restaurant so I can be here, and it is really a pleasure for me because now it is time for me to take what I have learned in my life and share it. I am motivated and I hope you will enjoy it. ”which, dating back to 1936, is the oldest Alliance in SA.
When she arrived in the city going on three years ago with her abundantto take over this legendary French language and cultural centre, it had fallen into a dip before and during Covid-19. Disappeared off the radar for many.
“Is there still an Alliance? ” was a oft-heard comment when things started to bubble again. Headquartered in Paris, the “prototype” Alliance was launched there on 21 July 1883 by a group including the scientist father of “bacteriology”, Louis Pasteur, and Around the World in Eighty Days author, Jules Verne.
There are currently around 829 Alliance chapters in 137 countries .and good-natured kindness, Alliance Durban is back — on steroids — making waves and creating interesting and inclusive happenings around the city.being an official language in 26 countries and one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world. Alliance works collaboratively with the language schools at After shuttering their longtime Morningside “headquarters”, which had been on the market for ages, M’bodji took the Alliance Française de Durban “nomadic” with pop-ups around the city, well publicised on social media but the meat and veggies were prepped and waiting in bowls in the Rendezvous demo kitchen, along with the garlic, parsley, eggs, salt and pepper and the noodle-dough ingredients . The cooked meat, to which Chef Husser added water-dunked and squeezed bread “to give moisture” was spread on the fresh egg pasta. Great to see a good old-fashioned wooden rolling pin in action.
The meat-spread pasta, in turn, was rolled into tubes with cling wrap to hold them in place. Briefly, given the time-constraints, these were refrigerated, then sliced and pan-fried in butter. Fleischschnacka prep, rolling the egg pasta then spreading the meaty filling; bottom: slicing, then frying, the portions. “When you’re talking about French cooking, first, the basic ingredients must be very, very good.
Where they are sourced, and the seasons, are very important. And you never throw anything away. We would scrub the vegetables before peeling and use the peels for“So good ingredients. A lot of love.
Motivation. And we cook very slowly. You can’t cook French cuisine in five minutes. ”He looks bemused.
“I don’t know this,” he says. , when you’re cooking slow, the smell is better, the smell of the mix of the vegetables, the meat, everything is better. And you have to give it the time. That’s the problem.
Most difficulty now with French cuisine is everybody is in a hurry. So they don’t get enough time to make real French cuisine. That’s the problem, too, in France. ”“When you’re working in a restaurant kitchen, you have to have discipline and consistency and rules are important.
So, for instance, for vegetables. If I tell you to cut the vegetablesChef Husser pan-fries the sliced fleischschnacka portions in butter. “Yes, why not? Once you have the foundation, the core knowledge and ability, you can take it from there.
Then, the talent of the cook makes the difference. ” While he attended cooking school, “I was trained by other chefs. I went to Alsace, Paris, the south of France… Cooking is a huge universe and I learn every day. If I learn something, I go to bed happy.
”“I am still motivated. It is very important to stay motivated. When I go to bed, I can think today was good because I learned something new. ” Chef Husser pan fries, right, then plates, top left, the fleischschnacka; the students, in turn, served up a local specialty of samp, beans and amaranth and a slow-cooked cow’s head stew.
Talking about Alsace food, Isabelle Baumann-Lenot asks me to think of France and to name any region known for its food that is not located in a famous wine region.
“All the regions in France known for their food have distinctive good wine. When there is an area with no wine, there is no real cuisine. They go together,” she says.
“Same as in Alsace, which is very much a wine area. The Rhine divides the region of Germany and Alsace, on the border. This river gives a lot of ingredients to the soil . Even though it is the same river, the wine in Germany is not the same.
“We have an incredible diversity of wines in Alsace, which are very famous now. So we are very lucky to have the wine and the diversity of wine, and we also have the cuisine and the diversity of cuisine. ”which is a form of sauerkraut or fermented cabbage, made with sausages and pork and cumin and these little black juniper berries.
” I read online that this is a festive dish with a strong sense of identity, embracing the Alsace philosophy of sharing, conviviality and generosity and that is made for big feasts, village celebrations and family gatherings.
“I don’t speak it,” she says. “I am married with an Alsatian. It’s a German dialect, nothing French at all. It is a spoken language.
You can sometimes read it, but it is really something that is transmitted from generation to generation. ” Married to an Alsatian… My mind pops to that question I’ve known women to ask themselves. What’s better? To grow old with a man or a dog?
Does being Alsatian make you one and the same? Kind of reduce options – perhaps improve them? About 10% of “creative and enthusiastic” students who graduate with a diploma or degree in food and nutrition at DUT become chefs, says Professor Naicker. The focus is more specifically on food research, recipe development, nutrition.
Graduates mainly find work, she says, in big companies and organisations.
“We teach French culinary techniques, usually in a more applied and scientific way, rather than a pure traditional or fine dining context. So French techniques form the technical foundation of many of our dishes and we teach students core principles that translate directly into food science and product development. . We link them to food science principles and method such as an emulsification in sauces, heat-base cooking, roasting, braising, sautéing, thickening, roux-based systems.
We use them to demonstrate science-based principles and techniques like protein denaturation, starch gelatinisation, fat-water interaction such as emulsification. Over the years, controversy has raged. Chefs have been turned into celebrities. Chefs have returned their stars.
France continues to have the most three-Michelin-star restaurants followed by Japan. South Africa has yet to feature. Not surprisingly, the Michelin Guide is now downloadable and digital. And meanwhile, Michel Husser can share is legacy, knowing his son, Luca Husser, will continue the Le Cerf family heritage and stellar Alsace culinary story.
Michelin-Star Chef Sarah M’Bodji Alliance Française De Durban Wanda Hennig Tgifood Alsace Fleischschnacka DUT Food And Nutrition Ashika Naicker Friends Of Alsace
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