A ten-a-day diet for Mrs Macron (but her husband is less healthy)
BRIGITTE MACRON insists on eating 10 fruit and vegetables every day to keep svelte while her husband Emmanuel is partial to a more fattening cordon bleu, the head chef at the Elysée Palace has revealed.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Guillaume Gomez, 39, who has served meals for four successive presidents, said the menu was always “adapted” to presidential tastes, but centred on French cuisine.
“Let’s not hide behind false modesty,” he said. “Some 70 per cent of tourists who come to France say they do so for its gastronomy.
“We serve only French products at the president’s table if possible. All our fish, meat and fruit and vegetables either come from mainland France or from overseas territories.”
But while Mr Macron is busy modernising France upstairs, Mr Gomez is urging his countrymen to get back to basics in the kitchen.
He has published a recipe book focusing on the techniques underpinning classic French dishes from boeuf bourguignon to pot-au-feu.
“If you want very modern recipes or fusion, this book isn’t for you,” said the chef, sitting in his office with a large photograph of Mr Macron on the wall and a framed certificate of the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (Best Worker in France) award granted to only a handful of the country’s top chefs.
“This is a book about learning cooking techniques. Once you have learned your technical scales, you can turn your hand to anything,” said Mr Gomez.
His team of 25 cooks still use copper saucepans that were in the kitchens of Napoleon in the early 1800s. As head chef, Mr Gomez prepares up to 95,000 meals per year, from simple tête-à-tête dinners between the president and his wife to lavish gala feasts for foreign dignitaries.
He has twice served the Queen, most recently in 2014 for the 70th D-Day anniversary when, in an “unprecedented” move, she was allowed to choose the menu. Her choice of spring lamb from Sisteron in the heart of Provence led to a “major boost in exports”, he enthused.
While Elysée staff are served a fixed menu, the Macrons can order what they like, from “sandwiches” to sushi.
But Mr Gomez insisted there was no 24-hour room service. “We are not prey to presidential whims,” he said. “It’s a myth to believe they ask for this or that at the drop of a hat.”
The chef was loath to spill the beans on the specific tastes of France’s power couple, but did recently concede to French media that “Mrs Macron wants to be served 10 fruit and vegetables per day”, particularly seasonal ones.
It was easily done. “When you do an assortment of raw fruit and vegetables, that’s already five varieties. Even in a blanquette de veau there are four or five vegetables. Variety is the key,” he said.
The chef also serves cordon bleu at receptions – a breaded meat dish that Mr Macron particularly likes.
“We adapt to presidential tastes,” he said, adding that cheese and wine was back on the menu after Mr Hollande’s five-year stint in the Elysée.
There is one new guest he doesn’t have to worry about: the presidential couple’s dog Nemo.
“Apparently, for health reasons, the consensus is dog biscuits are best, so I don’t get involved,” he told BFM TV.