Formula Yum: Grosjean’s cuisine
FULL, FLUSTERED, FLECKED WITH flour. All of the above apply to Autosport’s culinary odyssey, testing out the dishes included in the recently released cookbook Marion and Romain Grosjean – Cuisine and Confidences, written by Grosjean’s journalistand-tv-presenter wife Marion.
The roots of the Haas Formula 1 driver’s passion for cooking are explained in the book’s editorial introduction, as Marion recalls that he needed to lose weight during 2009 when going from GP2 to his first, short-lived, F1 stint. When Renault dropped Grosjean at the end of that season, he used his catering expertise to help process his career reboot, which ultimately led to the 2011 GP2 title and rejoining the same Enstone-based team, by then called Lotus, in 2012. Since then, Marion writes, cooking helps Grosjean relax and spread joy among his family and friends: “I often say jokingly: ‘the F1 driver serves no daily purpose. It’s the cook that I married.’”
The book is split into six sections: ‘Welcome to Our Home’, ‘Children, it’s Ready!’, ‘Between Us’, ‘The Athlete’s Diet’, ‘Friends Bistro’, and ‘Eminent Chef’s Cuisine’. Each contains a selection of dishes, with the final chapter dedicated to recipes provided by Grosjean’s chef friends including Akrame Benallal and Guy Savoy.
These are interspersed with images of Grosjean’s F1 career, kitchen exploits and family life, and each recipe includes a short explanation of its background or importance to the couple.
To sample a wide range of the book’s flavour, Autosport picked out five dishes that hint at Grosjean’s F1 diet or just looked mouth-wateringly good. The chosen smorgasbord: ‘“So British” pea soup’, ‘beef stroganoff’, ‘sole fillets in papillote with truffle oil, cherry tomatoes and fennel’, and ‘salmon tartar and green asparagus’ – plus ‘macaroons with raspberry’ for the office to enjoy.
Although some elements of the Autosport staff can boast seven years’ experience in the catering industry, and others have links to bagel empires and kitchen hobbies, this writer’s skills are basic at best. But, overall, the results are good – which was not guaranteed.
The pea soup – “one of the first recipes that Romain tried when we moved to England” – is a triumph.
The invitingly vivid green colour hints at what is to come and the taste is flavoursome, velvety and moreish. The salmon tartar, once we’d got past the trepidation and then amazement at fish essentially cooking without heat, is splendidly tender and rich – “I would try it if I wasn’t a vegetarian,” says Autosport’s infinitely more skilled and patient sous chef. The stroganoff is also colourful and charming, but the beef doesn’t pack much of a flavour punch. The sole – smoky and very tasty – is sadly full of bones, which make eating it risky. But more time at the fish counter (or with a pair of tweezers) would have solved a problem of our own making.
There are some issues with Cuisine and Confidences that impacted on our experiment. The English translation is a touch off at times – although that does give it an authentic feel – and
some instructions are confusing. The soup, for example, needs to be blended before serving, which is not included in the stated process. The macaroons (see results left) taste delightful, but following the recipe exactly calls for the oven door to be left ajar; the heat is promptly blown out by the fan, leaving the end product unrisen and lumpy. There is also the grand total of six (out of 46) options available for vegetarians – our sous chef is rather unimpressed at this, not to mention the kitchen hierarchy, and the soup calls for poultry stock which we switch out for a suitable alternative. Plus, two dishes contain ethically repulsive fois gras.
But overall these are minor complaints. Autosport’s meal was thoroughly enjoyable and pleasantly different. That, in addition to the love between the Grosjeans and their family and friends that flows through the pages, is what makes Cuisine and Confidences stand out. There are few tales from the motorsport sphere, but the book is full of smaller stories about their lives that provide fantastic insight and understanding. It is decidedly different, and all the better for it.