FFaced with environmental problems and the realization that food and energy resources are inexorably depleted, Lucie Le Guen has opted for resilience. The turning point came when this chef moved to the Pyrenees. It was at the head of an organic restaurant that she began to campaign for a more eco-responsible vision of her cuisine. A cuisine that would go against the race for innovation, a cuisine that would question our way of preparing and consuming food, a cuisine with a low energy impact that would be shaped slowly, using local products, traditional techniques and simple, long-lasting utensils.
Lucie Le Guen develops this philosophy in Low-tech cooking, a cookbook in the form of a manifesto that has just been published by Editions Ulmer. More than forty recipes, illustrated with tutorials, in which priority is given to “soft technologies”, that allow modern cooks to free themselves from appliances.
The author thus teaches us once again to cook with nature and the means at our disposal. As time goes by, he starts by drying, infusing, fermenting or slowly cooking the food in a Norwegian pot. With the energy of the body, then, using a vegetable mill instead of a blender or making his own sauces (pestos, mustard) and spice mixes (curry paste) with a mortar and pestle.
With fire, directly from the embers (burnt asparagus, beetroot in a salt crust) or from a rocket stove (a low-fuel stove), or even from a Palestinian oven (which transforms a gas stove into an auxiliary oven). With the sun, simply by learning to use box, tubular or parabolic ovens: rustic utensils that allow food to be cooked by reflecting the sun’s rays. With the cold of winter, finally, by learning to maximize the shelf life of fruit and vegetables.
“If you are concerned about the direction our civilization is taking, Lucie Le Guen concludes, You too, learn to cook outdoors, over a fire or in the sun. But don’t do it to save the world, do it for the pleasure of learning, doing and doing again. »
The star recipe Low-temperature roast chicken, cooked at 120°C in a box oven.
The shock tool The parabola, a solar oven capable of reaching 230°C in just a few minutes.
Low-tech cooking. Local and creative recipes to save energy, by Lucie Le Guen, Ulmer Editions, 192 p., 25 euros.
