I was invited by my colleague, Thierry, the other day to go with him to the SIRHA convention, which is basically a huge food convention. In other words it was like my mecca. Full to the brim with French chefs, restaurant owners, and lovers of food. Companies came to showcase their new and innovative products. They had things from massage chairs (I'm guessing for the hospitality side of things) to crepe machines that made crepes on a rolling wheel that turned something like 10 crepes a minute out onto a heating plate. The exposition center was split up into categories like coffee, baking, meat, alcohol, kitchen products, big companies, small companies…..if you haven't already gotten the picture this thing was HUGE! The main attraction was a cooking competition titled "Bocuse d'Or" named for Lyons beloved Paul Bocuse, known for his innovative cuisine and michelin starred restaurant. The competition brought some of the top chefs from around the world to Lyon to try to gain the highly esteemed prize. In order to watch the competition, which was conducted similarly to the iron chef, one had to have a VIP pass. Fortunately, for Thierry and I, two of our students lent us their passes so we could go in and see what all of the hype was about. The noise from the crowd was comparable to a college football game. Italians painted their faces green and red, while the Americans chanted "USA, USA!" I was blown away I'm not used to seeing so much enthusiasm over food, it was nice to be around such like-minded people. In the end, a French chef won the competition, surprise surprise, and the big drama around school the next day was about the Australian team breaking their elaborate sugar sculpture which immediately disqualified them.
NPR's The Salt did a little piece on the Bocuse d'Or. You can read about it here.
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| Chocolate Sculpture outside the Bocuse d'Or |
As Thierry and I walked out of the Bocuse d'Or area we walked right into a Big Green Egg stand where I excitedly told Thierry all about my Dad getting one for Christmas and how incredible they are. The man from the stand overheard me speaking English and practically hugged me for it. He is from The Netherlands and can't speak French, why he was chosen to be the representative in France for still perplexes me, however he managed to sell the concept to Thierry who went to school the next day and bragged about this cool Atlanta grill to our colleagues. During our visit the representative asked me where I was from and when I said Atlanta I thought he might jump on me. Since Big Green Eggs come from the Atlanta area he was just there on business and went on and on about how much he loved the city. He even said that he stayed in Buckhead which made my little heart jump. It was such a strange experience to see someone who had a connection to my home even though we were so far from it.
We turned away from the green egg stand and practically ran into a cocktail juggling demonstration. A bar tender was throwing a bottle of vodka in the air catching it in the silver mixy thing (or whatever it's called) he even incorporated fire by juggling little fire torches and lighting the bar on fire. It was cool, a little more pizazz than I need with my drink, but it was fun to watch just the same.
Other things of note include: Speculoos coffee, new tools to create color divisions in drinks, robots that serve beer and wash the glass when you are finished, a pizza oven that heats up in 10 seconds and cooks your frozen pizza in 90 seconds, fancy Spanish ham, and all the free samples your little heart could desire. I spent the days after the convention gushing to Olivier and Odile (two of my main social outlets) about how much fun I had and how lucky I feel to be having such a great experience here.
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| Chocolate and Sugar sculptures |
Amazing!
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