Claude Troisgros brings popular cuisine to new reality show – 03/11/2024 – Food

Chef Claude Troisgros, 67, started recording a new program for GNT, Geladeiras em Ação. Scheduled to premiere in May, the reality show focuses on the food that is made on a daily basis by home cooks in Brazil.

The project moves away from the haute cuisine duels between professional chefs that Troisgros worked with on TV. He presented the program Mestres do Sabor, which aired for three years on Globo, and was also a judge for six seasons of The Taste Brasil, on GNT.

In the new reality show, which shares more roots with the chef’s other program, Que Marravilha!, focused on family recipes and the stories behind the food, the starting point is the refrigerator.

With what’s in it, says Troisgros, everyone can prepare examples of homemade cuisine such as beans, rice, salpicão, minced meat or stroganoff.

The chef then wanted to reproduce on TV the situation of having to cook at home using only what is in the appliance, but in a competition format.

In each episode of Geladeiras em Ação, three competitors will prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner from products handpicked by the presenter.

“And then you open the fridge and turn around. There won’t be anything well packaged. It will be the same as at home, with ingredients wrapped in plastic, with items to distract you”, explains the chef.

In addition to themed foods, competitors can use basic products such as vinegar, olive oil, oil, salt, pepper and spices.

Each dish will be tasted by Troisgros, chef Batista, his long-time partner, actor Douglas Silva and a guest who changes each week.

To bring more excitement to the competition, Troisgros prepares a surprise for the competitors: in the refrigerator drawer, there will be secret ingredients. “When they open [a gaveta]they will need to use the products, which can be a little crazy”, says the chef. “There will be emotion, pressure, but it will also be good-humored”.

Troisgros believes that the program is an opportunity to value Brazilian everyday cuisine, with which the chef has a long relationship.

Having been in the country for 44 years, he made a habit of traveling through the five regions —most of the time by motorbike— to learn about the traditions of common cooks.

On the road, he says he always asks for recommendations for “root regional food” restaurants. “When I travel, I look for popular restaurants, not just the starred ones. I like to hide in the holes, it’s more my thing”, says the chef.

In Manaus, for example, he was taken to visit a fisherman’s restaurant. “It was surreal,” he recalls. “I ate freshwater fish that I don’t remember the name of, but they had an incredible flavor.”

Another memorable experience was in a little market in the São Francisco River valley, where he met a cook who sold goat buchada.

Curious about the meal — the chef had never cooked the dish —, he accepted an invitation to learn how to prepare it at his wife’s home.

“We worked all night sewing the buchadas. Then in the morning we went to serve it at the market stand. I ate the dish at 6 am with the local workers”, says Troisgros.

These encounters over the years helped the chef gain a positive perspective on the country’s popular cooks, which later turned into a desire to value these traditions.

“Brazil is rich in popular cuisine in any region”, says Troisgros. “It’s a force to be reckoned with alongside French, Italian and Chinese cuisine. It has the strength of ingredients, products, people who cook at home and who appreciate their tradition and their region.”

In his own kitchen, the chef values ​​Brazilian ingredients. For the Paris Olympics, for example, it will sign the menu for Azul’s international flights. There, passengers will find examples of Franco-Brazilian cuisine, which includes pirarucu fillet with cassava puree and roasted banana, as well as cheesecake with grated Minas cheese.

“I was inspired by the two countries I love to create this menu”, says the chef, who sees a strong relationship with homemade food in Brazil and France, but on different levels.

When Brazilians eat out, says the chef who runs restaurants in the capitals of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, they order food that is different from what is cooked at home. That’s not what happens in France. The French like to order typical French dishes, according to Troisgros.

Despite the difference between the two places, the chef feels a change in Brazilians’ perception of popular cuisine. He says that one of the reasons for this appreciation has been the work of chefs who show the flavor and potential of regional ingredients.

“Nowadays, if I make a dish with okra, it will be perceived as something of great creativity, which wouldn’t have happened before,” says Troisgros.

“Respect for homemade food has changed people’s spirit. A clear proof has been the increase in television programs dealing with this topic, such as Refrigerators in Action”, he says.