Jacques Pépin is still cooking for you (online)

0:00 watching videos.

0:02 Doo Oh, hi.

0:03 I didn't see you there.

0:04 I'm YouTube cook Adam

0:06 Regusia.

0:07 Are you like me?

0:08 A millennial with a weary, battered soul, and you

0:12 long to feel safe again, to feel like

0:15 there are grown-ups in charge, who

0:17 aren't you?

0:18 Well, you can step right

0:20 back into the comfort of grandpa's

0:22 kitchen right now, right here on

0:25 YouTube, where Jacqu Papan is still

0:28 waiting to make you some eggs.

0:30 Hi, I'm Jack Pep and I'm cooking at home.

0:35 I want to show you how to make scrambled

0:37 eggs.

0:38 Scramble eggs my way or the

0:40 classic way.

0:41 I'm doing a little bit of a

0:42 garnish here.

0:43 You don't have to or you

0:44 can have all kind of other things.

0:46 Here I have a a couple of mushroom.

0:50 Jacqu Papan is the longest tenured celebrity

0:53 chef in the US.

0:55 I would call him the

0:56 goat, but in my opinion that title goes

0:58 to his longtime collaborator Julia

1:01 Child.

1:01 And I'm guessing Jacques himself

1:03 would agree with me on that.

1:04 But Jacques Papan is number two.

1:06 And the thing about

1:07 him is he's still with us at 90 years

1:09 old.

1:10 He's dropping fresh content on his

1:12 YouTube channel, cooking in the same

1:14 modest Connecticut home that he's lived

1:16 in since 1976.

1:19 The whole concept of the cooking at home

1:21 was first of all, he was going to drive

1:22 my mother absolutely insane if he didn't

1:25 have a project.

1:26 Um

1:27 during the pandmic.

1:28 During the pandemic,

1:29 Claudine Pepin, as she naturally

1:31 pronounces it, is Jacques's daughter and

1:33 Raleigh is her chef husband.

1:35 And yeah, during COVID, they got dad doing some

1:38 basic recipe videos at home and they

1:41 just kept going and now there is a

1:42 treasure trove of these things.

1:44 What I love is how incredibly unpretentious

1:47 they are.

1:48 This is one of the greatest

1:49 classical French chefs of his

1:51 generation.

1:52 He was personal chef to

1:53 Charles de Gaulle for God's sake.

1:55 And now here he is telling us what he really

1:58 does at home at 90.

2:01 Very often I go to Chinese restaurant,

2:04 Japanese restaurant, I always end up

2:07 taking the the rice leftover at the end

2:10 and I want to show you how to do a kind

2:12 of a a fried rice or a mixture of rice

2:14 that you do.

2:15 He loves Chinese restaurant takeout.

2:17 That's his thing.

2:19 Claudine confirms that Jacqu Papan does

2:21 not repeat not Door Dash.

2:24 He gets Chinese takeout or he cooks a bit on

2:27 top.

2:28 And this is it.

2:29 to my leftover fried rice.

2:32 Happy cooking.

2:34 That dish look good to you.

2:36 Guess what?

2:37 JP don't care what you think.

2:39 That rice is not for you.

2:41 When you cook at home

2:42 for basic sustenance, not to have a

2:45 little project, not for fun, not to

2:48 impress anyone, but just to feed

2:49 yourself.

2:50 When you do that multiple

2:52 times a day, you just get much less

2:54 precious about it.

2:56 Even if you're Jacqu

2:57 Papan, especially if you're Jacques

2:59 Papan.

3:00 This is a man who's had nothing

3:01 left to prove for more than half a

3:03 century.

3:04 Let us do a close read of this

3:06 pork recipe.

3:08 Filler pork are available at any market.

3:12 They are relatively inexpensive.

3:14 They are very tender, very moist, very lean.

3:17 Okay, so he's cooking filt of pork.

3:19 And the first thing that he emphasizes is

3:21 how lean of a cut it is.

3:23 Jacques has a habit of mentioning the calories of the

3:25 food that he's cooking with specific

3:27 emphasis on fat.

3:28 In a way, I find this

3:30 comforting because this is the way that

3:32 people talked about nutrition during my

3:34 formative years in the 80s and '9s.

3:36 Today, we understand that too much fat

3:39 absolutely is bad for you, but fat is

3:41 not the nutritional final boss that it

3:44 was made out to be.

3:45 More of a level

3:46 boss.

3:47 Just like today, we have a more

3:48 nuanced understanding of salt.

3:50 Salt is not always bad for you.

3:53 Which leads me to thank Element, sponsor of today's

3:56 video.

3:56 As someone who works out really,

3:58 really hard, I have had the experience

4:00 of not having enough sodium, and it's

4:02 awful.

4:03 You get uh fuzzyheaded, you get

4:05 tired, you get kind of clumsy, and you

4:08 need to replenish that salt with perhaps

4:10 a tasty beverage.

4:11 Element is perfect for

4:12 athletes or people who are fasting cuz

4:15 much of what makes you feel bad when

4:16 you're not eating is low electrolytes.

4:18 Element is also perfect for people on

4:20 keto diets, low carb, paleo, anything

4:23 that assues the normal processed foods

4:26 that most people eat all the time and

4:27 are packed with salt.

4:29 If you take those

4:29 away, you might need to focus on getting

4:31 your salts elsewhere.

4:33 Hit my link in the

4:34 description to check out all of the

4:35 different flavors.

4:36 Drinkle element.com/adom.

4:38 You can get a free sample pack with any

4:40 purchase.

4:41 I like the classic citrus, but

4:43 the raspberry is really good, too.

4:45 drinklnt.com.

4:48 Thank you, Element.

4:49 Anyway, we were talking about my man Jacques Pen and how

4:52 he still talks about calories and fats

4:54 kind of in the way that people did in

4:56 the late 20th century.

4:57 And I find that

4:58 oddly comforting.

4:59 You're absolutely right to to attach that to the 80s

5:02 because when he was shooting the Today's

5:04 Gourmet series, that was very very

5:07 popular in uh you know, common culinary

5:10 culture to talk about nutrition and

5:13 nutritional values.

5:14 And so they really

5:15 amped that up when he was shooting

5:16 today's gourmet.

5:17 And so he got in the

5:18 habit of talking about whether uh things

5:21 had calories.

5:22 And uh so salt, pepper on top of it.

5:27 It is of course funny that Jacques is

5:29 talking about this while he has a lake

5:31 of butter popping in the pan next to

5:33 him.

5:33 He is a Frenchman to the end.

5:35 Also notice that he did not wash his hands

5:38 before grabbing that lid.

5:39 You see it in

5:40 all of these vids.

5:41 He touches the raw

5:42 meat or whatever and then he just wipes

5:44 his hands on the cloth.

5:45 I would get so

5:46 roasted in the comments if I did that

5:48 today on YouTube.

5:50 Not here to be the food police.

5:51 He's still he's still alive and so are

5:54 we.

5:54 So, you know,

5:56 yeah, that is an example of literal

5:58 survivorship bias, but it reminds me how

6:01 neither of my grandmothers worried that

6:03 much about sanitation in their kitchens.

6:05 It was really the public health scares

6:07 about E.coli coli burgers in the 80s and

6:09 '9s that got the word out and got people

6:12 like my parents washing their hands in

6:14 between every operation.

6:16 JP didn't have time for that in professional kitchens

6:19 and he didn't have time for it recording

6:20 hours of recipe content live to tape,

6:23 meaning almost no edits the way they

6:25 used to shoot it.

6:26 You got to keep things

6:27 moving in that context.

6:29 And Jacques Papan is actually much more careful

6:32 about crosscontamination than maybe it

6:34 might immediately seem.

6:35 If you really watch, you'll see that he

6:38 naturally goes from dry to wet

6:40 ingredients.

6:41 Right?

6:41 There's a progression there.

6:43 And also, if he picks

6:45 something up, he'll tend to not pick it

6:49 up.

6:49 He'll pick it up with like these two

6:50 fingers that didn't ever touch the weird

6:53 wet whatever.

6:55 There are several different tricks to the trade in doing

6:58 that because he moves quickly and

7:00 efficiently.

7:01 The butter and I will cover it at least partially

7:06 like this so it doesn't splatter too

7:08 much.

7:09 Lids.

7:10 It's amazing how few people

7:12 use lids on frying pans anymore.

7:15 That used to be really common.

7:17 Almost every kind of skillet used to come with a lid.

7:20 I suppose the current emphasis on

7:22 extreme browning argues against using

7:24 the lid and thereby trapping steam.

7:26 Steam doesn't brown things.

7:28 But you'll notice that he's leaving a crack open

7:30 for some steam to escape.

7:31 And his kitchen is certainly much cleaner for

7:33 it.

7:34 Dad will do a sauce with prune.

7:37 Pork and prune go very well together.

7:40 Oh, prunes.

7:41 You don't see prunes much

7:43 anymore.

7:44 Dried plums.

7:45 In the late 20th

7:46 century, prunes were heavily advertised

7:48 as a home remedy for constipation,

7:51 probably because of the fiber content

7:53 and the naturally occurring sorbital.

7:54 I think of prunes, I think of these classy

7:57 southern bells that Sunswuite cast for

8:00 their commercials in the 80s.

8:02 Look at her.

8:03 She knows this is going to fix her

8:04 little problem right quick.

8:06 Anyway, and I have about 10 12 prune here.

8:09 About half a cup of V8

8:13 juice.

8:13 You can use V8 as a sauce base.

8:16 I just did that in a recipe video the

8:18 other day and I probably absorbed the

8:20 idea from sitting on my parents living

8:22 room floor watching Jacqu Pen on public

8:25 television because it was one of the

8:26 only channels that we could get on our

8:28 antenna.

8:29 V8 was heavily advertised as a

8:31 health drink in the late 20th century.

8:34 And some garlic.

8:35 Yeah, I can grate the

8:36 garlic on this here.

8:38 What is up with that grater design?

8:41 Jacques's kitchen is filled with all

8:43 kinds of quirky forgotten appliances

8:45 that companies probably sent him through

8:47 the years.

8:48 Lord knows people send me all

8:50 kinds of unsolicited junk.

8:52 Imagine if he was Jacqu Papan.

8:53 I love when he pulls

8:54 out some weird yellowing plastic food

8:56 processor or something that's been in

8:58 one of those cupboards for decades along

9:00 with god knows what else.

9:02 At uh one of

9:03 our recent events, we put uh up an

9:05 auction item that we called Jacques's

9:07 kitchen treasures.

9:09 And we had a couple

9:10 of really nice things in there, like a

9:12 really lovely copper pot that came, you

9:14 know, from his kitchen.

9:16 But we also like

9:16 dug through the cupboards a little bit

9:18 and I found like this this set of um

9:21 McCormick food color dyes that were

9:24 literally like 50 years old.

9:25 Like I I recognized the script and the and the

9:28 you know the little colored hats, the

9:30 pointed colored hats that were on top of

9:31 those little squeeze bottles.

9:33 I was like, "Yes, you too can own this."

9:36 The winner of that auction item was

9:38 like, "Oh my god, did you really take

9:40 that from his kitchen?

9:41 Has it been there

9:42 for 50 years?" I'm like, "Yes, yes it

9:44 has." In fact,

9:46 my parents used to have that exact same

9:48 box of food coloring.

9:49 And we may have

9:50 used the same box for my entire

9:52 childhood.

9:53 I bet some of those dyes are

9:54 illegal now, but I bet that you remember

9:57 some weird pantry item that you visited

10:00 like an old friend every Christmas in

10:02 your grandparents' kitchen when you

10:04 would open up that one cupboard.

10:06 So, you see, I have a good uh two

10:09 teaspoon maybe of garlic.

10:11 Another thing you'll notice in these

10:12 videos is that Jacques gives me almost

10:14 everything, even the stuff that he is

10:16 clearly just eyeballing.

10:18 and he always gives it in the standard measurements of

10:21 his adopted homeland.

10:23 Those US standard measurements are now fading into

10:26 obscurity as they should.

10:28 It's time to join the global metric party.

10:30 But even when JP is eyeballing something, he

10:33 gives a quantity.

10:34 Why?

10:35 Coming to the United States, one of the first jobs he

10:38 had, one of the big jobs he had was

10:40 working for Howard Johnson's and he was

10:42 in their development kitchen.

10:44 Imagine the measurements.

10:47 Imagine writing books.

10:48 You have to give

10:49 a measurement.

10:50 And I love that he

10:51 doesn't say salt and pepper to taste.

10:55 I really loathe recipes that say salt

10:58 and pepper to taste because if you're

11:00 teaching somebody how to cook, they

11:02 don't know what it's supposed to taste

11:03 like,

11:05 right?

11:06 I'm mugging for the camera right now

11:08 because as you may know, I almost never

11:10 give measurements for salts unless it's

11:12 in a baked good, which can be kind of

11:14 hard to taste before it's done.

11:16 I give almost no measurements at all in my own

11:19 recipe content.

11:20 Part of that is that I'm

11:21 not publishing cookbooks like Jacques

11:23 did his whole life.

11:25 Traditional publishing is all but dead, and I can

11:28 make way more money just making videos.

11:31 And the videos we make today are much

11:33 clearer and sharper and close up.

11:35 And as a result, you can clearly see about how

11:39 much salt I put in there.

11:40 And that gives you a starting place.

11:42 Back in JP's day,

11:43 it was amazing how little you could see

11:46 the actual food in a food show.

11:48 Food shows were mostly shot from really far

11:51 away, like a multi- camera sitcom.

11:53 The lighting was on the host's face more

11:56 than the food.

11:57 And TV was standard

11:59 definition.

12:00 All TV looked blurry until

12:02 HD became the standard in the early

12:04 2000s.

12:05 Today on YouTube, you can see the

12:08 individual flakes of salt as I am

12:10 throwing them in there.

12:11 And that is just

12:12 a really different context for making

12:14 food content.

12:15 JP is old school and I

12:17 love him for it.

12:18 And that would be good

12:19 of course with a pasta or a rice or something like

12:23 that.

12:24 A bit of sh on top.

12:26 And here we are.

12:28 or fillet of pork.

12:30 Look at that.

12:31 No starch for thickening.

12:33 No monte a burr.

12:35 Just slap the food on

12:36 the platter and eat it because it's for

12:38 you, not for Instagram.

12:41 With prune and tomato sauce.

12:43 Happy cooking.

12:48 Happy cooking.

12:50 This man has lived in the

12:51 US since the Eisenhower administration,

12:54 and he still steadfastly refuses to

12:56 pronounce his hes.

12:57 That is so boss.

13:00 Hungry.

13:00 Really hard.

13:02 And sheet pans always bring out a

13:04 kettle.

13:06 Yeah.

13:05 How does he say sheetpan?

13:07 Well, a little more like an I than two

13:09 e.

13:10 Little pan.

13:12 Now, some of these cooking at home

13:13 videos are on the YouTube channel of

13:15 KQED, which is one of the many public TV

13:18 stations that Jacques has worked with

13:19 through the years.

13:21 Some of them are on

13:21 the channel run by the Jacques Papan

13:23 Foundation, which Raleigh and Claudine

13:26 run.

13:26 They do culinary education for

13:28 people who might normally have trouble

13:30 finding a job.

13:31 People who have been

13:31 incarcerated, for example.

13:33 It's really great work, and it's the foundation that

13:35 produces these cooking at home videos.

13:38 The content is relatively fresh, but

13:40 they've not shot anything so far this

13:42 year.

13:43 JP's wife died in 2020.

13:46 He talks about her sometimes in the present tense

13:48 in these videos, and it's not always

13:50 clear if that's because the video is

13:52 old.

13:52 He's getting up there himself,

13:54 living in that house all alone.

13:56 We're Raleigh and I are going to be moving

13:58 there um in the summer and um and so

14:02 because you know he's 90, he's earned

14:04 our care.

14:05 Is he in pain all the time?

14:09 Yes, he is.

14:09 It's awful.

14:10 And I don't know what

14:12 to do.

14:13 Um yeah.

14:16 Yeah.

14:16 Jacques's right arm never really

14:18 recovered from a car accident he barely

14:20 survived back in' 74.

14:22 You can see him

14:22 struggling with it as he cooks once you

14:24 know to look for it.

14:25 Life is fragile and

14:27 nothing lasts forever.

14:28 But Jacqu Papan has lasted for about as long as anyone

14:32 could and he will still be here waiting

14:34 for us in that kitchen in Connecticut

14:37 long after he is gone.

14:40 It makes me wonder if someday I will be a comfort

14:43 item for somebody who grew up watching

14:45 me cook me and the other bozos on

14:48 YouTube.

14:49 Well, as long as this website

14:51 is here, so shall we be.

14:54 Happy cooking.