[00:00] hi. I didn't see you there. I'm YouTube cook&nbsp; Adam Ragusea. Are you like me? A millennial with&nbsp;&nbsp; a weary, battered soul and you long to feel safe&nbsp; again? To feel like there are grownups in charge&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:17] who aren't you? Well, you can step right back&nbsp; into the comfort of grandpa's kitchen right now,&nbsp;&nbsp; right here on YouTube, where Jacques Pepin&nbsp; is still waiting to make you some eggs. &nbsp;
[00:30] at home. I want to show you how to make scrambled&nbsp; eggs. Scrambled eggs my way or the classic way.&nbsp;&nbsp; I'm doing a little bit of a garnish here, you&nbsp; don't have to, or you can have all kind of other&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:46] things. Here I have a couple of mushroom. Adam: &nbsp; Jacques Pepin is the longest tenured celebrity&nbsp; chef in the US. I would call him the GOAT,&nbsp;&nbsp; but in my opinion, that title goes to&nbsp; his longtime collaborator, Julia Child,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:01] and I'm guessing Jacques himself would agree&nbsp; with me on that. But Jacques Pepin is number&nbsp;&nbsp; two. And the thing about him is he's still with&nbsp; us at 90 years old. He's dropping fresh content&nbsp;&nbsp; on his YouTube channel, cooking in the same modest&nbsp; Connecticut home that he's lived in since 1976. &nbsp;
[01:18] first of all, he was going to drive my mother&nbsp; absolutely insane if he didn't have a project. &nbsp; Adam: Claudine Pepin, as she&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:31] naturally pronounces it, is Jacques's daughter.&nbsp; And Rolley is her chef husband. And yeah,&nbsp;&nbsp; during COVID, they got dad doing some basic recipe&nbsp; videos at home and they just kept going. And now&nbsp;&nbsp; there is a treasure trove of these things. What&nbsp; I love is how incredibly unpretentious they are.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:48] This is one of the greatest classical French chefs&nbsp; of his generation. He was personal chef to Charles&nbsp;&nbsp; de Gaulle for God's sake. And now here he is&nbsp; telling us what he really does at home at 90. &nbsp;
[02:00] to the Chinese restaurant, Japanese restaurant.&nbsp; I always end up taking the rice leftover at the&nbsp;&nbsp; end. And I want to show you how to do a kind of&nbsp; a fried rice or a mixture of rice that you do. &nbsp;
[02:15] Claudine confirms that Jacques Pepin does not,&nbsp; repeat, not DoorDash. He gets Chinese takeout&nbsp;&nbsp; A little on top, and this is it. My&nbsp; leftover fried rice. Happy cooking. &nbsp;
[02:33] Adam: That dish look good to you? Guess what?&nbsp;&nbsp; JP don't care what you think. That rice is not for&nbsp; you. When you cook at home for basic sustenance,&nbsp;&nbsp; not to have a little project, not for fun, not&nbsp; to impress anyone, but just to feed yourself,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:50] when you do that multiple times a day,&nbsp; you just get much less precious about it,&nbsp;&nbsp; even if you're Jacques Pepin, especially if you're&nbsp; Jacques Pepin. This is a man who's had nothing&nbsp;&nbsp; left to prove for more than half a century.&nbsp; Let us do a close read of this pork recipe. &nbsp;
[03:07] Jacques: Filet pork are available&nbsp;&nbsp; at any market. They are relatively inexpensive.&nbsp; They are very tender, very moist, very lean. &nbsp; of pork. And the first thing that he emphasizes&nbsp; is how lean of a cut it is. Jacques has a habit&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:24] of mentioning the calories of the food that he's&nbsp; cooking, with specific emphasis on fat. In a way,&nbsp;&nbsp; I find this comforting because this is the way&nbsp; that people talked about nutrition during my&nbsp;&nbsp; formative years in the '80s and '90s. Today, we&nbsp; understand that too much fat absolutely is bad&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:40] for you, but fat is not the nutritional final boss&nbsp; that it was made out to be. More of a level boss. &nbsp; Just like today, we have a more nuanced&nbsp; understanding of salt. Salt is not always&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:52] bad for you, which leads me to thank LMNT, sponsor&nbsp; of today's video. As someone who works out really,&nbsp;&nbsp; really hard, I have had the experience of not&nbsp; having enough sodium, and it's awful. You get&nbsp;&nbsp;
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[04:50] we were talking about my man Jacques Pepin and&nbsp; how he still talks about calories and fats kind&nbsp;&nbsp; of in the way that people did in the late 20th&nbsp; century. And I find that oddly comforting. &nbsp; the '80s because when he was shooting the Today's&nbsp; Gourmet series, that was very, very popular in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:09] common culinary culture to talk about nutrition&nbsp; and nutritional values. And so they really amped&nbsp;&nbsp; that up when he was shooting Today's Gourmet. And&nbsp; so he got in the habit of talking about whether&nbsp;&nbsp; And salt, pepper on top of it. Adam: &nbsp;
[05:27] lake of butter popping in the pan next to&nbsp; him. He is a Frenchman to the end. Also,&nbsp;&nbsp; notice that he did not wash his hands before&nbsp; grabbing that lid. You see it in all of these&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:40] vids. He touches the raw meat or whatever, and&nbsp; then he just wipes his hands on the cloth. I would&nbsp;&nbsp; get so roasted in the comments if I did that today&nbsp; on YouTube. Not here to be the food police. &nbsp;
[05:52] Adam: Yeah, that is&nbsp;&nbsp; an example of literal survivorship bias, but it&nbsp; reminds me how neither of my grandmothers worried&nbsp;&nbsp; that much about sanitation in their kitchens. It&nbsp; was really the public health scares about E. Coli&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:08] burgers in the 80s and 90s that got the word out&nbsp; and got people like my parents washing their hands&nbsp;&nbsp; in between every operation. JP didn't have time&nbsp; for that in professional kitchens, and he didn't&nbsp;&nbsp; have time for it recording hours of recipe content&nbsp; live to tape, meaning almost no edits the way they&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:25] used to shoot it. You got to keep things moving&nbsp; in that context. And Jacques Pepin is actually&nbsp;&nbsp; much more careful about cross-contamination&nbsp; than maybe it might immediately seem. &nbsp; Claudine: If you really watch, you'll see that he naturally&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:39] goes from dry to wet ingredients, right? There's a&nbsp; progression there. And also, if he picks something&nbsp;&nbsp; up, he'll pick it up with these two fingers that&nbsp; didn't ever touch the weird, wet whatever. There&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:55] are several different tricks to the trade in doing&nbsp; that because he moves quickly and efficiently. &nbsp; I will cover it at least partially like&nbsp; this so it doesn't splatter too much. &nbsp;
[07:09] people use lids on frying pans anymore. That used&nbsp; to be really common. Almost every kind of skillet&nbsp;&nbsp; used to come with a lid. I suppose the current&nbsp; emphasis on extreme browning argues against using&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:24] the lid and thereby trapping steam. Steam doesn't&nbsp; brown things, but you'll notice that he's leaving&nbsp;&nbsp; a crack open for some steam to escape and his&nbsp; kitchen is certainly much cleaner for it. &nbsp; and prune go very well together. Adam: &nbsp;
[07:40] Oh, prunes. You don't see prunes much anymore.&nbsp; Dried plums. In the late 20th century,&nbsp;&nbsp; prunes were heavily advertised as&nbsp; a home remedy for constipation,&nbsp;&nbsp; probably because of the fiber content and the&nbsp; naturally occurring sorbitol. I think of prunes,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:56] I think of these classy Southern Bells that&nbsp; Sunsweet cast for their commercials in the&nbsp;&nbsp; 80s. Look at her. She knows this is going to&nbsp; fix her little problem right quick. Anyway. &nbsp; Jacques: And I have about 10, 12 prune here. About a&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:10] cup of V8 or tomato juice you can use. Adam: &nbsp; V8 as a sauce base. I just did that&nbsp; in a recipe video the other day and&nbsp;&nbsp; I probably absorbed the idea from sitting&nbsp; on my parents' living room floor watching&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:23] Jacques Pepin on public television because it&nbsp; was one of the only channels that we could get&nbsp;&nbsp; on our antenna. V8 was heavily advertised as&nbsp; a health drink in the late 20th century. &nbsp; grate the garlic on this here. Adam: &nbsp;
[08:38] What is up with that greater design? Jacques'&nbsp; kitchen is filled with all kinds of quirky,&nbsp;&nbsp; forgotten appliances that companies probably sent&nbsp; him through the years. Lord knows people send me&nbsp;&nbsp; all kinds of unsolicited junk. Imagine if he were&nbsp; Jacques Pepin. I love when he pulls out some weird&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:55] yellowing plastic food processor or something&nbsp; that's been in one of those cupboards for decades,&nbsp;&nbsp; At one of our recent events, we put up an auction&nbsp; item that we call Jacques' Kitchen Treasures.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:09] And we had a couple of really nice things in&nbsp; there, like a really lovely copper pot that came&nbsp;&nbsp; from his kitchen. But we also dug through the&nbsp; cupboards a little bit and I found this set of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:21] McCormick food color dyes that were literally&nbsp; like 50 years old. I recognized the script and the&nbsp;&nbsp; little colored hats, the pointed colored hats that&nbsp; were on top of those little squeeze bottles. &nbsp; Claudine: I was like, "Yes, you too can own this. " &nbsp;
[09:36] that auction item was like, "Oh my God, did&nbsp; you really take that from his kitchen?" &nbsp; Rollie: ... "Yes. Yes, it has," in fact. &nbsp; that exact same box of food coloring, and we may&nbsp; have used the same box for my entire childhood.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:53] I bet some of those dyes are illegal now. But I&nbsp; bet that you remember some weird pantry item that&nbsp;&nbsp; you visited like an old friend every Christmas in&nbsp; your grandparents' kitchen when you would open up&nbsp;&nbsp; So you see, I have a good two&nbsp; teaspoon maybe of garlic. &nbsp;
[10:10] in these videos is that Jacques gives measurements&nbsp; for almost everything. Even the stuff that he is&nbsp;&nbsp; clearly just eyeballing, and he always gives&nbsp; it in the standard measurements of his adopted&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:22] homeland. Those US standard measurements are now&nbsp; fading into obscurity as they should. It's time to&nbsp;&nbsp; join the global metric party. But even when JP is&nbsp; eyeballing something, he gives a quantity. Why? &nbsp;
[10:35] he had, one of the big jobs he had was working for&nbsp; Howard Johnson's, and he was in their development&nbsp;&nbsp; kitchen. Imagine the measurements. And then&nbsp; writing books, you have to give a measurement. &nbsp;
[10:50] salt and pepper to taste. Rollie: &nbsp; I really loathe recipes that say salt&nbsp; and pepper to taste, because if you're&nbsp;&nbsp; Jacques: Right. &nbsp;
[11:04] now because as you may know, I almost never give&nbsp; measurements for salt unless it's in a baked good,&nbsp;&nbsp; which can be kind of hard to taste before it's&nbsp; done. I give almost no measurements at all in my&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:19] own recipe content. Part of that is that I'm not&nbsp; publishing cookbooks like Jacques did his whole&nbsp;&nbsp; life. Traditional publishing is all but dead,&nbsp; and I can make way more money just making videos.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:31] And the videos we make today are much clearer&nbsp; and sharper and close up. And as a result,&nbsp;&nbsp; you can clearly see about how much salt I put&nbsp; in there, and that gives you a starting place. &nbsp; Back in JP's day, it was amazing how little you&nbsp; could see the actual food in a food show. Food&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:49] shows were mostly shot from really far away,&nbsp; like a multi-camera sitcom. The lighting was&nbsp;&nbsp; on the host's face more than the food, and TV was&nbsp; standard definition. All TV looked blurry until HD&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:03] became the standard in the early 2000s. Today on&nbsp; YouTube, you can see the individual flakes of salt&nbsp;&nbsp; as I am throwing them in there. And that is just a&nbsp; really different context for making food content.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:15] That would be good, of course, with a pasta or&nbsp; a rice or something like that. A bit of chive on&nbsp;&nbsp; top. And here we are. Our filet of pork. Adam: &nbsp;
[12:30] Look at that. No starch for thickening, no monte&nbsp; au beurre. Just slap the food on the platter and&nbsp;&nbsp; eat it because it's for you, not for Instagram. Jacques: &nbsp; With prune and tivero sauce, happy cooking. Adam: &nbsp;
[12:48] "Appy cooking." This man has lived in the&nbsp; US since the Eisenhower administration,&nbsp;&nbsp; and he still steadfastly refuses to&nbsp; pronounce his H's. That is so boss. &nbsp; Rollie: And sheet pans always bring out a giggle. &nbsp;
[13:04] Rollie: Well, a little more like an I than two E's. &nbsp; Adam: Now, some of these cooking at home videos&nbsp;&nbsp; are on the YouTube channel of KQED, which is one&nbsp; of the many public TV stations that Jacques has&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:19] worked with through the years. Some of them are on&nbsp; the channel run by the Jacques Pepin Foundation,&nbsp;&nbsp; which Rolley and Claudine run. They do culinary&nbsp; education for people who might normally have&nbsp;&nbsp; work. And it's the Foundation that produces&nbsp; these cooking at home videos. The content is&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:39] relatively fresh, but they've not shot anything&nbsp; so far this year. JP's wife died in 2020. He&nbsp;&nbsp; talks about her sometimes in the present tense&nbsp; in these videos, and it's not always clear if&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:51] that's because the video is old. He's getting up&nbsp; there himself, living in that house all alone. &nbsp; Claudine: Rolley and I are going to be moving there in the&nbsp;&nbsp; summer, because he's 90, he's earned our care. Adam: &nbsp;
[14:05] Yes. He is. It's awful. And I&nbsp; don't know what to do. Yeah. &nbsp; arm never really recovered from a car accident.&nbsp; He barely survived back in '74. You can see him&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:22] struggling with it as he cooks once you know to&nbsp; look for it. Life is fragile and nothing lasts&nbsp;&nbsp; forever. But Jacques Pepin has lasted for about&nbsp; as long as anyone could, and he will still be here&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:34] waiting for us in that kitchen in Connecticut&nbsp; long after he is gone. It makes me wonder if&nbsp;&nbsp; someday I will be a comfort item for somebody&nbsp; who grew up watching me cook, me and the other&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:47] bozos on YouTube. Well, as long as this website&nbsp; is here, so shall we be. "Appy cooking."