I just watched Kings of Pastry the other evening, expecting it
to be a fluffy documentary about French pastry chefs competing for the
title of “Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France” (One of the Best Craftsmen of
France, otherwise known as MOF). I never dreamed that the competition was the
culinary equivalent of the Iron Man triathlon, pitting the chefs against one
another in a grueling survival-of-the-fittest contest. As one critic has said,
this is the “culinary equivalent of The
Hurt Locker.” In three days of
competition each chef must prepare a tiered wedding cake, cream puffs and
chocolates, tea pastries and jams, a restaurant-style plated dessert, a
chocolate sculpture and a sugar sculpture and chocolate lollipops, plus a
fiendishly difficult special desert added at the last minute by the judges.
Winners get to wear prestigious red, white and blue collars. This is a
different world from where you or I might bake a batch of chocolate chip
cookies to nibble. It’s one where chefs dissect cream puffs and taste them with
the seriousness of nuclear scientists. They spin sugar into fabulous flowers,
birds, ribbons and bows–pastry works of art– each more fantastical than the
last. And they must do it at a relentless pace under the eyes of exacting
judges. When, at the last minute of the
competition, a chef dropped a fabulous sugar sculpture comprised of arabesques
of spun sugar intertwined with sugar roses, I screamed. It was a truly shocking
moment. This is a fascinating
documentary about anyone who competes at the highest level, whether as an Olympic
athlete, or in this case, a pastry chef.
