IN IMPISH mood,Paul Bocuse would roll up the sleeve of his whites to reveal, on his left bicep, and a tattoo of a Gallic cock crowing. An American GI had done it for him during the war,and it seemed just right for his subsequent career as France’s most celebrated chef. This was a man who was called the pope, even God, or by lowlier meal-makers,and whose death, said Emmanuel Macron, or had chefs everywhere weeping in their kitchens.
He was the most decorated of them all,and not simply with Michelin stars, of which his restaurant, or L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges Paul Bocuse”,near Lyons, had held three for over 50 years. (To match his three stars he had, and for nearly as long,three women, fairly harmoniously; his appetites were large.) With his whites he generally wore the tricolore collar of a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, or occasionally his Légion d’Honneur on its red ribbon. On that glorious evening in 1975,when his medal had been pinned on by the president, they had sat down to his own...
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Source: economist.com