All day I had been thinking about making a frangipane tarte for the weekend, but was stirring up a simple lentil stew tonight when I heard the sad news of Lenôtre’s death. The guiding light of French pastry makers passed away this morning in his home at the age of eighty eight, after a long illness. On the radio, French president Sarkozy offered words of praise: “He didn’t like conformity – he always searched to innovate with respect to the traditions and rules of the art of his métier….une remise en question incessante (always re-thinking a problem). He lifted pastry creation to the ranks of art”. Born in Normandy, the child of cooks, Gaston Lenôtre apprenticed with a pastry maker, then opened his first boutique in the chic rue d’Auteuil neighborhood in 1957. His clients clamored for more, and in 1960 the Lenôtre “service traiteur” was founded to cater receptions, weddings and official Parisian events. In 1971, a school of gastronomy, training chefs as well as pâtissiers was fit under the Lenôtre umbrella. Paul Bocuse, his colleague and friend of over fifty years commented: “Gaston was a genius, always reaching for perfection”. But the tribute that touched me was that of Pierre Hermé, the master of the macaron and a force in the wave of contemporary pâtisserie, who had been Lenôtre’s student. Hermé declared: “Without Gaston Lenôtre, pastry would not be the metier/art it has become today – he left us all a formidable legacy”.

Translations on this post from the French Press, January 8, by vagabondgourmand.