21 SEPTEMBER 2011
Finger’s exceptional tableware is witness to the alchemy between culinary arts and the arts of the table. It was in this spirit that Institut Paul Bocuse, through its students, Chefs-instructors and its Research Center, participated in this tableware creation project.
The Finger tableware service designed by Jean-Baptiste Sibertin-Blanc for Orfèvrerie de France is a convincing example of the current trends in design. For a designer, designing tableware is a most delicate exercise. If the task of the stylist consists in making objects more refined and elegant, he must especially take into account ergonomics and usage. “Tableware combines all of the design issues”, sums up Jean-Baptiste Sibertin-Blanc.
To serve as a judge, Institut Paul Bocuse was naturally solicited. In order to confidently take on the draconian tests led by chefs Patrick Ogheard and Jean Naquin, the designer considered the fact that the tableware it the first thing to enter into contact with the food, thereby disturbing the subtle balance of the dressed dishes before subliming the taste buds. The challenge was met… the dessert spoon carved delicately into the foie gras and the fish knife, subtly blended with a spoon, progressively entered a blue lobster…
For the first time, a range of tableware has been designed with a specific menu in mind, and what a menu indeed… Institut Paul Bocuse has proclaimed “Finger, when tableware goes to the table …”
Through this type of dynamic creativity, Institut Paul Bocuse wishes to pay tribute to the know-how and ‘savoir-être’ of our great French tables, recently proclaimed as a Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage of Humanity through a book entitled: “L’art de recevoir à la française” (Edition Flammarion – to be published in October 2011), with its rituals and presentation.
* Sources: Thierry de Beaumont – Author of a book entitled “Culinaire Design” published by Éditions Alternatives Gallimard.
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