By Adam Rabiner
NOTE: The debut film of The Safe Food Committee’s Plow to Plate movie series, H2Worker, was shown in September 2009. It’s appropriate that we begin our 10th season this September with a very special screening of Kings of Pastry, a Pennebaker Hegedus film, and that D.A. Pennebaker and his wife and collaborator since 1976, Chris Hegedus, have agreed to participate in the Q & A. D A (Donn Alan) Pennebaker has been making films for over 50 years. His oeuvre of over 50 films includes 1967’s classic Don’t Look Back, which followed Bob Dylan’s last acoustic tour of England, as well as features on musicians Suzanne Vega, David Bowie, Otis Redding, John Lennon, Little Richard, and others. We owe their presence to long time squad member, and film maker, Robin Hessman’s friendship with the couple. Robin brought them to Moscow in 2007 to screen D.A. Pennebaker’s 1959 documentary, Opening in Moscow, where she accompanied them on shoots with French pastry chefs who had received their Meilleurs Ouviers de France (MOF) in preparation for their latest film, 2009’s Kings of Pastry.
There is a reason that cooking competition shows like Top Chef, Cutthroat Kitchen, or even the more genteel The Great British Bake Off are so popular. They have all the right ingredients: talented and ambitious chefs and sous chefs, mean and nice judges, often an interesting theme, and timed, high-pressure drama. They’re like Survivor, but in a kitchen and boiled down to an hour.
Documentarians D.A. Pennebaker and his wife and partner Chris Hegedus are capturing the public’s fascination with food preparation and competition in the warm-hearted film, King of Pastries. Like the many TV shows it in some ways resembles, the film is entirely captivating.
Pennebaker Hegedus show us what it takes to become “Meilleurs Ouviers de France,” literally translated as “best workers of France” (MOFs) but really “kings of pastry.” To become a MOF, the world’s best and most ambitious pastry chefs must face off against one another for three grueling days and be evaluated by former winning contestants. During this period they showcase their cream puffs and other pastries, build and display large elaborate glass-like show-pieces, made from crystalized sugar – flowers, hearts, birds in nests, jewels - smaller sugar creations known as bijous, chocolate sculptures, wedding cakes and their displays, and more, all to have the privilege of wearing the distinct blue, white, and red MOF collar - a non-MOF caught wearing one could go to jail.
These competitions which happen only once every four years – they are indeed Olympian - start with sixty to seventy candidates of which only sixteen qualify as finalists. And of the sixteen finalists, only a handful are ultimately crowned MOFs. It’s the pastry chef equivalent of becoming a sommelier, a process masterfully shown in the movie, Somm.
Kings of Pastry follows one particular would-be king especially closely, charismatic and funny Jacquy Pfeiffer, a French expatriate who has settled in Chicago and is founder and co-owner of The French Pastry School. However, other competitors get their fair share of screen time too, and you can’t help root for them all. Unlike American Idol’s judge Simon Cowell, who is famous for reducing contestants to tears, the MOF judges, who appraise works based on aesthetics and up to twenty individual tastings, are sympathetic, empathetic, fair but kind. These judges want people to do well. They wish they could award the MOF to everyone. When one competitor’s delicate sugar sculpture shatters – an almost disqualifying event - the judges, tears in their eyes, gently encourage the devastated pastry chef to pull himself together to quickly assemble a rough replacement for scoring to ensure he remains in the competition. After witnessing this catastrophe the viewer can understand why Jacquy built shock absorbers for his entry.
If Kings of Pastry is exhilarating to watch, it is also mentally and almost physically exhausting. “Why put yourself through this?” asks one of the depleted chefs at the end of the three day work out. The finalists spend months, if not years, preparing and sacrificing for the show-down and immaculately plan and diagram every minute, no detail too small to escape their notice – too much sugar in that mouse, adjust the recipe. Jacquy does a three-day dry run before the official start of the contest, enlisting the support of his business partner, like any student hoping to ace an important, punishing, high stakes test. Then, for three days, from dawn to dusk, the finalists pour their hearts, souls, and every ounce of artistry, creativity, and talent into making pastries which are a marvel to view and taste (they’re up for grabs to family and friends at the conclusion of the event).
Kings of Pastry is specifically about making and baking pastries and other desserts and delicacies. But more broadly it is about grit, effort, giving it your all no matter what the result, and not regretting the outcome even if it is not what you had hoped for. This is a universal story grounded in the specific. Even though not everyone became a MOF (on this particular trial by fire) it is ultimately a happy story about excellence, planning, hard work, striving, empathy, dealing with pressure, and the value of discipline and perseverance in the face of adversity and misfortune. Despite the fact that there are more losers than winners, the movie ends on an upbeat note, a wedding, and a well-deserved celebration. For those who did not become the kings of pastry, if they can stomach another attempt, there is always another chance four years later.
NOTE: The debut film of The Safe Food Committee’s Plow to Plate movie series, H2Worker, was shown in September 2009. It’s appropriate that we begin our 10th season this September with a very special screening of Kings of Pastry, a Pennebaker Hegedus film, and that D.A. Pennebaker and his wife and collaborator since 1976, Chris Hegedus, have agreed to participate in the Q & A. D A (Donn Alan) Pennebaker has been making films for over 50 years. His oeuvre of over 50 films includes 1967’s classic Don’t Look Back, which followed Bob Dylan’s last acoustic tour of England, as well as features on musicians Suzanne Vega, David Bowie, Otis Redding, John Lennon, Little Richard, and others. We owe their presence to long time squad member, and film maker, Robin Hessman’s friendship with the couple. Robin brought them to Moscow in 2007 to screen D.A. Pennebaker’s 1959 documentary, Opening in Moscow, where she accompanied them on shoots with French pastry chefs who had received their Meilleurs Ouviers de France (MOF) in preparation for their latest film, 2009’s Kings of Pastry.
There is a reason that cooking competition shows like Top Chef, Cutthroat Kitchen, or even the more genteel The Great British Bake Off are so popular. They have all the right ingredients: talented and ambitious chefs and sous chefs, mean and nice judges, often an interesting theme, and timed, high-pressure drama. They’re like Survivor, but in a kitchen and boiled down to an hour.
Documentarians D.A. Pennebaker and his wife and partner Chris Hegedus are capturing the public’s fascination with food preparation and competition in the warm-hearted film, King of Pastries. Like the many TV shows it in some ways resembles, the film is entirely captivating.
Pennebaker Hegedus show us what it takes to become “Meilleurs Ouviers de France,” literally translated as “best workers of France” (MOFs) but really “kings of pastry.” To become a MOF, the world’s best and most ambitious pastry chefs must face off against one another for three grueling days and be evaluated by former winning contestants. During this period they showcase their cream puffs and other pastries, build and display large elaborate glass-like show-pieces, made from crystalized sugar – flowers, hearts, birds in nests, jewels - smaller sugar creations known as bijous, chocolate sculptures, wedding cakes and their displays, and more, all to have the privilege of wearing the distinct blue, white, and red MOF collar - a non-MOF caught wearing one could go to jail.
These competitions which happen only once every four years – they are indeed Olympian - start with sixty to seventy candidates of which only sixteen qualify as finalists. And of the sixteen finalists, only a handful are ultimately crowned MOFs. It’s the pastry chef equivalent of becoming a sommelier, a process masterfully shown in the movie, Somm.
Kings of Pastry follows one particular would-be king especially closely, charismatic and funny Jacquy Pfeiffer, a French expatriate who has settled in Chicago and is founder and co-owner of The French Pastry School. However, other competitors get their fair share of screen time too, and you can’t help root for them all. Unlike American Idol’s judge Simon Cowell, who is famous for reducing contestants to tears, the MOF judges, who appraise works based on aesthetics and up to twenty individual tastings, are sympathetic, empathetic, fair but kind. These judges want people to do well. They wish they could award the MOF to everyone. When one competitor’s delicate sugar sculpture shatters – an almost disqualifying event - the judges, tears in their eyes, gently encourage the devastated pastry chef to pull himself together to quickly assemble a rough replacement for scoring to ensure he remains in the competition. After witnessing this catastrophe the viewer can understand why Jacquy built shock absorbers for his entry.
If Kings of Pastry is exhilarating to watch, it is also mentally and almost physically exhausting. “Why put yourself through this?” asks one of the depleted chefs at the end of the three day work out. The finalists spend months, if not years, preparing and sacrificing for the show-down and immaculately plan and diagram every minute, no detail too small to escape their notice – too much sugar in that mouse, adjust the recipe. Jacquy does a three-day dry run before the official start of the contest, enlisting the support of his business partner, like any student hoping to ace an important, punishing, high stakes test. Then, for three days, from dawn to dusk, the finalists pour their hearts, souls, and every ounce of artistry, creativity, and talent into making pastries which are a marvel to view and taste (they’re up for grabs to family and friends at the conclusion of the event).
Kings of Pastry is specifically about making and baking pastries and other desserts and delicacies. But more broadly it is about grit, effort, giving it your all no matter what the result, and not regretting the outcome even if it is not what you had hoped for. This is a universal story grounded in the specific. Even though not everyone became a MOF (on this particular trial by fire) it is ultimately a happy story about excellence, planning, hard work, striving, empathy, dealing with pressure, and the value of discipline and perseverance in the face of adversity and misfortune. Despite the fact that there are more losers than winners, the movie ends on an upbeat note, a wedding, and a well-deserved celebration. For those who did not become the kings of pastry, if they can stomach another attempt, there is always another chance four years later.