Steve Parks almost did it again. The British inhabitant of Pornic (Loire-Atlantique) came second at the town’s yearly Fête de la Margat, a contest where participants have to cook margat, the Breton word for cuttlefish, after winning the 2023 competition.
“I made a tagliatelle from the margat, cooked it very gently in butter and lime, served on a courgette carpaccio, with a purée of autumn vegetables and piment d’Espelette dotted around the plate, and a scattering of sumac,” he said about his 2024 entry.
Mr Parks enjoyed some local media buzz after his unexpected victory in 2023, when his dish was praised by the judge and two-star-Michelin chef Mathieu Guibert for being innovative.
During the tasting Mr Parks heard him describe the plate as très moderne. “Is that a good thing? I wondered,” said Mr Parks. “Is it très moderne or trop moderne? He went up and down the tables, came back, and tasted again. It’s either really bad or outstanding, I thought.”
His winning 2023 entrySteve Parks
For his winning dish, the margat was first scored and lightly salted, then diced, coated in a little olive oil and cooked very gently over a bain-marie [a pan of hot water into which a cooking container with food is placed] just until it began to turn from translucent to white.
It was garnished with sautéed cubes of aubergine, courgette, mushroom, shallot and tomatoes, with celery, lettuce, onion and parsley.
Like many Connexion readers, Mr Parks has followed a unique path to get to where he is today. A former BBC journalist, he left England with his family after Brexit to make a new life in a small French village.
The Connexion spoke to him about cooking and the sense of community he sees in the European Union, and why he feels fortunate to have moved to France, which he never wants to leave.
Your wife entered you into the competition in 2023 without you knowing. She must have extraordinary confidence in your abilities as a chef…
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She kept saying throughout the pandemic lockdowns that she did not miss restaurants, emphasising that for her, eating at home was just as good if not better. She is always very complimentary about my food.
I received an email telling me I had been selected with less than a week’s notice before the competition.
I remember having to Google “What is a margat?” (laughs).
When you won, were you on the receiving end of the usual ‘jokes’ about bad British cuisine?
Not from the chefs, only from French friends.
The thing I did not expect was that there would be an audience watching this competition. When we finished cooking, people came round and asked to taste what was left.
They asked me: “Where’s your restaurant?” which is a nice compliment. An additional prize was to have someone of Mr Guibert’s calibre tell me that my cooking was very professional, creative and impressive.
I asked that because I find the cliché about British cuisine very unfair. There are so many outstanding British chefs.
France is far more focused on its national cuisine. Britain doesn’t have a comparable identity.
French people have a real pride in their food, in their ingredients, and an understanding of food’s connection with nature, how things are grown and how animals are reared. Food is at the centre of the French national psyche.
There is not so much of that connection in the UK. There is an appreciation of eating good food. Britain has been much better at absorbing cuisines from around the world into its food culture.
What makes Britain so good is the top French chefs who have gone there, like Raymond Blanc or Alain Ducasse, but also top Indian and Thai chefs, for example.
Steve Parks with two-star-Michelin chef Mathieu GuilbertSteve Parks
That’s the one thing I miss in France, foodwise. It has not been as good at absorbing cuisine from around the world. It is harder to get things like spicy food or world cuisine. Perhaps you can in Paris, but elsewhere you are a bit stuck, whereas you will find food from China, Korea, India, Thailand, Australia in pretty much any British town.
It is hard to choose which region is best for food, but Brittany is up there.
France has real regional identity for its food and drink. Driving around France, the signposts are like menus. Food is linked to place, and this is linked to the soul. Britain has lost a bit of that regional pride I think.
What have you noticed about the country four years after Brexit?
It goes back to one of the key reasons why we wanted to move to France in the first place. We felt European/British, not the other way around.
The extremists in the UK wanted to take away the European part completely, removing a massive part of our identity, the essence of that European feeling of community and togetherness, discovery, the removal of borders between people, music, food, culture…
In Pornic, we made so many friends and connected with so many people, far more than in England.
When I’ve been travelling, I’ve found that people everywhere are wonderfully warm and accepting. You can turn up as a stranger 3,000 miles away from home and be welcomed with open arms.
I’ve experienced first hand that this is the default kind of welcome. People who do not travel much can feel like whoever comes from somewhere else wants to take something away from them, which is not how it works.
“United States, greatest country in the world, says a guy who never left his hometown”, as the joke goes.
(Laughs) Yes it’s exactly that.
We as a family did not want to be separated and divided. We moved to France to keep the togetherness and welcoming nature of Europe, the cross-fertilisation of cultures. This is what we have felt since living here. I have no plan to leave. Our hope is that we can live here in France permanently.
Americans and Brits often talk about wanting to move to Europe. What is your opinion?
The private sector in the US and UK is more powerful, there are fewer public services, reduced funding in public services, lower taxes. There is a general sort of decline.
What I like about France is that it has resisted to some extent. But you do see more appetite for private sector input, and complaints about lack of public funding etc. But actually things like childcare are affordable in France.
Do you feel lucky?
More like fortunate. I feel fortunate that France was really welcoming to British people, whereas Great Britain was rude, aggressive and horrible to people coming from France and the rest of the EU. I felt ashamed to be British.
I also feel liberated coming here. At first, I needed a six-month break from any British news. However, it’s starting to change now with the new government and I think the country might be about to turn a corner. But it will take decades to reverse the damage.
But Sir Keir Starmer has already said that we will not see Great Britain back in the EU during his term.
And that’s only right because look at how long other countries have been queuing up to join the EU. It takes decades. There needs to be collaboration, step by step, towards a sensible relationship.
Do you feel that you have to warn your French friends about what happened in the UK could happen here?
You have to be very careful when you move to a country saying ‘you should do this’. I avoid that, but I do tell them about what it was like in the UK.
