From all accounts, Escoffier was an excellent chef-he cooked for kings. Yet, in reading his recipes, his cooking is pretty heavy (lots of butter, cream, etc.). Suppose he was pitted against a modern chef-which chef would win?
Escoffier’s cookbook is still used today-whose food would you prefer?
There are all sorts of amazing new techniques that simply were not available in his time, and any modern cook will have them to draw upon. I’m pretty sure their best would handily beat his best.
Depends on who is doing the judging. If you get a noncelebrity professional chef who actually knows what the actual food is supposed to taste like, he would do fine. Take one of these got to modify everything and remove any scrap of fat and molecularize deconstruct it just because, not so good.
Look, Escoffier worked in a time when what was written down was exactly how the dish was made. No argument. If it called for a cup of heavy cream, that is what you used. Individuality really wasn’t worshipped like it is now. Someone like Bourdain would probably have no problem ranking him properly for following a specific recipe. If you want Escoffier to just sort of wing a recipe, you would still probably get something close to the ‘official’ recipe that you provide the ingredients for.
How’s judging? As you say Escoffier’s dishes may be too rich for modern palates.
Food follows fads and trends just like anything else. I often hear comments on Top Chef about dated food. Just last night on Masters a lady made a flour less chocolate cake. Here’s what a chef blogger said.
Chefs are always updating their recipes to avoid the dated criticism. Imagine Escoffier serving a gelatin Aspic in todays world. Aspic’s were already dated when Julie Child included them in her famous book.
Would today’s chefs be forced to cook on wood stoves to even things up?
But they get a small army of scullions and pot boys to boss around too.